Samsung Electronics announced on April 19 that it has developed a new smartphone application “Dowell” to make it easier for those who have difficulty in moving hands and arms. “Dowell” is designed to connect the auxiliary input device which the handicapped people with limited abilities in moving hands and arms use to connect to computers into their smartphones.
The handicapped use a variety of auxiliary input tools such as the head mouse and track ball. These devices, however, are nothing more than software which replaces the function of button clicks. Accordingly, they have difficulties in realizing various touch motions such as swiping and pinch zoom.
If they use “Dowell,” it connects their existing auxiliary input devices into smartphones, enabling them to select touch motions such as tapping or dragging as well as basic keys such as menu, home, and go back keys.
“Dowell,” however, is available only with Samsung smartphones (Galaxy S3 or above). Samsung plans to launch this service within this year.
