This week the latest disability tech
with object recognition sign to text
translation and snow feet
over the past few years some of the most
fascinating technologies we've featured
on the show have been the ones that help
people with disabilities as the world's
first Bionic Games proved the
possibilities now emerging offer so much
potential
whether it be in mobility or insight or
in hearing we've seen how life-changing
technology is now tantalizingly close
but how long until it really starts to
impact people's lives for real this
weekend sees the International Day of
people with disabilities and that's a
great chance for us to devote a whole
program to the latest tech developments
in the area we start in Rochester in
upstate New York which has the highest
number of deaf or hard-of-hearing people
per capita in the u.s. the unique
combination of this community and the
technical institutes in the area is
really starting to drive innovation and
Paul Carter went to investigate
Rochester Institute of Technology and
it's College National Technical
Institute for the Deaf and now at the
forefront of developing and testing new
technologies that help deaf people to
communicate one such technology is uni
an innovation that aims to live
translate sign language into text and
speech you need co-creator Alex gave me
a demo of a prototype the company are
hoping to roll out two airports soon I'm
gonna start by sticking my hands in here
I sign the chat sign for check I want to
check my flight Wow your flight is on
time and as you noticed it actually came
up on the screen when I said that
the system works by using sensors with
two cameras that detect individual
points on the joints and fingers and
renders them into the software to
interpret the individual signs a task
more complicated than it might first
sound some signs are naturally doing it
over and over again so bag or wear this
bag is a carry-on good yeah and that's
that's part of the challenge in the
complexity of our applications because
we have to be able to filter all of that
out so how do use how does the software
know that you're not signing bag bag bag
bag but just bag yeah it's safe to say
assistive technology for deaf people has
come a long way in a relatively short
space of time
here at the Rochester School of the Deaf
this museum and the items within it
really highlight the rate of change of
technology that aids communication for
deaf and hard of hearing people from
things that look fairly primitive to us
now from ear trumpets to speaking tubes
to the cutting edge technology such as
live translation we're seeing today the
advancement of technology represents an
opportunity for the advancement of deaf
people in the workforce alrighty and
NTID started experimenting with speech
recognition in the classroom so deaf and
hard of hearing students who may not
know sign language can participate
inclusively lecturer Chris Campbell sign
language is being translated by an
interpreter whose speech is being
captured and converted into text to be
displayed on the board in real-time I
mean one future signing and I have an
interpreter voicing for me if I miss
something while taking notes I can look
at the screen I can see what the teacher
has said laptop when you can project it
to your screen you can see the closed
captioning on your laptop it allows you
to save transcripts so you can use for
future references here RIT we provide
about 25 thousand hours of captioning
every year for our deaf and
hard-of-hearing students who are in
classes primarily with a hearing
professor who is speaking their lecture
and so we thought well one way we can
cover those uncovered hours is to use
automatic speech recognition ASR
captioning has improved a lot in the
past few months it wasn't really
possible last year because the error
rate was so high but now ASR has
improved to the point where we feel very
confident in being able to pilot the
program to see how well it works and we
can also make improvements with the
language model one of the main
challenges of speech recognition has
been finding a way for
deaf and hearing people to communicate
in situations when there isn't an
interpreter around these students are
using a special instant messaging app
developed at the University we all know
how inaccurate speech recognition can be
in this app users are notified when some
words can't be trusted an invaluable
tool when a user is solely relying on
its accuracy to communicate so I think
it opened up a whole new we want to
become the hub for really experimenting
and looking for solutions to reduce the
communication barriers that separate
deaf and hearing people that was Paul
Carter now in the UK around five percent
of all rail journeys are made by those
with a disability or a long-term illness
that equates to around 85 million rail
journeys every year now whilst not all
disabled people require assistance a
quarter have reported problems with
using public transport the rail company
London Midlands is hoping to improve
accessibility for its disabled
passengers with a new app passenger
assist and we asked Emily Yeates to try
it out for us
I'm Emily Yates and I'm just planning my
train journey to Birmingham it requires
a fair bit of advanced booking
I'm confident traveling by myself but
I'm not a huge fan of the train which is
actually why I'm making this journey
I've heard about an app in development
called passenger assist that could be a
game-changer for disabled travelers I
think anybody watching this who's
disabled will probably agree with me
that you can have some pretty horrific
travel journeys if you disabled I've
been left on the train before I booked
assistance and somebody said yeah we're
going to come and meet ya and then I've
been I've been left on the train unable
to get off and had to go about four or
five stops down the line to then come
back again so I'm really interested to
see what this app has to offer
thank you so I've just got this new app
that's currently in development and I'm
just about to fill in my own profile the
thing that's brilliant about this app is
it asks things like do you need room for
a guide dog do you have a hearing
impairment do you need the ramp do you
need help buying a ticket so Roxanne
I've added my profile details and now I
just planned a journey this is obviously
in development but this is how it would
work so I put in my journey and now it
should come up on your phone any minute
everything so you know I'm gonna look
like I know what you look like I know
what to expect and then I press I'm here
to help
brilliant and then obviously I can send
you a message saying I'm here my name is
Roxanne okay back on the trend for me
and now I have this passenger assist is
being developed by startup trans report
under the guidance of London Midlands
lab we've brought the staff phone on the
train too so we can see how the app
works for them so right now the phone is
tracking both the staff member and the
passenger work we're obviously in the
same place so you can see that the two
dots are quite close together they're
using the technology such as a Bluetooth
beacons Wi-Fi 4G and GPS we can actually
use multiple tools so you know exactly
what carriage I'm in even yes down to
the carriage we can pinpoint they're
less than one meter to your location and
find out which carriage which train and
in the direction of travel that they're
going in as well
that's all well and good for
statisticians how would it work on man
stations well the app is still in
development so it's making good progress
but we do have a challenge with unstuck
stations what we'd look to do there is
get you to the nearest accessible
station to get you on your way and it's
not just about the app trans report is
also making trackable wristbands and
these key fobs they'll be available for
those unable to use phones as easily
let's face it in a world where we can
now track our pizza delivery by the
minute having to book train assistance
24 hours in advance
seems a little old-school and this way
staff will have information at their
fingertips to trans report hope to roll
out the app across the London Midland
Service early next year and the plan is
for the entire UK rail network to be
able trikes except by June 2018 if
there's one thing disabled travellers
need that the current system doesn't
provide it's the reassurance that
someone will be there to help and not
leave them stranded when getting on or
off the train
hello welcome to the week in tech it was
the week that the world's largest
lithium ion battery was turned on in
Australia assembled by Tesla and
designed to store energy from a nearby
wind farm it can power 30,000 homes for
one hour an AI robot called Saphir
started crowdfunding for more brain
power Instagram revealed that a pregnant
Beyonce picture was the most liked of
2017 so far and dogs were the most liked
face filter speaking of selfies
Facebook's new security system may be
asking you for one to prove you're not a
bot when logging on and uber made
headlines again this time it was accused
of using X CIA agents to spy on rivals
also developing self-driving tech plus
it was revealed their data breach
reported last week affected 57 million
users details robots have been flexing
their muscles lifting a thousand times
their own weight these origami inspired
BOTS from MIT mimic real muscles being
built with soft materials to make them a
bit more human friendly universities
across the world are working on these
types of highly dexterous robots and
finally good old-fashioned Lego is
getting its own augmented reality app
the Lego AR studio will bring to life
some of the most popular sets so just as
you thought that the kids were sitting
happily not having any screen time well
out comes the app
access not really began with kind of my
own reality someone using the wheelchair
to get around I'm consistently
frustrated when I show up at places and
I don't know if they're accessible or
not until I get there
countless time I show up and there's
steps or other barriers that prevent me
from doing the things that I want
and so I was really motivated to try and
solve this problem and the way that
we've gone about doing that is by
creating a mobile app that can simply
allow people who've experienced
accessibility needs to share information
about what is accessible in their own
communities and around the world starts
by selecting the place then rating that
place as accessible partially accessible
patio access only you are not accessible
you can go one step further and add a
description so you can say things like I
showed up at this place the customer
service was fantastic so this cafe looks
like it's not accessible there's two
steps here at the entrance but when I
look at my app I can see actually that
there is an alternative entrance through
the building right here that will let me
into me okay let's check it out
I think for me the the main magic the
the most exciting part about access now
is that the information is all
crowd-sourced from people who have
experienced accessibility needs in their
own life or are just motivated to get
involved in sharing information we
started in Toronto
with a couple hundred pins and now we've
reached over twenty thousand pins
throughout the world but we really want
to make this a global movement before
access now I think that people each kind
of had their own internal Maps in their
head of what places are accessible what
works for them in their own communities
but the second you step outside of your
kind of comfort zone of where you live
in your neighborhood accessibility can
become really challenging there are many
times where people who have mobility
needs they are isolated in many ways and
it's simply because you know from the
way that I see it it's not people who
are disabled but it's our environments
that are disabling so if we can remove
the barriers that restrict people from
engaging with their communities with
their with their workplaces with their
lifestyles I think we can come to a much
more inclusive world for everyone
that was Mayans if in Toronto
now running a marathon fancy it no me
neither
but for Simon Wheatcroft it's a regular
occurrence we first met him a couple of
years ago when he'd just run an ultra
marathon in Namibia that's a hundred and
fifty miles now I should at this point
say that Simon is blind so knowing where
to run is as much of a problem as the
running itself in Namibia he used audio
from a smartphone to guide him since
then as a programmer and inventor he's
developed his own tracker to guide him
while he runs and technology allowing
navigation and visualization of the
world both outside and in is hopefully
about to become a bit easier we asked
Simon to investigate
my name is Simon Wheatcroft and I'm a
huge fan of technology for the past few
years I've really been using technology
to push the boundaries of possibility
and recently I became the first blind
person to attempt to win a city marathon
solo so a few weeks ago in New York I
use the prototype technology to run or
an aided for 15 miles and so
unfortunately the prototype didn't quite
make it a blind person mobility is
always a key issue but even things
around the house simple as identifying
different products in the kitchen or
even identifying different articles of
clothing banal to sort of identify
object remains a constant problem so one
of the interesting breakthroughs in
object detection recently has been a
product from Microsoft called CAI it's
just an app that runs on an iPhone Siena
is able to use barcodes to recognize
objects he just pointing a camera beauty
product so one of the really powerful
things that Sina I can do is simple text
recognition so one thing that's really
nice is you can do with a sort of
machine learning you can recognize
people so we can just point our phone at
somebody in case you didn't catch that
that was big Neil seven feet away
one of the main issues is that AI
algorithms usually identify objects in
groups what I really need is something
to identify objects in detail so don't
just say a t-shirt of a cop but identify
that specific item and that's exactly
what IBM are working on they've decided
to use Watson their AI platform to
distinguish between similar objects the
prototype app is called personal object
recognizer and if it works a little bit
pretty exciting but first I had to do
the training to get to grips with it I
had to take at least ten good pictures
of an object against a solid background
so now with the model trained we were
able to identify similar objects while
in its prototype stage I found the
training very tricky I really did like
the fact it was voice-guided so I was
able to do it independently I've got
that connection back to physical objects
again you know photos and mugs and
t-shirts it got to a point where there's
no distinction between them for me now
it's almost like if I'm willing to spend
the time doing the training and the
tagging I can get that interval
individualization back yep cause update
detection is great you know when you're
doing products in a kitchen or you can
recognize this scene but the certain
objects which mean
so to be able to tag them and then find
them when we call them it gives me that
memory that's really giving me back
something that I lost many years ago it
was a really helpful for the future
that was Simon Wheatcroft and from
Simon's running guide to full-on robotic
limbs we're seeing more and more tech
advancements that promise to help
disabled athletes to compete in sports
that were previously inaccessible to
them
our reporter Kat Hawkins had her legs
amputated ten years ago and she's been
trying out some new feats which could
help amputees to carve up the slopes
this winter I've come to Dorset
orthopaedic a private company that fits
amputees with prosthetic legs from
running blades to hyper realistic
looking limbs one sport that's always
been very hard for me is snowboarding
because my normal feeds designed
specifically for walking but here
they've got some feet that could make
that easier the requirements are footed
quite different from skiing compared to
working with normal walking you need a
foot which has a very small range of
movement but gives you a lot of energy
back so that as you roll over the foot
you get a little bit of push off at the
end of stance to help your walking with
skiing you need a lot more movement in
the foot
to compensate for the for the uneven
surface and you also need some shock
absorption so when you go over a bump or
you land on the on the ski you need some
of that shock taken out and that's what
this unit does while I'm left to my own
devices Kevin agrees to fit my legs with
some of these feet so I can give them a
go this requires a lot of honing and
alignment to make sure I'm not pushed
too far forward or backwards my leg so
I'm quite intrigued as to how these are
gonna feel I actually have no idea oh
wow oh yeah they're that sensation I've
not felt in the ten years since being an
amputee these feet work by putting air
into an adjustable cylinder which
controls the amount of resistance in the
foot more air and more resistance as
well as giving this movement shock
absorption in the foot means that going
over bumps or drops is easier but
they're not cheap with a price of two
thousand five hundred pounds each it
means that only some people can get
access to them
it's clear that they're not for walking
they're very very rigid very square and
very hard but if I let my mind go and I
imagine myself snowboarding which I've
done badly in the past I can feel that
and they move and that's weird because I
have not felt my feet move in that way
for ten years there's only one thing
left to do and it's try the food pile on
some proper snow I've come to an indoor
slope I've got to admit I'm feeling very
nervous this is Emma Gillespie a
prosthetist at Auto Bach who's agreed to
come with me to fit the feet and help me
try them out so he boarded on these
before yeah and how is that part but you
did it yeah so one leg
this is what you don't see about being
an amplitude when I've snowboarded
previously on my normal walking feet
it's been really difficult but these are
for much more and the way they're set up
offers a natural bend in my knees a
stance that is almost impossible on my
usual legs okay here we go
okay so it's been a while since I
boarded and expecting an instant result
is probably asking a bit too much but
the best thing for it is to just keep
throwing myself down this slope and see
what happens
despite the technology of these feet
there's only so much they can do when it
comes to hitting the slopes the real
work is definitely still coming from the
person and if you're not very good
they're not gonna stop you from falling
it's been amazing
when you've merged technology and
disability it's about giving people
independence and the feeling that they
can try things that they perhaps so
we're there for them it's fun but now on
these feet and there's that was cat and
that's it for this special program for
the International Day of people with
disabilities now will obviously carry on
reporting on this stuff throughout the
year as we always do but you can keep a
special eye on the BBC's disabilities
stories at BBC code at UK / news /
disability thanks for watching and we'll
see you soon
