A needed upgrade that has been ten years in coming

Dec 3, 2014 12:38 GMT  ·  By
Professor Hawking with the new communication array and the team who made it
9 photos
   Professor Hawking with the new communication array and the team who made it

Pretty much the entire world knows who Stephen William Hawking is, or at least heard the name through some means of communication or mass media. Even Batman mentioned him at least once.

He is an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author, and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge.

He collaborated with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity, even getting a form of radiation named after him (Hawking Radiation, radiation presumably emitted by black holes).

He is also a supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Little wonder fictional characters refer to him, given the alternate dimensions in all the multiverses humankind has thought up.

Unfortunately, Hawking has a motor neuron disease related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which has rendered him almost entirely paralyzed and forced him to communicate through a speech-generating device.

Intel has now created a new communication system for him

Professor Stephen Hawking has been using a more or less normal voice output communication aid, but Intel has created a new model called ACAT.

ACAT stands for Assistive Context Aware Toolkit and was made by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from Intel Labs in collaboration with Hawking himself.

Hawking can type twice as fast as before on the new device, and he can browse, edit, manage and navigate the Internet, read e-mails and open / edit documents ten times as easily as before.

The cheek sensor is paired with an infrared switch mounted to his glasses and allows him to select a character on the computer. The system can even learn to predict the next characters and words, thanks to contributions from British language technology company SwiftKey. It allows for 20% fewer characters needing to be typed.

Previously, Hawking had to exit the communication window, navigate a mouse, launch a browser and use the mouse again to access the search bar, at which point he could finally type the address he wanted. The new system makes all the steps automatic.

Implications of the new system

The communication array can significantly improve the lives of other people suffering from motor neuron diseases (MND) and quadriplegia.

Since the solution is heavily software-based, customization really only needs to be done to the physical components, for good fit and the like. Everything else should work just fine, with minimal need for the user to reach out and struggle to move an input device. And if it comes down to it, the software can be easily customized as well.

Hawking has also collaborated with Intel on the creation of a new wheelchair, powered by Linux.

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Stephen Hawking's new comm system from Intel (9 Images)

Professor Hawking with the new communication array and the team who made it
Professor Hawking with his old SGDPatient-operated selector mechanism, developed in 1960
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