Cox unveiled a new feature that empowers people with disabilities to control their TV with their eyes. The Accessible Web Remote for Contour gives those who have lost fine motor skills – whether from degenerative conditions or paralysis – the ability to browse the video guide with a glance. Specifically, a free web-based remote control is navigable using various assistive technologies owned by customers, including eye gaze hardware and software, switch controls, and sip-andpuff systems, which the user controls by gently blowing into a tube. Eye-tracking technology gives people living with conditions like paraplegia, Parkinson's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) the same access to their TVs as customers with the latest edition of Contour. "Innovative technology like this gives people with disabilities an added level of independence," said Steve Gleason, founder of Team Gleason and former New Orleans Saints football player who has been living with ALS since 2011.

AI-based tools like computer vision and voice interfaces have the potential to be life-changing for people with disabilities, but the truth is those AI models are usually built with very little data sourced from those people. Microsoft is working with several nonprofit partners to help make these tools reflect the needs and everyday realities of people living with conditions like blindness and limited mobility. Consider for example a computer vision system that recognizes objects and can describe what is, for example, on a table. Chances are that algorithm was trained with data collected by able people, from their point of view -- likely standing. A person in a wheelchair looking to do the same thing might find the system isn't nearly as effective from that lower angle.

People who are blind or who use a wheelchair or who have autism often are early adopters of technology to complete everyday tasks like communicating, reading, and traveling. Artificial intelligence powers many of these services such as voice and object recognition. In many cases, these products are trained on data from able-bodied or neurotypical people. This means that the algorithms may have a limited understanding of body types, communication styles, and facial expressions. Microsoft is working with researchers and advocacy groups to solve this data problem and build data sets that better reflect all types of users and real-world scenarios.

Microsoft and Team Gleason, the nonprofit organization founded by NFL player Steve Gleason, today launched Project Insight to create an open dataset of facial imagery of people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The organizations hope to foster innovation in computer vision and broaden the potential for connectivity and communication for people with accessibility challenges. Microsoft and Team Gleason assert that existing machine learning datasets don't represent the diversity of people with ALS, a condition that affects as many as 30,000 people in the U.S. Project Insight will investigate how to use data and AI with the front-facing camera already present in many assistive devices to predict where a person is looking on a screen. Team Gleason will work with Microsoft's Health Next Enable team to gather images of people with ALS looking at their computer so it can train AI models more inclusively. Participants will be given a brief medical history questionnaire and be prompted through an app to submit images of themselves using their computer.