Assistive technology - Eye-Tracking

 Assistive technology (AT) is any item, piece of equipment, software program, or product system that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of persons with disabilities. - ATIA, 2021.

I choose to explore more assistive technology based on eye-tracking. It's interesting how some device or specific software is made for as small and precise moved as eye-movement. 

According to assistive technology oriented company Boundless this kind of high-technology is based on the head tracking and eye control systems that measure head or eye positions and directly translate their movement into mouse movements. A quick nod of the head or blink of the eye and individuals with mobility challenges can navigate a computer completely hands free.

Windows Control Monitor (windows-control-monitor-screenshot-1900x1200.png)

"Tobii Gaze interaction software is a computer access method that allows those with disabilities to navigate and control their computer with their eyes, similarly as an everyday computer user uses a mouse (e.g., activate, select, zoom, scroll, etc.) to control their computer. Gaze interaction only requires the movement of the eye itself—the movement of other muscles is not required, making it a perfect solution for those with rehabilitative disabilities." - Rudnicki, 2020.

With these kinds of softwares and devices people are able to do several tasks that they wouldn't be able to do without these softwares. They are more able to express themselves, entertain themselves, do their daily tasks over the internet and have more freedom in their life. They are more able to connect with different people and get also support faster if needed.

According to Rudnicki functionality of a Tobii eye tracker, uses invisible infra-red light to illuminate the eyes. From there, two extremely high quality camera sensors capture the reflection off of the retina and the cornea of the eyes, commonly referred to as “red eye” and the glint, respectively. The eye tracker then uses these two points to build a 3D model of the user’s eyes to determine two things: where the user is looking (gaze point) and where the user’s eyes are in space, relative to the location of the computer (track box).

This information is then paired with Tobii Windows Control to allow the computer to know exactly where the user is looking with an accuracy of 1cm. The computer can then track the user’s gaze point and, ultimately, tell the computer where their eyes are looking at all times. By knowing where the user’s eyes are looking, the eye tracking device then can control the computer, similar to the way a mouse lets you control it with your hand.

When googling issues of the softwares and devices, there was a warning of epilepsy and that a certain medical devices are susceptible to disturbance by IR light and/or radiation, other that was mentioned were rare connection issues with the software and the device used together.

Other these kind of softwares to mention are Precision Gaze Mouse software, Camera Mouse developed at Boston College and IntelliGaze from Alea Technologies.

Sources:

https://www.atia.org/home/at-resources/what-is-at/ (accessed 27.04.2021)

https://www.boundlessat.com/Mobility/Head-Eye-Control (accessed 27.04.2021)

https://papunet.net/saavutettavuus/silman-liikkeilla-ohjattava-kohdistin (accessed 27.04.2021)) 

https://precisiongazemouse.org (accessed 27.04.2021)

https://windowsreport.com/eye-control-software-pc/ (published 09.08.2017, accessed 27.04.2021)

https://help.tobii.com/hc/en-us/articles/212372449-Safety-guidelines (published 2016, accessed 27.04.2021)

Influence of Facebook

 ”New media is any media – from newspaper articles and blogs to music and podcasts – that are delivered digitally.” - Cote, Southern New Hampshire University 2020

New media is always changing and giving us new ways to develop ourselves and maintain our relationships. Facebook one of the largest social media platforms with 2.8 billion users in 2020 and gives us plenty of possibilities to use our free time. Before digging too deeply on the impact and purpose of Facebook I would like to start by exploring the time before Facebook.

Facebook (photo-1563986768494-4dee2763ff3f)

In my opinion before Facebook people used to socialize more and have more face-to-face meetings with each others. They used to call more to each others and even visit just to change few words. I remember when I was kid and I walked couple kilometers to my friend’s home just to ask if they have time to play with me even I didn’t know are they home even.

Before Facebook people were using traditional communication tools and more different social media platform to share content and entertain themselves. Back then Friendster, Myspace and Second Life among others were popular but so many people wasn’t as engaged with them and didn’t share their daily stuff as much as they do nowadays with Facebook.

”On February 4, 2004, a Harvard sophomore named Mark Zuckerberg launches The Facebook, a social media website he had built in order to connect Harvard students with one another. By the next day, over a thousand people had registered, and that was only the beginning.” - History.com

After launching Facebook and it started to spread, first from university to university and then across the world, becoming not only an incredibly valuable company but also one of the most important institutions of the early 21st century. The site (originally called Facemash) grew in size and students from other colleges and high schools were allowed to join. In September 2006, the site was opened up for everyone to register. Like other sites, you can put up your own profile and share pictures and videos. However, Facebook has a clever system of networks and groups that you can belong to. Many of these are based around college and work networks but there are quirky common interest groups.

Facebook and its Messenger have made our communication to more efficient level than it used to be on it’s own way, it gives us a possibility to send messages fast and share our ideas immediately when we get them. Helps to maintain our relationships to our long-distance friends and relatives.
First Facebook’s main purpose was to connect the students of Harvard but then like all good inventions it started to spread and people got to know about it fast. 
Simplelearn.com listed that people share their information to entertain others, define theirselves, to grow and nourish theirs relationships. To get to know about different brands and to write reviews on them.

 Nowadays the personal engagement and social interactions are the core purposes of Facebook. It’s build to be addictive and entertaining. It’s a place we want to open again and again to keep on track of everything. 

Even thought Facebook has brought a lot of good changes to our daily even hourly life it has brought plenty of downsides too. These are isolation, jealousy, strong addiction, cyberbullying and lack of privacy among others.

The burning question here is, is Facebook connecting us more or just tearing us apart ?

Sources:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/ (accessed 15.02.2021)
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/facebook-launches-mark-zuckerberg (accessed 13.02.2021, published 24.10.2019)
https://www.simplilearn.com/real-impact-social-media-article (accessed 13.02.2021, published 04.02.2021)
https://www.snhu.edu/about-us/newsroom/2020/02/what-is-new-media (accessed 13.02.2021, published 24.02.2020)
https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sciencecommunication/2018/09/07/how-facebook-has-changed-the-way-we-socialize/ (accessed 13.02.2021, published 07.09.2018)
https://medium.com/@lisa_jewell/facebook-fad-or-the-future-4a69c9305482 (accessed 15.02.2021, published 17.08.2019)

When one door closes, another opens

Many of the early technology products and services have became obsolete and been replaced by other products. In addition to the replaced devices there is still plenty of products that have survived the though test of time.

I've selected VHS as an example of a device that has become almost obsolete and been replaced with modern option. Door is as a perfect example of a device/product that has survived through the decades with only small adjustments to it.

VHS -> DVD -> Netflix and other streaming services

Video Home System (VHS) is an electronic system used for recording and playing video and audio on videocassettes. You are able to view and record VHS by using videocassette recorders (VCR). The first  commercially viable videotape recorder (VCR) was released in 1956 by Ampex company. The VCR was big, expensive and difficult to use.

Video Home System (VHS) tapes became popular in 1980 and almost every household had a VCR to use.

                                                VHS and  VCR (960x0.jpg?fit=scale)

”The heyday came in the 1980s and and ’90s, when VCRs exploded in popularity. The number of households with VCRs climbed from 14 percent in 1985 to 66 percent in 1990, according to Nielsen data. VCR penetration peaked at about 90 percent of households in 2005.” - Overly, The Washington News 2016

VHS tapes started phasing slowly out in 1996 when DVDs were invented and started to take the role of the mainstream choice.

Digital Video Disk (DVD) was introduced to the general public in 1996.

DVD offered optional ads for the interested ones, better quality content, additional content and considerably more storage space than VHS. DVDs are widely used for storing and viewing movies and other data. Biggest manufacturers are Sony and and Philips.

The movie Twister became the first feature film put on DVD on March 25, 1996.

After DVD’s came today’s streaming services where you are able to watch content when and where ever you want. Most of the streaming services are paid subscriptions. Popular streaming services are for example Netflix, Disney Plus and HBO. Before you used to go to a video rental store to choose an evening entertainment, now you can do it instantly from your own couch with a streaming service.

”Netflix introduced streaming services in 2007. In 2013, “House of Cards,” the first Netflix-produced show premiered. Today some of the world's most beloved shows — including "Orange Is the New Black," "Bloodline," "Stranger Things, and "Master of None" — are Netflix productions.” - Lamare, 2018

                                 Online Streaming Service Netflix (photo-1586899028174-e7098604235b)

Online streaming services gives the user the freedom of choice to select the movie or series he wants. Back then it wasn’t a big problem if the quality dropped for a while with VHS, everyone was used to it. Nowadays if the video quality is lower than HD and stops even for a second everything is ruined. People is used for too good.

A Door

”No one knows who invented the door, only that it was first incepted somewhere in central Egypt.” - Medium, 2019

”It is on these tombs that the earliest known doors were installed as far back as 2000 B.C. These ancient tomb doors were made of a single, unframed door slab and engraved with images of what the society then imagined the afterlife to look like.” - Westerman, WCMANET 

                                                 Doors (photo-1506636366880-b083d2cb2f34)

People have always appreciate privacy and safety, luckily doors have always been there for us. They give us security and safety by locking our homes with locking mechanisms, ensuring that only people who has the right key is able to access. Doors saves our private conversations and well everyone know what happens behind locked doors. Nowadays every building has at least one door for entrance, every room has a door/-s and even a place where we keep our foods has a specific door. There are various types of doors and ways they open.

”Doors have been symbolic and evolved stylistically in various cultures for centuries.” - Medium 2019

I believe doors will always be among us in one shape or another. In the future they will be more automated and use more biometric technology and also artificial intelligence to recognize the incoming person.

Sources:

https://medium.com/@sburiek/the-history-of-doors-a-travel-through-time-a058b5fbca66 (published ,accessed 03.02.2021)

https://www.wcmanet.org/history-of-doors/ (published ,accessed 03.02.2021)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/07/22/rip-to-the-vcr/ (published 22.06.2016, accessed 03.02.2021)

https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/d/dvd.htm (published 02.06.2020, accessed 08.02.2021)

https://www.theskimm.com/news/video-streaming-services-history-3fDiXiz45r1eyqQhBNUQo2 (published 22.12.2019, accessed 08.02.2021)

https://www.businessofbusiness.com/articles/a-brief-history-of-video-streaming-by-the-numbers/ (published 31.07.2018, accessed 08.02.2021)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brittanyhodak/2016/07/23/rip-vhs-worlds-last-vcr-to-be-made-this-month/?sh=72c2e5d923da (published 23.07.2016, accessed 08.02.2021)

Week 1: Three IT Failures

This post is about IT failures. I selected to evaluate Lily Camera Drone, Samsung Galaxy Fold-phone and Google Glass.

Lily Camera Drone

Lily Camera drone was published by Lily Robotics in 2015 first with the price of $499 and later $899. The company released a promotional video to it’s social media platforms and got millions of views. Currently it has 12 639 532 views in the end of January 2021.

It had 34 million dollars pre-sales and 15 million dollars in investment.

It was said to be the world’s first self-flying, throw-and-shoot camera/drone, which practically means that you just have to throw the camera to air and it starts working and also filming immediately. It was told that Lily is totally water-proof, works without controller, easy to carry around and takes HD quality material. All you needed was the drone and a bracelet with GPS function. It just sounds too good to true.

   Lily camera Drone (465466-lily-drone.jpg)

After launching, it got millions of dollars worth of preorders and a lot of questions how it is possible to have that kind of camera drone in the market in 2015.

On 12th January 2017 it was announced that the company were shut down because of money problems and not even single product were shipped, no one ever got this miraculous invention.

Lily Robotics managed to get a lawsuit of the device with the reasons of false and misleading promotion video, unkept promises about shipping and delays.

According to the article, ”How the Lily Camera Took the Internet by Storm, Then Imploded” by Joel Hruska in 2017, the founders Balaresque and Bradlow spent money in all the wrong places, underestimated the difficulty of building both the hardware and the software required to turn the Lily Camera into a product.

It was told in the article ”What happened to the Lily camera drone?” Written by April Glaser in 2017,  during the time the promotional video was filmed the company didn’t have a single Lily Camera prototypes ready that had all the functions that was mentioned in the promotional video.

Samsung Galaxy Fold

”The review units that broke, the launch that was delayed, the newly fixed version, the sky-high price — all of it is well-known and well-documented. But Samsung is selling the Fold, albeit in very limited quantities, as though it is perfectly normal and reasonable to stroll into an AT&T store and buy a fragile, experimental device for $1,980.” - Dieter Bohn, The Verge 2019

Samsung Galaxy Fold (CGmFQfe62Li6XE5z6EGox6-1024-80.jpg)

The Samsung Galaxy Fold, the first folding phone released by Samsung looks handy with the new folding function with 2000 dollar price tag included. Phone and a mini-tablet together.

The phone was said to be world changing product but in the end it was just a big flop. 

One of the down sides of the phone is also that the screen breaks after over 100,000 folds. When Fold was announced, Samsung claimed that the phone should hold at least 200,000 folding times. #fakenews.

According to the review article by Lauren Goode in 2019, at the beginning many users reported that they had several issues with the screen, it was flickering, crashing and also breaking when using the phone. It wasn’t ready phone to sell for the general public. After these reports Samsung postponed the official release date to fix these screen problems but it didn’t change the situation much. It removed the screen issues but came back with punch of warnings and that got people to be afraid to buy the phone anymore.

”Samsung couldn’t exactly reinvent the folding phone wheel at that point. This OLED display and its flexible polymer layers had been in the works for years, and Samsung wasn’t about to start from scratch. But it did shrink the gap between the phone’s hinge and its two halves and added additional metal layers beneath the bendy display to make it stronger” -peopleandtech.org

According to the Lauren Goode's review again, after the fixing the biggest screen issues the phone worked properly and was nice to use even to it was big, heavy and sometimes awkward to use.

Google Glass

Google Glass or the "future glasses" meant to be a fashion thing that we couldn't leave the house with. Google Glass is wearable pair of glasses, which has various functions inside it. The glasses will work with using voice commands and eye gestures by tracking eye movement of the user. They were published to the general public in 2014 with a price of $1500. Google also offered an compatible application for the glasses. 

Google Glass (_96985515_mediaitem96985508.jpg)

Functions that the device:

• touch pad, which helps to control the device and choose a functions.
• camera, with 5 megapixel still/720p video.
• display, which allows user to check the weather, make phone calls, see photos/videos and check social media notifications.

"Google Glass did not provide enough advancement for users compared to older technologies making the product a useless supplementation to their daily lives." - Crala Yoon, Medium 2018.

The Google Glasses has/had several problems with it. Not all users are happy to wear them all day and they don't feel so comfortable for everyone to wear. Also what comes to the possible health problems that may occur when you are just staring the small screen just a front of your eyes the whole day.

Other critical concerns that was early raised was the high price, safety, and privacy. People caused accidents because of using the glasses and filmed improper places like in cinemas. Then came the problem with poor battery life. The device was intended to be worn all day long but the battery life could hold up only 3-5 hours. Not a good combination.

Luckily you are still able to buy this magnificent device to yourself from at least from eBay and Amazon, also In 2017 Google announced next version of Google Glass which hold a name of Google Glass Enterprise Edition.

With the glasses the user is able to see internet and messages front of his eyes, film and take pictures just with a specific voice command. This like previously introduced Lily drone sounds just too good to be true. Maybe we are just not ready for this kind of futuristic technology....yet.

Sources: 

https://www.vox.com/2017/1/16/14274254/lily-drone-lawsuit-refunds (published 16.01.2017, accessed 27.01.2021)

https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/253265-lily-camera-took-internet-storm-imploded (published 28.07.2017, accessed 27.01.2021)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vGcH0Bk3hg (published 12.05.2015, accessed 27.01.2021)

https://www.wired.com/review/samsung-galaxy-fold/ (published 24.10.2019, accessed 27.01.2021)

https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/4/20898484/samsung-galaxy-fold-folding-test-failure-durability (published 04.10.2019, accessed 27.01.2021)

https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/30/20938653/samsung-galaxy-fold-review-updated-android-price-specs-features-hinge (published 30.10.2019 ,accessed 27.01.2021)

https://peopleandtech.org/samsung-galaxy-fold-review-the-future-wont-fit-in-your-pants/ 

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/052115/how-why-google-glass-failed.asp (published 08.03.2020 ,accessed 02.02.2021)

https://medium.com/nyc-design/the-assumptions-that-led-to-failures-of-google-glass-8b40a07cfa1e (published 03.08.2018 ,accessed 02.02.2021)

https://www.business2community.com/tech-gadgets/5-reasons-google-glass-miserable-failure-01462398  (published 28.02.2016 ,accessed 02.02.2021)