Jon Swartz

USA TODAY

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Eddie Redmayne is learning about much more than the beguiling life of Stephen Hawking, whom he plays in the recently released biopic Theory of Everything.

At Intel Labs here, the Tony-winning actor is on hands and knees to get a better look at a specially tailored communications system for Hawking, who has a motor neuron disease (MND) related to ALS that has worsened over the years, rendering him nearly paralyzed.

The new system — called ACAT (Assistive Context Aware Toolkit), created by a team that includes scientist Lama Nachman — was announced Tuesday by Intel. Its goal: To help millions like Hawking more easily communicate.

"Absolutely extraordinary," says Redmayne, whom audiences may remember as the earnest movie set assistant in My Week with Marilyn. "It is the best possible use of technology that professor Hawking uses. These people (pointing to Intel scientists) are among the most interesting I've ever met."

For Redmayne, Hawking was a mythical figure in Cambridge, where the then-Trinity College student would sometimes spot the legendary figure.

In researching the life and times of Hawking, the English actor immersed himself in the complex theories that made Hawking world famous in the fields of theoretical physics and cosmology.

"I tried to learn the intricacies and minutiae of his theories, which was overwhelming and intimidating," he says. "But when I met him, his humor and sense of mischief was immediately apparent. He has this lord of misrule quality."

Intel developed the technology with input from Hawking, with whom it has a longstanding relationship.

"Intel has been supporting me for more than 25 years, allowing me to do what I love every day," Hawking said in an e-mail to USA TODAY. "The development of this system has the potential to improve the lives of disabled people around the world."

MND and quadriplegia affect more than 3 million people worldwide, causing deterioration of voluntary muscle activities for speaking, walking, swallowing and body movement. It eventually leads to death.

The new Intel user interface operates like an engine. A sensor mounted on Hawking's cheek is detected by an infrared switch attached to his glasses, helping Hawking select a character on his computer. A customized version of the popular SwiftKey app has greatly improved the system's ability to predict his next characters, words and actions so he only has to type the first few characters of a word. That information is relayed to his speech synthesizer.

To search the Web, for example, Hawking previously had to take lengthy routes: Exit from a communication window, navigate a mouse to run the browser, navigate the mouse again to the search bar, and finally type the search text. The new system automates all of these steps seamlessly and quickly.

The customizable platform will be available to researchers and developers in January.

During a 20-minute demo at Intel, Redmayne could barely suppress his enthusiasm for the technology. "Not only do I get to play an amazing person on film, but I get an education in some really incredible stuff, right?" he said, smiling.