In the last year my Grandmother has lost a significant amount of her vision.  Basically she can see shadows and that’s about it, and since she’s 85 she has that many years of ingrained habits that rely on her being able to see.  I know how hard it is for me to adjust to major change at 39, I can only imagine how hard it is for her at 85.

My aunts have been very busy helping Grandmother, taking her to appointments, taking her grocery shopping and all the other daily chores we take for granted.  They’ve also enlisted the help of an agency (sorry, I’m not sure which one) that has provided some guidance in dealing with services for the blind.

One of the things the agency did was provide a special tape recorder (looks like it was made in the 60s) that has symbols on the keys so that a blind person can tell the "Play" button from the "Stop’" button.  To be honest the machine is a real clunker, and I honestly don’t think many of the tapes interest Grandmother.  I also think she misses reading the newspaper and I know she feels more isolated than she ever has, despite my aunts’ best efforts.

So I decided to do a little research and find out what kind of technology is out there that might help Grandmother, and while I’ve found some interesting stuff I don’t think any of it is quite right.  For instance I found a machine that will scan any printed matter and convert it to speech in a couple of different voices and languages that the user can select.  Very cool (and about $2,600), but after watching Grandmother struggle with the buttons on the tape recorder I wouldn’t want to subject her to having to figure out this machine. 

The scanner is just one example of some of the technology that’s available, but I don’t really think any of them will work.  Another example is all the computer stuff I found.  There’s a lot of software out there that lets blind people use a computer for work and play in traditional ways (software that converts screen text to audio) but that still requires someone to know how to use a computer in the first place. What I’m looking for is a machine, probably a computer that can be manipulated via voice by anyone.

That’s led me to imagining what kind of machine I would build for Grandmother if I were a sufficiently talented engineer.  Unfortunately I’m not an engineer by any description, but particularly not "sufficiently talented". I’m going to outline my dream machine below, and if anyone has a suggestion for how I might find or build a product like this please let me know.

My dream machine would:

1. Work off of voice prompts.  No button pushing or reading necessary.
2. Could be managed remotely for tech support.
3. Would provide audio output of information (news stories, directory listings, audio sent by family and friends, etc.).
4. Would be navigable by voice prompt, and if it doesn’t "understand" commands would provide audio feedback.
5. Would also act as her phone.
6. Would be "always on."

I guess what I’m imagining is HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, of course without the thing going evil on my Grandmother.

You’ll notice that I didn’t mention any features like email, web surfing, etc.  That’s because I seriously doubt Grandmother would ever do those things, but I’d imagine any machine equipped to do what I ask would also have the standard computer stuff available as well.

Actually I think the biggest deal here is the user interface.  It needs to feel familiar to Grandmother, to be analagous to devices she’s accustomed to like a phone or a radio.  I know if we called it a computer she’d never use it, so it could be her fancy radio that she can talk to and it talks back.  Or the phone that has a radio attached.  Whatever, as long as it works and she doesn’t have to push anything.

So maybe she would email, but really it would be her saying "Do I have any messages?" and the machine replying, "You have three new messages."  She’d then say "Play the first one" the machine plays it and asks "Would you like to reply?" and then Grandmother says "Yes" and so on.  To her she’s talking, but to you and me she’s sending an audio email.

Well, I think you get my drift, and now you know why it’s my dream machine, not my reality machine.  What with the aging of our population I hope these voice applications come along sooner rather than later, because I think we’ll need them.  Here’s to hope.