Communicating with Handicapped Loved Ones?

Trx asks: "Many of us regularly exchange digital images from our loved ones, but the disabled are often left on the dark side of this digital divide. My dad is quadriplegic, and I've been looking into ways I might outfit his room with an automated download of images to his television. Have any Slashdot users attempt something of this sort? He lives in an assisted living facility, with personal telephone/cable lines. He has special response buttons for control of television channels and phone. Due to high staff-turnover, training-in staff to help him download emails or images hasn't worked out. I am stationed overseas, and can only get back once every 6 months if I'm lucky, so low-maintenance is key. WebTV would be an option if it didn't require mouse or keyboard. We've also considered investing in a laptop DVD player, and mailing disks. Any suggestions?"

Comments

Digital Picture Frame

[MBCook]

I think a digital picture frame is your best bet. While the larget ones are expensive (ouch), you could build your own larger one out of an old laptop or something much cheaper. Then you just have it automatically dial in (or use high speed internet if that's an option) and download pictures off a FTP server (or some such) somewhere every night. When you want to give him a new picutre, just upload it to the server. Then the next day it will automatically be one of the ones in the slide show. No controlls, no nothing. Just a static object in the room that doesn't require any interaction that does exactly what you want easily.

Now if you wanted to give him some controll (forward, back, pause, etc) that could be much trickier. The best I can think of off the top of my head (and this wouldn't be too easy) would be to set it up with a microphone and teach it to listen for whistles or some such. One quick whistle is stop, two is forward, etc. Or you could use different pitches (A is stop, B is forward, etc). That would be easy to controll once he got the hang of it and would require no controll device, wouldn't have to be rigged into the ones currently provided, etc.

Of course that assumes he knows how to whisle. He does know how to whistle doesn't he? He just puts his lips together and... sorry, couldn't resist.

Maybe a simple solution....

[kponto]

You could create a webpage that refreshes itself every couple of minutes or so and displays full size photos chosen at random from a folder on the site. Plenty of prefab scripts out there that can do that. Just set up a laptop in his room and all the orderlies need to do is open Firefox with your photo page set as the default home page. You could also use this to send him message s by just editing the page. he wouldn't need to do anything as long as he has a dedicated phone line that can be online all the time. If he doesn't and can only be on sporadically, then just type up some simple instructions on how to double click the "Internet" button and then double click the "Firefox" button so the orderlies can get him signed on and tape it to the desk where the machine sits.

I dunno...maybe something like that.

k

VNC

[winstonantisex]

If you configure a computer to automatically start a vnc server after booting, you can control the mouse and keyboard remotely. This opens up many possibilities. I have done this for my parents and been amazed at how much it seems like I am physically present when using vnc in connection with a telephone conversation.

See, for example, http://www.tightvnc.com/: "TightVNC is a free remote control software package derived from the popular VNC software. With TightVNC, you can see the desktop of a remote machine and control it with your local mouse and keyboard, just like you would do it sitting in the front of that computer."