While medicine looks for both the cause and cure of dementia, millions of elderly around the world begin feeling the symptoms every year. New technologies, some existing now and some maturing towards consumer products, offer not only real-time information, they also include ways to inject this information into human interaction with their surroundings. Visual overlays in Google Glass, context aware assistive services such as Google Now, and our ever-present GPS location awareness can combine to provide supportive interactions with our world.

While these advancements are being developed for mass consumer adoption, they can also provide support for individuals who live with limitations such as dementia. I've been working on some ideas on how our elderly might use these devices, struggling to get traction beyond what is easily described and would be used by individuals, whether healthy or dealing with dementia. Then I recently heard about VocalID, a group collecting a range of human voices for the use of those without a voice of their own. In the past, individuals unable to speak were limited to a very small set of digital voices - most of them identical to the voice used by Stephen Hawking. To provide semi-unique voices, Dr Rupal Patel founded the Communication Analysis and Design Laboratory (CadLab) and the VocalID organization - the latter which collects 2-3 hours of donor voices to provide options for individuals suffering from severe speech impairment.