Britain’s Trevor Prideaux liked smartphones but found he had a problem—born without a left arm, touchscreens were hard to use one-handed. Luckily Nokia stepped in and worked with medical professionals at the Exeter Mobility Centre to design a specially fitted prosthetic arm with a dock that houses his Nokia C7 perfectly.
The 50-year-old catering manager told the Telegraph that he thinks “this would help a lot of people with prosthetic arms—especially those who were not born with the disability. People who have had motorbike crashes and soldiers who have lost limbs—they could all benefit from this.”
The Telegraph claims Prideaux tried to get a hold of Apple to fit his arm for an iPhone dock, but he couldn’t get the company on board.
People with disabilities often get left behind when it comes to technology; new cars, computers and phones are rarely designed with them in mind. NPR reports that while improved medical care has reduced soldier deaths, the number of soldiers who lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan nearly doubled from 2009-2010.
That’s a lot of people who are going to need help doing things a lot of us take for granted—like use our phones. Now, instead of balancing the phone on his arm or having to find a flat table to put it on, Prideaux can simply raise his arm and start typing or make a call.
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