Legally blind since age 18, my father missed out on the first digital revolution.
“Is it ‘Electra?’” my father asks, leaning in close to the Amazon Echo my mother has just installed. Leaning in close is his trademark maneuver: Dad has been legally blind since age 18, the result of a horrible car crash in 1954. He has lived, mostly successfully, with limited vision for the 64 years since.
Continue reading… “Alexa Is a Revelation for the Blind”
3D printed map.
While modern technology has benefited most of us by turning the things we consume from physical object into pixels on a screen, those with sight difficulties don’t get along well with visual stimuli or touchscreen devices. We have seen Yahoo! Japan develop Hands On Search, a project that lets blind kids carry out web searches with 3D printed results. Now the country’s governmental department GSI is creating software that will enable those with visual impairments to print out 3D versions of online maps.
Continue reading… “3D printed maps will enable the blind to navigate their city”
MIT’s FingerReader
Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists are developing an audio reading device to be worn on the index finger of people whose vision is impaired, giving them affordable and immediate access to printed words.
Continue reading… “FingerReader reads to the blind in real time”
FingerReader
Louis Braille, in 1829, developed a tactile system that would allow those with vision impairment to read books. Braille uses a series of raised dots and the finger trails over a line of braille text and the reader interprets it, much like we do with standard letters of the alphabet that form words. Braille, however, does require some training to understand, and even now, most books, magazines, and newspapers are unavailable in braille format. MIT researchers have changed that problem with a new piece of wearable technology that reads books out loud to those with vision problems. (Video)
Continue reading… “FingerReader enables visually impaired to read any printed or digital book”
The treatment involves electrodes implanted in the eyes of people whose retinas are damaged.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first treatment that can restore (limited) eyesight to (some) blind people, last week. It’s an exciting milestone, despite the caveats.
Continue reading… “First ‘bionic eye’ implants will hit the U.S. market this year”
Scientists restore vision to blind mice.
There are three blind men who have an inherited eye disorder that had destroyed the light-sensing cells of their retinas many years ago. Now one of the blind men can walk around at night navigating by streetlight and headlights. Another can read his own name. And the third mean has been able to see his fiancée’s smile for the very first time. All of this has been made possible by the retinal implants they have been fitted with. The implants took over from the broken cells. They sense incoming light by converting it into electrical impulses delivered to the brain. They aren’t close to having 20/20 vision, but they have restored sight to people who have lived without it for years.
Continue reading… “Scientists restore sight to blind mice by regenerating optic nerve”
The goal is to help visually impaired people move around more efficiently without physical aids.
head-up display. Two cameras mounted to a pair of glasses generate a three-dimensional image of a person’s environment and their place in it, displaying the information on a handheld Braille device.
Continue reading… “3D video glasses create maps for blind people”
Every visually impaired child tested was ‘enthralled’ by the device, say scientists.
According to researchers from the University of Kansas, children living with severe vision problems could transform the way they communicate simply by using an iPad.
Continue reading… “How the iPad may help children with severe vision impairments”
Blinput
“Blinput” is a concept intended to make the lives of the visually impaired that little bit easier. (Video)
Continue reading… “Blinput – A Smartphone Concept for the Visually Impaired”
An experimental retinal implant allowed a blind research subject to see well enough to distinguish between different kinds of fruit.
Scientists have developed an eye implant that allowed three blind patients to see shapes and objects within days of treatment in a trial and say the device could become routine for some kinds of blindness in five years.
Continue reading… “Eye Implant Developed That Allows Blind to See Shapes and Objects”
Bike rides for the visually impaired and blind.
In a very interesting initiative that began last January, a group of three non governmental organizations from Mexico City are organizing bike rides for the blind and visually impaired. The rides are guided by volunteers on tandem bikes, and are offered on Sunday mornings, when a few streets in the historical center of the city are closed for pedestrians and human powered vehicles. What does this do for these people? More than you would think.
VI Fit video games help visually impaired children become more physically active.
VI Fit, a project at the University of Nevada, Reno, helps children who are blind become more physically active and healthy through video games. The human-computer interaction research team in the computer science and engineering department has developed a motion-sensing-based tennis and bowling exergame.
Continue reading… “VI Fit – Video Game Project to Help Blind Children Exercise”
