I used to have resources for some R&D and did many things. One was to get a "special" keyboard designed for people with limited motor skills, to find out what was so special about it, and why it was so damn expesive. Granted it was more expensive than a normal keyboard, had proximity sensors and audible feedback, and somebody had to write some custom firmware, but at $450 for a keyboard that was an astounding sum. If you look beyond stuff like just software, to the whole assistive tech market in general, you see inflated prices that as I said, I consider to be obscene. Software can be free, yes, but that doesn't solve many other needs. Much work needs to be done and it can't all be free, or the advancement is limited. As long as assistive tech is considered to be something that is so radically different that the only answer is "there are grants for that" then choices are limited and some of the much needed R&D doesn't get done. I personally believe most people are missing something important, that some of these assistive tech ideas are ones that many people need. Take speech tech for example, people can't look at a computer screen while they are driving, and not really efficiently while walking. They do not need to be disabled in any way to benefit from speech and many other assistive technologies. Work on all of these things are more globally desireable than one would think if you break them down into parts. Take a keyboard for example, there should be multiple modalities available as the input to anything and the output from everything in the long term. I'm all for open source but then to expect everything to be free means, at least to some degree, you get what you pay for. People will pay for good tech, if it's fair priced. At least part of what is happening, the part I don't like, is that for some things, they are intentionally so expensive that nobody can afford them without some subsidy, grant, insurance, or some other bueroctratic process. More comptetition would actually drive prices down. More people making products would be a good thing. If all assistive tech was done for free then it would only ever be hobby activity, it will never put food on the table of people who produce it. -- Doug
