Sunday, June 23, 2013

Blindness and Technology

Technology makes life easier, for people with visual impairments and blindness, since they can have access to technology and have a better way to live; here there are some   devices and equipment of the latest technology. 


BRAILLE SPOKEN:

This is one of the devices more accepted among people with visual disabilities. It is a handheld, lightweight and portable (half kilo) and small Braille spoken (like a paperback book) that is used to store and process information.
It also has several functions to read and write and to communicate with other systems through its unit. Data input is done through braille keyboard and output of information is performed through a voice synthesizer. It is a text editor to manage and process information, address book, calendar (date and time), stopwatch, dictionary and calculator.



TALKING CALCULATORS:


The devices are similar in appearance to conventional calculators but these also have mechanisms voice sound reproduced by the keys pressed and the results are shown.


TRANSLATOR DICTIONARY:



Electronic device similar to an agenda, that use an alphabetic keyboard; this allow you enter words for translation, and this process is done by synthesizing audible voice. It performs functions of translation from Spanish to English, or English to Spanish.



TALKING WATCHES:


Watches and prerecorded voice sounds built for the user to perform actions such as listening and changing the time, setting the alarm and selecting different alarm sounds. They come in bracelet and desktop type, in different languages.


TALKING THERMOMETER:


It is a conventional device by prerecorded voice and sound that informs the user body temperature. 



NAVIGATION BRACELET



This device provides blind people a level of independence that is currently impossible for many of them, This Bracelet simply makes that blind people can navigate easy and fast in a new city. The system relies on voice commands, audio and haptic feedback. 



BRAILLE POLAROID CAMERA


The Braille Polaroid Camera acts as an instant braille printer, translating the basic shape of an object into texture, so that the blind can collect “images” in an album.


“TOUCH COLOR” PAINTING TABLET


The Touch Color tablet uses thermal energy and a hand-held color wheel to create works of art. The color wheel can even capture actual colors from a user’s environment and transmit it to the tablet.



B TOUCH MOBILE PHONE


This phone is entirely done in braille. It allows the user to call and talk to people, or even send text messages that they receive in braille. This is a big thing since a lot of the world is wireless, so why shouldn’t they be? They can even do voice commands, and have the messages sent over text or have them read back to them.



TACTILE FLASH CARDS


 Now users can see what they feel through flashcards that give them different textures for different areas and things. They have ones for the zoo and for places such as the beach and forests. They have a lot of different ones that can teach those that are blind more about the world around them.



SMARTPHONE FOR BLIND PEOPLE



The unique innovative smartphone for visually challenged persons. The smartphone uses Shape Memory Alloy technology, based on the concept that metals remember their original shapes, i.e. expand and contract to its original shape after use.  The phone's 'screen' has a grid of pins, which move up and down as per requirement. The grid has a Braille display, where pins come up to represent a character or letter. This screen will be capable of elevating and depressing the contents to form patterns in Braille.



REFERENCES

weburbanist.com/.../12-ingenious-gadgets-technologies
https://nfb.org/technology-resource-list‎

www.rcpd.msu.edu › Signature Programs



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