Editorial

Citation

Abbott, C. (2014), "Editorial", Journal of Assistive Technologies, Vol. 8 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/JAT-04-2014-0013

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Assistive Technologies, Volume 8, Issue 2.

We have four peer-reviewed papers in this general issue, and there are links between them as the first two have authors from Finland and the last two both deal with aspects of visual impairment and technology.

Our first paper takes us to an area we have visited before, that of the use of technology to support timely medication for older people. Lead author Marja Harjumaa is from VTT, the Technical Research Centre in Oulu, which is a not-for-profit organisation linked to the Ministry of Employment in Finland. She writes here with her colleague Minna Isomursu, and with Igone Idigoras and Ainara Garzo from TECNALIA in Spain. The paper explains the use of a multimodal medication management system which has been developed for older people and those who care for them. The system is contrasted with alternatives such as electronic medicine dispenser systems or other forms of reminder, and the team also consider issues of non-adherence to medication and how this can be addressed. The system developed, known as the Personal Medicine Assistant, uses off-the-shelf technology such as a tablet PC, interacting with digital tags on medications. Audio is used to support on-screen images, and feedback has been gathered from users during the trial. There will be many readers of JAT who care for older people who have problems managing medication, and I am sure we will feature other research on this area in future.

Also from the Technical Research Centre in Finland, but based in Espoo, Janne Väre and colleagues contribute our next paper, which deals with household robots, a topic we have not covered to date. Janne Väre writes with her colleagues Julia Kantorovitch, Vesa Pehkonen and Arto Laikari, as well as with Heikki Seppälä from the Laurea University of Applied Science in Finland. Using off-the-shelf components, the team aimed to develop a vacuum cleaner robot prototype which users would find safe in use and which would build on understanding gained through the development of previous prototypes in this area. They also note the ways in which previous prototypes have generated unexpected social interaction, and have been used in ways that were perhaps not expected by the developers involved. A particular facet of the project described here is the interaction that is possible between fall detection and the robot home cleaner. The use of home robots is likely to be another area of work that will feature regularly in our pages in future.

The first of our two papers addressing some of the needs of those with visual impairments comes from Juan Gomez, PhD student at the Department of Informatics in the University of Geneva in Switzerland, writing with his colleagues Guido Bologna and Thierry Pun. The team address the use of Sensory Substitution Devices (SSDs) to represent information which would otherwise be acquired through vision, and consider also the ways in which other sense data are used in place of vision. The team developed a system called See ColOr, and then tested the extent to which users could benefit from the information it provides. SSDs have a relatively long history, and the paper acknowledges this, and then outlines the series of experiments that were put in place to test the use of See ColOr. The paper ends with a candid acknowledgement of the limitations of the work to date, but also outlines the considerable potential realised and the next steps to be undertaken.

Also dealing with the area of visual impairment, Orly Lahav from the Tel Aviv University in Israel contributes the final paper in this issue, an extensive and systematic review of the literature on the use of virtual reality as a technology for and as an orientation and mobility aid for blind people. As with the paper from Switzerland, Lahav's work is closely linked to issues of orientation and mobility on the part of blind people. He describes the two spatial models that tend to be used by blind people as cognitive maps: the route model and the map model. In the particular virtual environment developed by the team, users can insert themselves in avatar form, and can decide whether or not to represent themselves with a disability. Developments to date in this area were gathered using a systematic literature review, and the paper includes a detailed analysis of the results of this exercise. Once again, the topic of this paper, the use of virtual reality for mobility in this case, is likely to be featured regularly in future issues of JAT.

We also welcome in this issue Cheryl Dobbs, our new Reviews Editor. Cheryl recently gained her PhD from the King's College, London and is now based in Australia. She would be pleased to receive suggestions of books or web sites to be reviewed, and would also welcome offers from potential reviewers. Our policy will continue to be one of reviewing books and web sites about assistive technology, but not hardware or software itself.

Later this year we will publish special issues on dementia and for ITAG. The ITAG (Interactive Technologies and Games) Conference brings together academics and practitioners working with interactive technologies to explore and innovate within the areas of education, health and disability; and the next ITAG will take place on 16 and 17 October 2014.

Chris Abbott