On Friday, April 4, 2003, 9:31:35 AM, SerratedJester wrote: Sac> I think insurance and other fund providers are a major reason for Sac> the inflation. This is because most adaptive tech is covered by Sac> insurance, Vocational Rehab, the school board, or other Sac> disability-specific charities. This supplemental money source Sac> artificially increases the amount most mid-class people are Sac> willing to pay. I second this hypothesis. Take a look at this site: http://www.infogrip.com/ Click on "Communication" at the top, then "Computer-based dynamic display device." They're wearable, handheld, palmtop or tablet PCs running either symbolic text software, alternative keyboard software, or both, along with a text-to-speech system (usually DECtalk). The Portable IMPACT Palmtop-D, which is an iPaq running alternative keypad input software, TTS and nothing else (the D stands for Dedicated, which is the only way Medicare will help pay for it, so you can't use it as a PDA as well), costs four thousand dollars. Enkidu, the product's developers, have this in their FAQ about the cost: "It's very expensive to develop, market, and support an augmentative communication device. About a third of the cost of Portable IMPACT is for the portable computer, associated hardware, and licensing fees we pay to other companies. Another third covers customer service and technical support. The final third covers marketing (advertisements and conference appearances), development costs, and other miscellaneous costs. Although $2,995 (or $3,995) is a lot of money, we think you'll find that Portable IMPACT offers excellent value." A thousand dollars for an iPaq and input software? A thousand dollars for support? A thousand dollars for marketing? A thousand dollars for additional lock-out software for Medicare compliance? I think not. After this Slashdot post, about a stroke victim grandmother who had trouble communicating: http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/02/20/2134203&mode=thread&tid=137 it occurred to me that a PDA configured with Dasher and Flite might make a good device for this sort of thing, certainly faster than hammering out keys on a keypad using even the tolerable T9 cell phone prediction. The Zaurus seemed ideal, because you can utterly replace the system software easily, the screen is daylight-readable, and the lack of a speaker isn't a problem, because you'd want an external one anyway. You could even add a joystick or somesuch off the serial port so you could mount the Zaurus somewhere easier to read than under your finger. Raw component cost for a Zaurus, serial cable, joystick, wiring, misc: less than $300. Licensing fees for Linux OS, windowing system, Dasher predictive input system, Festival Lite text to speech software: $0. Development cost for your time over a few weekends to hammer it all together for your dear old Granny: $0. Technical or customer support problems because Windows CE crashed, somehow the Calendar app is giving you an alert you can't close, or some other bizarre problem: $0. Additional cost for Medicare compliance because you had to "lock out" other apps instead of just replacing everything with only your software: $0. Other than ongoing marketing and promotional costs (which can double the cost of a device), I don't see where the fees come in. Charge a thousand dollars for the thing, make a bundle, put everyone else to shame. Then leave the plans and GPL software available to the public so they can build it themselves for Grandma for 2/3 less than that if they choose, and benefit humanity a little. A few weeks later there was an "Idea 2 Product" competition deadline here at the University of Texas at Austin, so I entered it with a hasty, one-page proposal, and made it through to the finals (one of fourteen, out of seventy-three), which are in two weeks. I'm not sure whether I'll go ahead and build a prototype (I work full-time as well as being a student full-time, so I've pretty much had to push my personal projects aside, wearables included), but my simple annoyance at other usurious Assistive Technology players is pushing me towards seeing if I can't bring this to fruition. Winning the competition provides a little cash, the possibility to enter the intercollegiate competition in the fall, and evaluation for an incubator here. And there's nothing I like better than putting together COTS components from different industries and making the world wonder why they didn't think of it first. :) Let me know what you guys think, and Doug, I'd like to hear more about what you're hoping to do in the future. Thanks, Vito -- Subscription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with subject of "subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" toWear-Hard Mailing List Archive (searchable): http://wearables.blu.org Please, *PLEASE* don't subscribe through a forward/expander/false domain
From Wear-Hard Mailing list Archive (WH)
Maintained by R. Paul McCarty
Archive created with babymail