For decades, Roger Ebert has been among the most respected voices in film criticism. That voice was silenced in recent years after thyroid cancer led to the loss of his lower jaw. Now, Ebert uses a Mac to communicate, specifically the built-in Alex voice that comes with all versions of Mac OS X. In this TED Talk from last month, Ebert talked about reclaiming his voice with the help of his Mac. The video is about 20 minutes long and follows an inspiring journey from an inspiring man. [TUAW]

Victor Pauca is a 5-year-old boy from Winston-Salem who suffers from a rare genetic disorder known as Pitt Hopkins Syndrome. Only about 50 people in the US are known to be suffering from it. It impairs and delays cognitive abilities, motor skills, and verbal communication. What Victor Pauca now has through an iPad is something that we all take for granted: the ability to communicate. His father, Paul, worked with some of his students at Wake Forest University to design an iOS app that uses touch screens as a mode of communication. Buttons with pictures coordinate with personally recorded messages that allow the impaired to simply tap what ...

Apple's iOS may be lagging behind Android and even 3rd-party developers such as Dragon Dictation when it comes to voice support, but that could soon be changing. According to four new job postings, Apple is on the prowl for voice technology engineers. What makes voice search a more likely target for Apple's attention is how the job postings specify that applicants should have experience in voice search tools such as Nuance Recognizer and Google Voice Search. Also, Apple recently bought an AI company called Siri that is designing a "personal assistant" for iOS. The kind of assistant that uses voice recognition software. Just saying. [ ...

Last week, the online buzz was all about a 3-year-old who intuitively understood the iPad interface. Today we learned about Virginia Campbell, an Oregon resident who‘s fast approaching her 100th birthday. Reading and writing have always been the passion of Ms. Campbell’s life, but glaucoma has ravaged her eyesight, separating her from the literature she so dearly loved. The large, high contrast text on the iPad allows her to read. With the device’s easy-to-see keyboard, she was even able to ...

So it is finally happening...maybe. Rumors have surfaced about Apple's intentions to buy ARM. ARM is the chipmaker who supplies the designs for the processors used in iPods, iPads, iPhones, Airports, as well as most other smart mobile devices on the market. The reasons for Apple to want to buy ARM are obvious: they can cut off competitor's chip design resource, they can forego paying royalties on use of designs, and they will be able to design "in-house." So will it happen? We will have to wait and see, but my guess is yes. Apple has its large cash hoard, and after a great 2nd quarter, a deal in the ballpark of $8 billion seems like an ...

So you know that awesome digital butler Ironman has? This guy, Chad Barraford, has created his very own. He started Project Jarvis in May of last year, but already has some incredible results. He has only spent to date $691.98, a very small amount compared the the huge cost of professional installation of less capable systems. The system runs on a 4-year-old Mac Mini using speech recognition and Applescripts. Good work, Chad! The Boston Globe has done a good job of exposing Chad's work, and while he could probably make a good profit off of his work, he has decided not to. Check out these videos for a look into what a Jarvisified life ...

OpenMoko Inc. a Taiwan company made WikiReader and is selling it online. The pocket WikiReader is a proven example of advanced digital technology. Now I can imagine carrying all-day-long my portable encyclopedia. It's the size of a thick table coaster, and contains nearly the entire text of the English-language Wikipedia. That's 3.1 million articles, written and edited by volunteers around the globe. The founder of WikiReader, Sean Moss-Pultz, says the inspiration for the gadget comes from the electronic translation dictionaries that are common in Asia. The WikiReader carries the text on a memory chip, rather than using an Internet ...

Apple iPhone does more than just provide games and other fun applications. It is also a very important business tool. Private Investigators are finding the iPhone to be an essential part of their inventory of specialized products. I had a chance to interview Mrs. Robin Martinelli of Martinelli Investigations, Inc., in Lawrenceville, GA. Apple iPhone plays an important role in the private investigation business. Robin Martinelli uses her iPhone continuously when on the job. (This is basically non-stop in her line of work.) Whether taking notes, using the calendar to record dates and times or recording interviews the iPhone is ...

An Apple patent application for a more sensitive touchscreen was released to the public yesterday as AppleInsider reported. The release has renewed speculation that the technology will be included in the rumored upcoming Apple tablet computer. The patent's description is extremely long and mind-numbingly detailed, but here is the relatively brief summary. "Apparatus and methods are disclosed for simultaneously tracking multiple finger and palm contacts as hands approach, touch, and slide across a proximity-sensing, multi-touch surface. Identification and classification of intuitive hand configurations and motions enables unprecedented ...

Laptops have gone from a high-end, corporate product to something that is nearly as common as an iPod. This is in large part thanks to the advent of wireless technology, which allows people to use their laptops, literally, almost anywhere. But, as anyone who has struggled to type a paper while hunched over a table in an Internet café knows, along with convenience must come comfort – and that is where Lapworks (laptopdesk.net) steps in. Lapworks bills itself as a developer and seller of “affordable, ergonomic portable computer lap desks and desktop stands that take the hassle and hazard out of working with your notebook computer.” ...

Innovative Office Products (lcdarms.com) started in the mid-1980s as a manufacturer of ergonomic office products for computers. At that time, says Sales and Marketing Manager Joe Tosolt, computers were such a new phenomenon that the inventory primarily consisted of “products for CRTs like anti-glare filters.” Then the ’90s came along, bringing LCD, or flat panel, technology into the mix. This opened up a whole new world for Innovative, as computers not only changed physically, but went from being a novelty to a necessity in offices worldwide. At this point, Innovative expanded its product line to add arms that would suspend the ...

Howard Rheingold, the internationally syndicated author of the weekly Tomorrow column, author of the best-sellers Virtual Reality and The Virtual Community, editor of the best-seller The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog, takes audiences on a journey through the human side of the technology-shaped future. He’s been in on the Web since the beginning, and long before. He’s studied Internet enterprises and started them. Rheingold was the founding executive editor of HotWired, the pioneering online publication launched on the World Wide Web by Wired magazine. He was the founder of Electric Minds, named by Time magazine one of the 10 best ...