Enableware: adaptive technologies for disabled people on the TRON architecture

Abstract

The intensively computerised environments of the future will be characterized by large numbers of computers embedded in all kinds of every day objects, for the sake of greater comfort, convenience and security. The TRON project has devoted the past ten years to research and development based on the assumption that such a scenario will inevitably become a reality. To make computers readily accessible to /sub everyone/ in the true sense of the term, as social infrastructure, it is of course necessary to develop the fundamental technologies making up that infrastructure; but consideration must also be made for culture and society. The TRON project is attempting to expand the scope of "usable by anyone". One way is by devoting more attention to the needs of the disabled. This paper starts by outlining the basic approach in the TRON project to the notion of support for the disabled. Then it reports on specific ways in which this support is being implemented.