Worldwide, about one in six people live with a disability. Whether through injury or illness, disability can manifest itself as an impediment to mobility. There have been fantastic advancements in communication and operational technologies, but there’s always room for improvement, and Augmental, an MIT Media Lab spinoff, thinks that it might be on to something with its newly announced MouthPad.
When you think of assistive devices, you might think of eye-tracking technology, mouth-controlled joysticks or voice recognition assistance. However, as Tomás Vega, one of Augmental’s co-founders, pointed out, many of these devices rely on old tech and — in the case of mouth-controlled joysticks — are obtrusive. They can be exhausting to use, don’t necessarily pay much heed to privacy and they can have other negative impacts, for example, on teeth.
“Augmental has a goal to...
