Disability Tech Click

This week, Tech versus disability with supervision, supercars and

super leg. One of the most amazing things I

have seen it this year is the work being done to give people with

disabilities the power of movement, control, and independence. This

showcased is that there is plenty more going on around the world. This

weekend marks the International Day of Persons with disabilities. It is

a day created by the United Nations to promote greater awareness of the

issues faced by disabled people. Here and click, we were approached

by a team of reporters and producers that wanted to use this opportunity

to look at the latest advances in a system of tax. -- assistive tech.

First, we are going for a drive with a racing driver. This is a 2016

Corvette Z06. That is Sam Schmidt driving down the last Vegas strip.

What is incredible is Sam is quadriplegic. Paralysed after a

racing car accident 15 years ago but now, he is the first American to be

given a special licence to drive a semiautonomous car on public roads.

Really, there is no better place to drive than this. The car has been

specially modified by Arrow that electronics. Using off-the-shelf

technology, a team has used input techniques to allow Sam to control

the car. This includes voice commands to activate the gears and

indicators and a very novel approach to the steering mechanism. For

steering, we have cameras set up that are on the dash, looking at

you. There is reflective markers on either your sunglasses or even

helmet. Both cameras see your movement and UI turning left and

right and the steering wheel goes accordingly, left and right, all the

way. Lock to lock. Of what we are doing is calibrating the cameras.

When they are in calibration, they can measure -- measure the positions

within a fraction. For the gas and break, there is a tube in your mouth

and it has a pressure sensor inside. When you blow into it, it gives you

exhilaration. When you start, it gives you a break. You have to

unchain your mind because it is used to wandering and looking at rearview

mirrors and behind you and blind spots. You can't do that in this car

because if you do, the car turns. While turning Sam's head into a

joystick is impressive, the technology alone is not enough to

getting back onto the road. He does need to have a codriver with him at

all times. Now, when you see him driving, it is easy to forget just

how difficult his journey he has been. -- here. Rola 17 years ago I

thought there was no way I would ever tried again. -- 17 years ago. I

always wanted to race, I won the race in Vegas in 1999 with this car

and that was the pick of everything. Then three-month later, testing for

the 2000 season I hit the wall at Orlando, Florida and that's that

story. -- the peak of everything will stop is racing past made it

important for Sam to try to adapt to cars so he could actually feel like

he was driving. Rather than driving a fully autonomous car where he

takes a passive role. A fully autonomous car is just a bigger,

faster wheelchair for someone like Samba that is not the same as

driving. It doesn't represent the freedom of driving. -- someone like

Sam. More than the sense, the real act of control. It is incredibly

difficult to describe the feeling when 99% of what you do everyday,

you need somebody to you with. You know, the first time I drove the

car, everybody around me was drawn for tears and so was I because

really, in 14 years at the time, I had not felt that level of

independence and that level of normalcy because I'm in control. I'm

making the decisions, I'm pushing on the gas, and pushing on the break,

and steering the car and there are very few things that had happened

since the accident that I could say I'm in control. It was important for

Sam to still feel in control of his car at a fully autonomous vehicles

could be a huge thing for people who have never been able to drive. Day

Martin has cerebral palsy and he volunteered to be a test pilot to

find out whether soft running cars could one day help him to become

king of the road. We are going to Leicestershire because I'm going to

be testing a driverless or as they call autonomous car. I want to have

a go at one of these cars because I'm never going to be able to drive.

I have no peripheral vision basically, if you put me on the

road, I'm going to be very dangerous and highly likely to crash into

people. At the moment, yours lot of public transport to get around.

Mainly cabs because I find that the bosses aren't very accessible and

the tube network, you can forget that. It's going to be interesting

to see how it works because particularly if when I tried it all

goes a bit wrong. -- the buses. Oh, we are off. So, we are going in a

straight line which is always promising. Very tight on the brakes,

obviously. Good in an emergency but not when you are not expecting it.

This car is being driven into different ways. Either driving

itself along a pre- grow -- preprogrammed route or by driven by

a remote engineer in a truck. The fact that the steering wheel sounds

like a printer that is about to run out of ink, it is not making me feel

like this would be the safest thing to use on a main road at the moment.

At the moment, it is doing everything itself and I'm just

sitting here like a passenger that if you're in London or any city and

you're doing a normal journey to work and you're in traffic, how

would it cope with people in a non- autonomous cars? This must be what

Jeremy Clarkson used to feel like standing next to the stick. You

know, not in control but just sat in the car. After teething problems,

things settled down and started to see more of the benefits. As we're

driving more and more with the car, it settling and it is becoming

easier to become more comfortable in. I can certainly see the scope

for it to improve and for it to be able to give us our own independent

lives and to give people like me the chance to be, you know, fully part

of society and for our own sense, fully autonomous, pardon the pun.

Now, prosthetic technology is a very impressive that it can also be very

expensive. There is one company in Texas that is trained to solve that

problem using 3-D printing. This technology has already proved useful

for creating arms but what about the more heavy duty work of weight

bearing prosthetic legs? Kathleen Hawkins lost both legs below the

knee at age 18 after contracting meningitis. She recently had a

fitting for a new pair of 3-D printed leg sockets with some

interesting results. The world of prosthetics is an exciting place as

new technology is constantly push the boundaries of what is

achievable. This can be seen here, Otto Bock. These legs are sent --

sold for tens of thousands of dollars and are extremely expensive.

I got to try out some of their feet, including the new challenger. Across

between a running blade and a walking foot. I am one of the best

amputees to try to. Before I had my legs agitated, I was done so. I

started dancing again and the seat feel as though they would give me so

much movement to dance and so much from -- movement to bounce and take

greater steps then how I have able to previously. These are top of the

rage things with prices to match. The knee is estimated to be

thousands of pounds. This was designed for stall just to go back

into duty. It has sensor technology. Gyroscopes, Excel ROM letters, in

the knee. To see what type of terrain is, what speeds. This

technology is innovative -- accelerometres. Depending on the

disability of each individual, summit might not have access to this

individual. They are going to design leg sockets

using 3-D printers. These 3-D printed sockets are new to me that

iron dying to find out more. There have been some early moves to make a

3-D printed leg. --I am dying to find out more. The key element here

is that it is non- weight-bearing. She doesn't have to walk very far on

it. Try fusion is developing materials that they hope will be

strong enough for people to walk around on all day. They are using

microwaves to heat the new materials and welcome together. To try to

combat the issue of leakages often seen in 3-D printing. We are using

materials that are -- work with items. It is one 1000th of the width

of a human hair. We couple it to the nano materials and the heat up

rapidly and we can simultaneously dwelled hundreds of these layers

together and that fuses the part and makes it as strong as if it had been

injection moulded. -- welded. This factory has a leg sockets that can

be 3-D printed from scratch under one roof. Everything from creating a

unique filament to scanning and printing the final design. This is

unusual, isn't it? A company to have this in-house. A company to make the

filament in-house as well is printing their own devices, it is

red. They are missing a crucial element. There is no cross the sets

on a site. And it hasn't been approved. -- it is rare. I am

beginning he. So, this is the first time you have scanned for a double

amputee? Absolutely. --I am that guinea pig. We are proud to have you

as our first case. Feeling confident? Yeah. I was surprised by

how fast it was. In just 1.5 minutes, we had detailed scans. I

remember having my first plaster of Paris cast done when I first came

out of hospital. I still had necrotic tissue on my limbs because

I had meningitis so septicaemia. That was really traumatic for me. It

was a very long process and quite painful. When you have no idea of

the process as well, it is really hard. This would be a lot simpler

for people who are having it done for the first time, it could be a

good entry point. The information is sent to the cloud

where it can be shared with anyone, anywhere. The first printer

available for the next morning. Good morning. These were printed. We did

the scanning yesterday and they were printed overnight and now I am

holding it. Amazing! I am feeling nervous, but excited to try them.

But the flaw was too slippy in the factory, so we went to the office

where it was carpeted. We realised there were problems earlier. We had

to do a bit of a 'Boxtrolls' to keep them on. -- box job. It is comfy

open I thought it would leave. The fit is very low to my leg. It

usually comes right above my knees. It is impressive. Ooh... I think I

just broke that! I think that might be snapping. I broke it! It was a

valiant effort, at my takeaway was the importance of having a proper --

profit person who can fit it involved. It is exciting to get new

legs anyway, standing on something at putting your body weight into

it's a scary process. But to see it come from nothing yesterday and

printed overnight and then put your leg into it, seeing that behind the

scenes is a real insight. By the age of 19, keen rock climber

Jeff had noticed a slight shake in his hands. Slowly this condition

became something known as essential tremor and although he is still able

to drive and give many day-to-day activities, his fine motor control

is severely affected. So just to give a silly example, if I wanted to

touch my nose, it is an involuntary tremor. Or towards my ear. So I

don't hold the phone to my ear very well without hitting myself, unless

I use two hands. The more accurate he tries to be, the more violently

his handshake. Without breaking his hand against his body, touchscreen

phones, with more icons, I'd definitely not an option. You don't

want to do that. No. Bluetooth on. I'm filming with him at Google's HQ

in his -- in Silicon Valley, where he helped to create android voice

access. This puts the phone into a constant listening mode and also

allows every setting, app, icon on the screen to be selected by name or

number, which pops up next to it. Nine. This is a message I'm writing

to Patrick. Period. 14. That seems to be a proper life changer for you?

That is a major big deal. The ability to use common apps like text

messaging, e-mail, those two especially, but even calendar

appointments, where you need to write stub since is extremely --

substance, it is extremely helpful. Helpful, yes, but given how voice

recognition is already on smartphones, and surprised this

feature wasn't implemented years ago. Google, why not? It was a

challenge to bring an application to the market that is complete, where

we can say you will not need to use your hands any more with this

application, rather than just supporting specific cases, which

most of the major applications out there already do. But on a mobile

device we are currently the only ones who can really do complete

hands-free. Voice control has also proved really useful for those who

are blind or partially sighted and away from touchscreen phones there

are plenty of projects under way aiming to help people living with a

visual impairment to navigate the world, and here are a couple.

High, my name is Libby. I'm here with my fiance to check out some new

goggles. Should I do my sexy walk? They are supposed to help people

like us who have partial sight, enhancing the vision we have left. I

-- the middle of my vision is very fuzzy. You will operate everything

using the remote control. As Paralympians, we are both busy

training, so I am keen to make the most of the free time we have

together. That so weird! Darren, I am literally right on your face. --

Dan. It made me feel really intrigued seeing his face close up,

because obviously I am attracted to him for different reasons other than

the way he looks. Seeing that aspect to his face was intriguing. I can

see his eye colour properly and everything. On one level the goggles

act as a big magnifying glass, but there's a lot more. It makes the

edges of objects sharper and really brings out the contrast between

light and shade. Dan was keen to have a go. He also has a form of

muscular dystrophy. You look dead all on it! He is making me

self-conscious. Go back to being completely blind. I can see my

tattoos! That's mad! That's cool. Getting chocolate bars from a

vending machine isn't something that we I usually able to do. All right,

do you want me to have a go at telling you? Just a second. Yay! I

would love to use the goggles because I feel like I would really

benefit from using them, whereas at the moment they are a bit bulky and

I don't think they would fit in with me also walking my dog around as

well. I'm really scared! I am a make-up artist and blogger. I've

been blind for three years because of a certain condition, which means

I can only see blurs. I am testing a device which can help people with

varying degrees of vision, including those have no at all. I usually rely

on my boyfriend and my lovely guide dog to get me around, so this could

be really helpful. This is so cool. It will seriously change my life. It

works by taking an image that you hold up to the camera and it

remembers it, so the next time you need to identify it it will tell you

what it is. It can build a personalised library, so it can help

people like me in my everyday life. It is also able to read text and do

object recognition, like the labels on this tea packets. We have several

options. Would we them to you. It only remembered some of the objects

of my make-up items, but it was great on the teas. Peppermint and

metal! And there's more. It also has facial recognition software to tell

me who I am looking at. It works physically in two phases. The first

is face detection. The device in the camera is trying to understand if

there's any face or not. Then, after that, it tries to match that face

with what it has in its own database and if the person is unknown then

you can also learn it. I love the fact that you can personalise it.

That's really useful. It was sometimes you have moments where you

bump into someone and you are like a who's that? I recognise people with

my voices. But then sometimes you have friends who sound similar. Then

that could be really helpful. Definitely. I will take hold. One of

the many struggles for blind people is accessing new environments.

Another feature is to detect obstacles a few metres away. The

closer you get to an obstacle, the louder the sound gets to tell you

that you are getting closer to the obstacle. It only just said

something. Really? That's too close. That experience was very scary, but

I will get used to it. Keep on going! Now it is saying I'm really

close. You are about one metre. Overall it was a good and useful

multipurpose visual aid. Yes, it is quite good. It wasn't so good in

distribution in little items from my make-up bag. -- dissing wishing.

However, it was really good on the facial recognition. Looking at tea

packets and labels and out on the road. Get out of the way, Olga!

That's it for Click this week. I hope you've enjoyed all that you've

seen. You will find us in all the usual places, but if you want more

from Kathleen, Dane and other BBC journalists, you should really pick

out the BBC Ouch blog, and their weekly podcasts. Thanks for watching

and see you soon. Yesterday was a disappointingly

cloudy day, but it was not cloudy