Son's autism leads to innovation | Hacker News Reader

Son's autism leads to innovation

news.bbc.co.uk

32 pointsalexandros10 comments

See also: John LeSieur builds simplified web browser (Zacbrowser) for his 6-yr old autistic grandson, Zackary

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2008-06-0...

http://jambav.com is one such venture by Zoho (started when it was still AdventNet), dealing with autism + scratching one's own itch need.

Read about it at.. http://startups.in/India/Edutainment/Jambav--Indias-Magic-Ki...

Certainly one of the great examples of scratching one's own itch.

Necessity is the mother of invention. I made ktype for my paralyzed cousin ( http://chir.ag/projects/ktype/ ) but his condition worsened to the point that he couldn't even keep his eyes open. I even shared it with HN and lots of people said very helpful things on what else I can do with it. My cousin's condition has improved so he might be able to use it and now I want to make it work on the iPad. It would be the perfect medium/device - it is light, has touch, and a fast web-browser - not to mention it is CHEAP when compared to typical medical equipment. I'm hoping to make an iPad/iPhone app that has audio/speech-synthesis etc. and can be used by a lot more people than my cousin. Let's see what happens...

How would something like this (long lead time, plenty of dedication, no income for the duration of the project) fit in to an OSS strategy?

2000 pounds is a boatload of money for a piece of software, there must be many people that could use this software but can not afford it, but I can see how the author does not have many options other than to charge for it.

The 2000 pounds isn't just for software:

>Speaks4Me is currently sold on a portable, touch screen media player imported from the Far East. But the company is finalising a "software only" price...

Ah, thanks, I completely missed out on that, I thought you had to order that separately, didn't realize the price was all-in.

This kinda stuff would be awesome as iPad/Android apps. I'm hoping that when I get some time later this year, to make apps for accessibility. For the user, the cost will be pretty much the cost of the device.

Based on an iPhone project that I did last year and a discussion I had with my then-boss, I was considering something like this.

I did a bit of research and found that someone had already created an application that does this, Proloquo2Go (http://www.proloquo2go.com/). It was first featured in USA Today in May 2009 (http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-05-27-iphone-autism...).

At $150 plus the cost of an iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad, this is a damned sight cheaper than anything else out there. Does it compare well? I don't see why it wouldn't.

There is also a company named Invention labs which has developed a product named Avaz for people with Cerebral Palsy

http://www.inventionlabs.in/avaz/aboutAVAZ.html

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