Daniel Levine - Pallette; Assistive Tech

(Interviewer) Hi, we're here

with Daniel Levine, and

he showed everyone

his and his team's creation

called the Pallette,

and he was one of the more exciting entries

here at the Hackaday Prize Awards Ceremony.

So, if you could please tell us

a little bit about you showed today?

Sure. So, this is Palette.

It's just some pictures of Pallette.

Pallette is a tongue/computer interface.

It fits like a mouthguard,

and lets you use your tongue

to control your surrounding technologies.

Pallette uses infrared to track the tongue,

so you don't have to push

against the top of your mouth.

The real idea behind Pallette was

to try to create an assistive technology

that is discreet and hidden from view

and does not disrupt your identity.

So, there are many different

technologies that exist today.

There's Eye Gaze, but you have to have

a camera in front of you,

and there's voice commands,

which there's no privacy.

So, the idea behind Pallette was to try

to create a device that stays hidden

and that you could control without anyone

knowing that you have it.

So, like a funny tagline we have for that

is like telekinesis with your tongue, in a way.

But this sort of is like a first push

in this direction, and the hope

is that this direction will...

We're gonna keep on pushing it,

and the hope is that

these sort of interfaces will become

so sleek and so unnoticeable

that anyone, especially folks

that really use this, folks with tetraplegia,

will be able to interact

with surrounding technologies,

greater independence without anyone noticing

and without any sort of disruptions

to identity.

(Interviewer) Wonderful. Have you seen

people's... What's their

experience been of those

who have used it or?

So right now, it works decently.

It's surprisingly comfortable.

It's a little bit big at the moment,

but it fits, so, but it fits in the mouth.

It's comfortable, and you can use it well.

I think at the moment,

people are most excited by

the idea of what this can be and can become.

Right now, it's like a usable prototype.

(Interviewer) Okay, nice.

What inspired this

to you and your team, how did you?

So, first, my team is like

We're a bunch of friends,

and we care about trying

to do something good in the world,

and then, there's also some, like, back stuff.

I do a lot of gymnastics,

and you find yourself injured sometimes,

and you just appreciate being able to do

a lot of thing...

You appreciate being able to do

what you wanna do.

Like, even just being able to lift your hands normally

or walk or... And I think that sort of sentiment

goes through to say, like, you know,

we have all this ability to create,

and we have all these advancements

all over the place and all these things

that perhaps we don't need, you know?

We should really be using our efforts

to try to create things that we do need

so that we can all experience life

on our own terms.

(Interviewer) And then, where do you

expect to take this in the future?

So, we created this as an open-source platform,

so we put the designs on the Internet

so that anyone can pick up those designs

and create Pallette. We want to...

The idea is that we wanted

to create a community of folks that

would use this to really understand

the needs of... So we're not

just making technology, and folks that

can advance the technology

and push the boundaries

of what it can become

to really create, like, this ideal of

technology that doesn't feel like technology

that could help us live

more independently universally.

(Interviewer) Wonderful. Thank you

for sharing, and we hope you keep creating

and also showing your creations to everyone.

No problem.

(Interviewer) All right.

Thank you.

(Interviewer) Take care.