Tag: BLIND

The National Federation of the Blind has asked the Justice Department to investigate several universities' implementation of Google e-mail, documents and calendar services, saying that the apps' inability to link up with text-to-speech programs puts the schools in violation of the Americans with Disabilities act. The complaint focuses on two schools -- NYU and Northwestern -- but, given the ...

Many countries print their currencies in different sizes or shapes in order to help the blind and visually impaired pay for things with greater confidence. In the U.S., however, a $1 bill and a $100 bill have exactly the same dimensions, making it difficult for America's blind to tell the difference. Fortunately, though, there's a new iPhone app that can help. With the LookTel Money Reader, ...

The idea of a blind man playing video games might seem a bit odd, but Terry Garrett, a mechanical engineering student from Colorado Springs, isn't about to let a little thing like not being able to see stop him from being an avid player. The 23-year old lost sight in one eye when he was 5, and was totally blind by age 10. His lack of sight does limit him somewhat in terms of what he is able ...

An artificial retina designed to help some blind people regain their sight has already paid dividends for a few patients. Developed by the U.S. company Second Sight, the Argus II is an implant that can be surgically inserted into a patient's eye. A small camera attached to the patient's glasses captures images, and transmits them to a small wireless computer. The computer processes the images, ...

Mark Riccobono, who has been legally blind since the age of 5, showed off some of the Ford Escape's new features at the Daytona International Speedway on Saturday... by driving one. As part of the activities scheduled before the Rolex 24, Riccobono, who is also the executive director of the National Federation of the Blind's Jernigan Institute, piloted the hybrid SUV around the famed racetrack ...

The Web is teeming with the unrealized ideas of both students and established designers who set out to produce astonishing renderings and prototypes for unusual products. Unfortunately, due to the lack of time, money, or technology, many of those products never move from the planning stages to the mass market. But that doesn't mean we can't salivate over their creations, nevertheless. Getting ...

Researchers at University Eye Clinic in Tübingen, Germany have begun testing a new retinal implant designed to restore sight to the blind. Previous experiments like this have employed external cameras, but the new device uses the patient's eye itself to help collect and process visual data. A small chip is implanted in the rear of the eye, where it converts light into electronic impulses. ...

In a post on his blog, Austin Seraphin describes how recently purchasing an iPhone and the 'Color Identifier' app allowed him to "see" a whole new world of colors. Seraphin, who is legally blind, sees objects in blurs, and doesn't recognize colors -- just sources of light. He was skeptical of the praise for the iPhone until another visually impaired friend bought one and confirmed what Seraphin ...

If you shell out hard-earned money to spend an evening at the theater, you usually expect to actually see a show -- except when you are faced with 'The Question' at London's Battersea Arts Centre. Created by Extant, a performance arts group run by the blind and visually impaired, 'The Question' is an experiential installation that guides viewers through a pitch-black theater space. Attendees ...

The Web is teeming with the unrealized ideas of both students and established designers who set out to produce astonishing renderings and prototypes for unusual products. Unfortunately, due to the lack of time, money, or technology, many of those products never progress from the planning stages to the mass market. But that doesn't mean we can't salivate over them, nevertheless. Like them or ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/06/09/blind-hiker-battles-hardships-on-appalachian-trail-updates-face/?icid=main|aim|dl5|link1|http2Fwww.switched.com2F06%2F09%2Fblind-hiker-battles-hardships-on-appalachian-trail-updates-face%2F'; Share On March 5th, Mike Hanson set off to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. What makes Hanson's attempt to tackle all 2,174 miles of the longest hiking trail ...

While most of us continue to "ooh" and "ahh" over the flood of books that have been newly digitized for iPads and e-readers, blind bibliophiles are confined to the comparatively piddling collection of digitized books published in formats accessible to them. San Francisco's Internet Archive, however, has undertaken an ambitious digital archiving project to make sure that blind and dyslexic readers ...

While they can have a conversation, visually impaired people miss out on the most important part -- facial expressions. But a new system could change the blind's perception. According to Popular Science, a student -- as a thesis project at Umeà University in Sweden -- has developed a potentially groundbreaking technology that uses a Web-cam and a computer to transmit a series of vibrations, ...

Today, most blind Web surfers rely on Braille screen displays to read online articles. And despite recent advances, it remains a pretty arduous task. Instead of using lights, like most computer screens, Braille displays use electromechanically controlled pins to show information that's been digitally converted into Braille. The converted text then appears onscreen in the form of touchable ...

Share In September, we briefly mentioned a new device that could return sight, in limited fashion, to blind patients through the use of an electrode covered "lollipop." The inch-long device is placed on the tongue and is fed electrical signals from a small camera hidden in a pair of sun glasses. These small electrical impulses allow patients who have lost their sight to recognize simple ...