Slashdot Mirror
Seeing-Eye Computer Guides Blind
sushant_bhatia writes "Wired News has a story about seeing-eye computer guides for the blind. This is an interesting piece on efforts at Arizona State University and Wright State University to provide features for individuals who are blind. A very interesting project is called the iCare Reader, which allows any individual who is blind to read a normal library book through this product, which 'uses optical character-recognition software along with other software that compensates for different lighting conditions and orientations of the text.' Further details on this can be found at The Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing (Cubic)."
Maybe now we can stop paying for braille buttons at drive-through ATM's.
Yes, I know it was a joke.
There's actually a really good explanation for this. It actually keeps costs down to have braille on the drive-though ATMs. If braille is on every ATM the only difference between a drive-through ATM and an ATM that you can walk to is where it's located. Since only one model is needed to do everything, costs go down. It really is that simple.
Help I'm a rock.
Nowhere did I say that a blind person shouldn't be able to do that, or use the tech. What I complained about is that the blurb and article are not well written. Fact: it does not let a blind person read. The only way I am aware of that allows a blind person to read is with braille or some other tactile writing method. Fact: it only helps some (admittedly, most) blind people.
As far as if blind people want the tech, let me ask my wife...
OK, I'm back, she's not interested, because she's also deaf. What she would like is more and cheaper refreshable braille devices, and DRM-free e-Books.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Related experimental technology for the blind is also available for free elsewhere ("The vOICe"): Mobile OCR for the blind includes speech recognition and speech synthesis support. Currently the proof-of-concept demonstrator uses the GOCR OCR engine, but other (object?) recognition engines can be easily added. Stereo vision for the blind
Some time ago (in 2002) there was a story on /. linking to this Wired article which I remember as interesting. By stimulating certain areas of the brain they were trying to tap directly in to the visual center of the brain and create an image.
I also found this more recent article that predicts the technology to be avaiable in 4-5 years time.
Look a monkey!
See here.
I'm not exactly blind, I learned about this as a student project. Doesn't seem like much at first, but long time blind users claim that they experience vision-like sensations, some of them mention seeing depth.
The technology doesn't allow reading, but is praised by users for the fact that it doesn't filter information - a video image is transformed to sound in a reversible (after training) way.
And yet the idea is as simple as fork and spoon, requiring shorter training time than learning to read.
Have you seen this?
Like I said, it's a great bit of tech. It just concerns me when developers get speech or audible devices, and say 'good enough'. (Not saying you are doing that, BTW).
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I'm a web developer for the Employment and Disability Institute.
In my experience, people who use screen readers have the speed turned up for the same reason that, when you or I go to a web page, we don't read every word - we 'scan' the links or maybe the text for something interesting. We discard a lot of the information that is given to us.
(Some) people who rely on screen readers are able to process auditory information much faster than sighted users, and so they're just doing the same thing - racing through the stuff that's there, looking for something that interests them. I personally don't find this any more annoying than I find listening to any computerized voice talk at me all day, but then, I only deal with it occasionally.
Improvements in the technology are usually focused on actually reading content properly. Like web pages with invalid markup or improper semantic structure.
If it's "no photography" because of concerns about copyright (which is rarely the reason), the device might fall under the exception found at Section 121 of the Copyright Act, Limitations on exclusive rights: reproduction for blind or other people with disabilities. 17 USC 121