Abstract: Various embodiments are described herein for an assistive device and associated method for interacting with at least one electronic device. In one example embodiment, the assistive device can include at least one communication interface, a memory, and at least one processing unit. The memory can store a whitelist of the at least one electronic device; and a gesture-to-command map of input signals in linked association with commands, including a selection command and a control command. The processing unit can be configured for sustaining an electronic communication connection to a target electronic device; receiving an input signal generated from user manipulation of a physical interface; searching the gesture-to-command map based on the input signal to determine a command; and using the at least one communication interface to transmit the command to the at least one electronic device thereby allowing the user to use the same assistive device for selecting and/or controlling at least one electronic device.

Abstract: Various embodiments are described herein for an assistive device and associated method for interacting with at least one electronic device. In one example embodiment, the assistive device can include at least one communication interface, a memory, and at least one processing unit. The memory can store a whitelist of the at least one electronic device; and a gesture-to-command map of input signals in linked association with commands, including a selection command and a control command. The processing unit can be configured for sustaining an electronic communication connection to a target electronic device; receiving an input signal generated from user manipulation of a physical interface; searching the gesture-to-command map based on the input signal to determine a command; and using the at least one communication interface to transmit the command to the at least one electronic device thereby allowing the user to use the same assistive device for selecting and/or controlling at least one electronic device.

Abstract: A method of, and system for, extracting topic words from a collection of documents across multiple and potentially very large number of domains. Documents are selected and ranked based on similarity with at least one seed word, which defines a topic. Seed words may be entered directly by a user or provided by another application. Keywords are extracted from documents determined to be a sufficiently good match to the topic and may be displayed to the user or used as input into word prediction or word analysis and display software. Documents are determined to be a sufficiently good match to the topic using an iterative algorithm starting with the best match and selecting documents containing keywords sufficiently similar to the previously selected documents.