<human>: So I am working with a person in their 60s who had gotten [locked-in syndrome] For those too impatient to wiki, he has no voluntary muscle movement of anything except his eyes. No speech, but higher cortical functioning, including language understanding, is preserved. He blinks to communicate yes or no but no complex system for spelling has been tried yet. He seems conscious and alert for a few hours each day.

He has one living family member, a brother who traveled from out of town. The brother has been reading to him every day from the newspaper and various financial magazines, but has to return home soon because of his work. The brother is concerned that the patient, who is very intellectually active, will get bored laying in a hospital bed without people to entertain him. I have gotten somewhat emotionally involved and want to help a brother out. So, I need suggestions to offer to supplement hired sitters coming and reading to the patient. Here are the criteria I'm imagining (in order of importance):

1. Media availability: should be able to at very least play things like news podcasts and music. Ideally, would be able to play videos or something. Should be able to play these media through speakers in a hospital/nursing home room loud enough for a sort of old guy to hear.

2. Ease of use: will probably need to be manipulated by not only 1-3 hired sitters who can actually be shown how to use it, but also by various hospital staff (who might need to turn it off for some reason or other). The people who are using it might not be technically savvy.

3. Security: shouldn't be able to vanish mysteriously when confronted with the unscrupulous.

4. Cost: prefer lower than $6-700 (I would imagine but am unsure what exactly the brother is willing to buy).

5. Topics of interest include business/finance and international news.

We came up with an idea for an iPad with some unknown peripheries. I would appreciate any guidance about peripheries, alternatives, and things that you might want in this situation.

Thank you in advance!

Give me the gist of the text in a nutshell
<bot>: If you were stuck with no way to interact with the outside world what sort of device would you want to be plunked down in front of?