Now the full ACAT system is available for download and can run on any PC. Now, though, his software runs SwiftKey, the same predictive keyboard algorithms that you or I can get from any app store, only pre-loaded with Hawking’s research papers, so that if he types “the,” the app predicts “black,” and next it chooses “hole.” Why? He’s never used a smartphone, so the whole paradigm or automatic text was new to him. Even when Intel, the company behind ACAT, built updated software to make things easier for Hawking, he had trouble getting used to it. A Wired article details how, just three years ago, it took Hawking 20 minutes to write a 30-word greeting. These features might be conveniences for you, but they’re essential for Hawking. It’s a system that watches for movement in his cheek muscle, interprets it as a command for the computer, then performs auto-correct on the words, just like your phone’s text message app. The software behind Hawking’s voice is called ACAT, or Assistive Context-Aware Toolkit.
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