Update of ACAT 1.5.0
We released the latest version of ACAT 1.5.0 with updates like dual-monitor support, a max/snap window option and the option to unprotect Word documents.
Message from Max Pinaroc Intel engineer
Stephen Hawking is pretty much the reason I'm at Intel. As an intern, I was ecstatic to find out I'd be working on a project to help improve the communication ability of one of the most brilliant minds of our time. I started out annotating videos of his facial movements for the vision component of ACAT, progressed to doing validation of each new version of ACAT that Stephen would use, and eventually did the programming for his blink sensor that he used to communicate.
Build a switch similar to the one Stephen Hawking used
The Assistive Context Aware Toolkit (ACAT) supports a variety of sensors including ACAT Vision (camera based sensor) and most commercially available “off-the-shelf” sensors. However, for some users, using the camera based sensor may not be feasible due to their condition and the commercially available sensors may be too expensive. To bridge this gap, Intel Labs has developed an Arduino based proximity sensor solution that is also open source.
ACAT Community member builds custom switch
New sensor! Rodolfo Navarro, an ACAT Community member has developed a do it yourself customizable switch system based on the Gemma M0 platform. The system has two types of switches – a push button switch, and an infrared switch that can be used to detect movements like a wink of an eye. Additionally, Rodolfo has developed code, similar to ACAT, that runs on Linux or Android that when used with the switch system allows people with disabilities to communicate on those platforms.