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2
Apr

Amazing iPad apps to help with autism and awareness


Today is World Autism Awareness Day and the beginning of Autism Awareness Month.

The United Nations General Assembly designated the day in 2007 as a way to raise autism acceptance and help those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Since it’s launch in 2010, the iPad and iPad apps have been a tool in providing that help, and in aiding those with autism in finding their voice.

According to the CDC, one in 66 kids in the U.S. are on the autistic spectrum. According to a study by UCLA, using the iPad can help minimally verbal children more than double the amount of words in their vocabulary, and the earlier they start, the better they do.

Apple has created features like Guided Access expressly for people on the autistic spectrum, and developers around the world have created dozens of apps either specifically or incidentally helpful as well. The App Store is currently featuring a collection of apps for Autism Awareness Month, including several on sale. Toca has also assembled a TocaBox for autism bundle. Here they are, and more!

Guided access

Guide access that lets you lock the iPhone or iPad to a single app. For as long as guided access is enabled, only that one specific app can be used, and there’s no way to exit it for the Home screen or any other app. That can make Guided Access extremely useful for people on the autistic spectrum who need assistance focusing or with fine motor challenges.

Proloquo2Go

An argumentative and alternative communications (aac) app, Proloquo2Go is for anyone on the autistic spectrum who has trouble speaking. It provides natural-sounding text-to-speech voices, including American English, Australian English, British English, and bilingual American Spanish-English for children.

Grace

Grace helps give people on the autistic spectrum a voice by letting them assemble sentences based on images.

Proloquo4Text

Proloquo4Text offers natural sounding voices in 15 languages with word and sentence prediction and a customizable screen layout for easy conversation.

Autismate365

Autismate’s comprehensive approach encourages the user to develop communication and behavioral skills simultaneously.

FlummoxVision

Flummox and Friends is a fun, quirky live-action comedy show that tries to help kids learn and understand the social and emotional dynamics of the world around them.

Kid in Story Book Maker

Stories are powerful and visual stories even more more so. For children on the autistic spectrum, Kid in Store can be a fun way to learn language skills and social modeling.

Keeble

Keeble is a keyboard designed for accessibility. It helps those with fine motor challenges and others better and more easily input text, with word prediction, timing options, and more.

Pictello

Pictello allows someone on the autistic spectrum to create simple talking photo albums an books. You get one image and up to fixe lines of text per page, and audio can be recorded or added using high-quality text-to-speech voices.

Choiceworks

For those on the autistic spectrum, daily routines can be anything but routine. Choiceworks helps by providing management tools that encourage emotional control and patience.

iDress for Weather

How should you dress if it’s warm outside? If it’s cold? If it’s somewhere in between. iDress for Weather uses a customizable closet to help personalize the connection between what the weather’s like and what clothing they should wear.

PuddingStone

PuddingStone, developed with the Boston Children’s Hospital, is a way to help make language development not only interactive, but fun.

ChatterPix Kids

Take a photo, draw a line to make a mouth, record your voice, and, with ChatterPix Kids, your pictures can now speak.

Toca Band

Toca Band promotes learning sounds, beats, and rhythms through play and experimentation.

Toca Town

How a city works and what various locations are for, like stores, parks, and restaurants, are discoverable and learnable through Toca Town.

Peek A Zoo

Discovering animals, learning their names, and identifying social cues lets Peek a Zoo help engage children and build interactive experience.

Injini: Child Development Game Suite

The Injini collection of learning games can help with cognitive, language, and fine motor skills in a fun yet functional way.

Tiggly Counts

Tiggly Counts is a math toy for iPad that helps pre-schoolers and kindergartners (age three and older) develop early numeracy, counting, and math skills. It includes a set of five sleek, magnetic counting toys that interact with three different learning apps on your iPad.

Todo Number Matrix

Todo Number Matrix lets kids practice match skills with fun, challenging matrices.

Motion Math: Pizza!

With Motion Math: Pizza! kids can learn everything from basic arithmetic to economics by buying ingredients, designing pizzas, setting prices, and serving customers in a fun, simple simulator.

And more!

The iPad and the App Store make computing more available and accessible to everyone, including those on the autistic spectrum. If you or someone you know and love is using the iPad and iPad apps to help with autism and autism awareness, please let me know how!

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2
Apr

A challenger appears: HTC unveils the HTC One M8s, a new take on the 2014 flagship


It’s not quite the HTC One M9 Plus, but it is a familiar face. HTC has just announced a new device called the HTC One M8s and as you might expect from the name, is actually just last year’s HTC One M8 with a few changes. At first glance, it will look like the phone has […]

The post A challenger appears: HTC unveils the HTC One M8s, a new take on the 2014 flagship appeared first on AndroidSPIN.

2
Apr

These exoskeleton heels could help stroke victims walk again


It isn’t quite the soft exosuit that DARPA’s working on, but scientists have developed a lightweight exoskeleton that’ll take some of the work out of walking. Before you get too excited though, this is less Edge of Tomorrow and more along the lines of mechanical engineering. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon and North Carolina State University devised a way to use springs and ratchets to fashion a sort of boot that increases walking efficiency by seven percent compared to folks wearing regular shoes. The idea is to make it easier for the disabled, paralyzed or stroke victims to improve their walking ability without expensive motors and battery packs.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the passive setup draws inspiration from our existing musculature system. Specifically, the Achilles tendon, ankle and calf. It uses a mechanical clutch (in parallel with calf muscles) that engages a spring when the foot is on the ground and then releases in the air for freedom of motion. All that to say, it requires less energy to walk with these than otherwise.

The efficiency bump has a few roadblocks for now according to a paper (PDF) published in Nature. Chiefly, it only applies at a normal walking speed and even then, only on level ground. More research is on deck, with plans to implement electronics that’d adjust when the springs would release and tailor the setup to individual walking styles or even graded terrain. The ultimate goal? That’d be extending active years for the elderly. The researchers hope to partner with a sportswear company and sell a commercial version that’d cost less than a pair of ski boots, too. In case you’re curious as to how it all works, that’s what the video below is for.

Filed under: Alt

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Via: Popular Science

Source: Nature (1) (PDF), (2), National Science Foundation

2
Apr

Lumia 640 Indian launch imminent as Flipkart reveals April announcement


Indian readers looking to pick up the Lumia 640 will be glad to know that the handset will be available on Flipkart before the end of the month.

2
Apr

HTC One M8s headed to Europe with 64-bit processor and familiar design


A new version of the HTC One M8 will soon arrive in Europe, powered by a 64-bit processor.

With the HTC One M9 now available in Europe, HTC has taken the wraps off a refreshed version of its predecessor for European markets. The new HTC One M8s brings a familiar curved metal design to the table, along with trademark HTC features like the Duo camera and BoomSound front speakers, only now powered by a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor.

2
Apr

New Chromebook ad shows they are ‘for everyone, everywhere’


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After the recent announcement of new Chrome OS-powered devices, consumers have options on the low-end and high-end to match their needs. There are devices ranging from $149 to more than $1,000. So it makes sense that the latest advertisement for Chromebooks focuses on the devices being ‘for everyone, everywhere.’ The ad shifts through various scenes in which people are using a Chromebook differently. The uses highlight education, photography, editing, entertainment, and more. Some of the brands spotted are not available in the United States which actually shows how easy it is for Chrome OS to go from market to market with ease.

Hit the break for the video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Come comment on this article: New Chromebook ad shows they are ‘for everyone, everywhere’

2
Apr

HTC’s One M8s revises last year’s flagship for Europe


We may have just peeled the cellophane off HTC’s One M9 flagship, but there’s still life left in its predecessor. Today, we (well, those in Europe) get to meet the HTC One M8s — a revised version of last year’s top billing handset. What does a lower case “s” (and about £379) get you? Mostly a camera refresh — the M8’s (note the apostrophe) 4-megapixel UltraPixel camera has been updated a standard 13-megapixel, f/2.0 affair (the front-facer is the same 5-megapixels as before). There’s been a swap-out of processors, too. The original’s 2.3 GHz Snapdragon 801 quad-core is now a 1.7GHz 615 octa-core (don’t let the number of cores fool you). If you were wondering if this is just another way of branding a “mini” phone. It’s not. At least on a technicality — the HTC One M8s has the same 5-inch 1080p display as the phone it shares a design with.

There are other, minor changes going on. The battery is a bit more capacious (2,840 mAh compared to 2,600 if you’re counting), and there doesn’t appear to be a 32GB version (only 16GB of internal storage). You will, of course, be getting Android 5.0 out of the box. Given that you can still buy last year’s phone for almost exactly the same price… we’re guessing it all depends on how sold you were (or not) and the whole UltraPixel thing.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC

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2
Apr

PayPal Here is now available for Windows Phone 8.1


After making its debut on Windows 8.1 in March, PayPal Here is now available on Windows Phone 8.1. The app works in conjunction with a credit and debit card reader that plugs into a device’s 3.5mm audio jack, allowing businesses to conduct point-of-sale transactions through a phone.

2
Apr

64GB variant of HTC One M9 goes up for sale in Taiwan


However, it looks like the higher storage model is exclusive to the country and may not see a wider release.

2
Apr

Google Play Edition Moto G Receiving 5.1 Update


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If you’re currently using a Motorola Moto G Google Play Edition, you’re in for some sweet Lollipop delight. The 5.1 update is now rolling out, so if you haven’t gotten it yet, get started spamming the “check for updates” button. If you’re too impatient to even wait for your OTA update, try downloading from here: download. You may have to clear up some space, since the update is all of 171 MB.

The update is virtually the same as the one that has already been sent out to the Nexus devices, so if you also own a Nexus or know someone who does, the new software should be similar. Based on previous update patterns, we can expect the rest of the GPE devices to be receiving the 5.1 update fairly soon.

Source: Android Police

Come comment on this article: Google Play Edition Moto G Receiving 5.1 Update

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