• The program interprets visual signals and translates them into words, which are then "spoken" by a machine. Intel originally developed the technology specially for Prof Hawking, but it has been used by other sufferers of motor neurone disease (MND).
  • Intel hopes that the Assistive Context-Aware Toolkit (ACAT), which runs on Microsoft Windows 7 or higher, will be used by researchers developing new interfaces for sufferers of diseases like ALS. The programme and full source code have been published on code-sharing site GitHub.
  • The software can carry out various functions besides sending text to a speech synthesizer. "We have contextual menus to access all different parts of your computer," said Lama Nachman, principal engineer at Intel. "If you want to use Word, surf the web or speak you can use ACAT for that."

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