Word: robs
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...Rob's control center is a small, gray box that sits next to the computer and translates his spoken words into signals the computer can understand. Shortly after the Apple arrived in September 1980, a gift from the manufacturer, Gary and Ted realized that their main problem would be giving Rob complete mastery over the computer. They tried everything from a breath-controlled switch to a 10-in. rod that Rob held in his mouth. Then they learned of a voice-activated input device that could be taught 40 different commands. Within days, they had talked Scott Instruments...
...when Rob says, "Satellite search," the Scott machine takes a numerical snapshot of the sound pattern and compares that picture with patterns Rob has previously recorded. When the machine finds a matching formation, it sends the computer the corresponding command. With some artful jiggering, Gary and Ted have extended HAL'S vocabulary to more than 280 words...
With these commands, Rob can search through the necklace of satellites that rings the earth and pick up any one of 150 TV channels. He can also dial the telephone, adjust the angle of his bed, dim the lights, dictate letters, play video games and write computer programs on the Carnegie-Mellon University computer network in nearby Pittsburgh. Next January he will start taking college-level courses by satellite...
...Rob is one of 500,000 Americans suffering from paralysis of two or more limbs. In the past, quadriplegics like Rob were consigned to passive, sedentary lives. Today, with the aid of microcomputers, systems as ingenious as Rob's are getting easier and cheaper to build. "The past few years have witnessed a tremendous increase in individuals and small groups that develop special aids for disabled persons," says Gregg Vanderheiden, director of the Trace Center for the Severely Communicatively Handicapped at the University of Wisconsin. "Microcomputers are making it possible for designers to develop sophisticated electronic aids...
...matched the sophistication of Rob's system. "It's | a state-of-the-art application of 2 voice recognition," says an im| pressed Ronald Cole, speech| recognition expert at Carnegie| Mellon. "It is easily the single "most direct example of the technology upgrading someone's life...