Stephen Hawking Communications Interface Upgrade
How a Keyboard App Lets Stephen Hawking Talk Faster Than Ever
Despite a punny slogan that would make any middle-aged dad proud, Intel's "Keep Hawking Talking" initiative is really cool. Stephen Hawking, the groundbreaking scientist whose battle with ALS has rendered him incapable of speech, has relied on a special Intel communication interface for the past 20 years . . . and that interface is undergoing a major upgrade.
Intel and Hawking recently unveiled the Assistive Context Aware Toolkit, known as ACAT for short, which has a context-based predictive text algorithm powered by SwiftKey — also a popular smartphone keyboard — to grant Hawking much faster communication. In addition, the new technology will allow Hawking to mute his speech (a feature that was surprisingly absent in previous years) and add attachments to emails. Check out the video, and you'll be amazed at all the work that goes into keeping Hawking talking.
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