Stanford researchers using Google Glass to help children with autism

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Google Glass’ software learns to identify people’s faces and their emotional expressions — what project founder Catalin Voss calls “action units” —  and then classifies them with specific words. This in turn helps the user recognize other people’s emotions. Autism, which affects one in 68 children, is characterized by the inability to recognize emotions in facial expressions, among other symptoms. This in turn makes social interactions and developing friendships difficult to create and sustain.

Universal Design (UD) is an approach to design that increases the potential for developing a better quality of life for a wide range of individuals. It is a design process that enables and empowers a diverse population by improving human performance, health and wellness, and social participation (Steinfeld and Maisel, 2012). It creates products, systems, and environments to be as usable as possible by as many people as possible regardless of age, ability or situation.