Google has invested $1 million in Wayfindr, which is the first smartphone platform to help the blind navigate through towns and cities. This comes as no surprise after Facebook revealed that it would make their platform usable for the blind.
Wayfindr is Audible Navigation for the Blind
The technology is still on trial, currently at London Underground’s Euston Station. This station sees plenty of traffic daily. Users are prompted on how to move around through audio provided by the prototype app. It uses beacons dotted around the station to help the blind better navigate.
The Bottom Line: Giving The Disabled Independence
Wayfindr ultimately seeks to help people with vision impairment navigate cities with total independence and as easily as everyone else. Wayfindr will greatly benefit from having Google as an investor, since it can now partner with great navigation apps like Citymapper or Google Maps to develop the technology.
With a reliable way to navigate, the blind will have a much easier time getting around. This project is not a small scale one, either, since having beacons would require a large scale construction and agreements with many government authorities. Thankfully, this is a step in the best direction. New technology is quieter, more efficient and cleaner, and it is only fair that it accommodates the disabled community as well as the abled one.
Mark Zuckerberg just announced that Facebook has launched an accessibility feature which allows visually impaired people to experience Facebook. The development allows Facebook’s AI to read the user whatever’s happening in a picture, describing the people it recognizes, the scene and the action unfolding.
Facebook has recently become a much more complete platform, having introduced ‘moments’ and safety features to indicate users are safe after disasters, and this should be one more step into making the website that much more accessible and almost motherly towards it users.
Using your eyes takes a lot of energy, especially if you’re a fish. The energy costs associated with good vision have led certain species of fish to just grow up without eyes, according to a group of researchers from Lund University in Sweden.
The Price of Sight for Cavefish
The recent study, published in the Science Advances journal, focuses on the eyeless Mexican Cavefish. While their above-ground fish counterparts have perfect vision, the cavedwellers in this species seem to have developed without eyes in order to save energy.
Researchers determined that developing young cavefish can save between five and fifteen percent of their energy if they grow up without eyes, numbers that were apparently much higher than the authors of the study expected to see. In the case of the Mexican Cavefish, the energy costs were calculated according to the oxygen consumption levels of their eyes and of the parts of their brains associated with vision.
Whereas the ground-dwelling fish live in a comparatively light- and nutrient-rich environment, fish that make their homes in darkness really have no use for sight. Rather, they find food and avoid predators using other senses. It makes much more sense for the cavefish, evolutionarily, to expend that energy elsewhere, especially considering what a high energy cost it really is for good eyesight. The fish repurpose the energy that would be spent on vision systems and use it instead to build other organs.
This calculated trade-off becomes particularly necessary due to the relatively low levels of resources present in cave environments. Their surroundings are nutrient-poor, that “if the animal didn’t sacrifice its eyes, it would have to sacrifice some other part of itself,” as Swedish zoologist Eric Warrant so poetically puts it.
The Work Is Never Done
Critics of the study argue that more hard evidence is needed in order to give backing to the energy theory. However, the findings still work to support existing assumptions about evolutionary processes in relation to species’ environments.
Furthermore, it might be interesting to take these questions regarding the price of sight, reinterpret them, and apply them to people. A good percentage of the energy spent on vision systems is consumed by the neurons that process the images. What could neuroscientists tell us about the energy costs associated with not just visual sight, but intellectual and philosophical sight? Do people who pursue different kinds of knowledge embody different physiological advantages or disadvantages as they go through life? How much energy does it really take to do a good job on your homework?
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Tech companies have struggled to provide much needed accessibility to people who are visually impaired for quite some time, but the team behind the Dot hopes to change that. The Dot is the world’s first active braille smartwatch, and the idea is to bring users an affordable way for them to read things like messages, tweets, and e-books straight from their wrist.
Saving Braille
Many recent studies show that there is a worrisome decline in braille literacy among people who are visually impaired. In 2012, NPR reported that many braille readers were turning more and more to their smartphones to provide them with information, and were beginning to forget how to read braille altogether.
The team of South Korean engineers understands that relying on technology like Siri to read text data can be inefficient and sometimes inaccurate. According to the team of engineers, only one percent of books are even translated into braille, and the cost of braille e-readers is so outrageous that reading can often times be an incredible hassle. So, they’re setting out to provide users with a product that will not only encourage users to read braille, but also help them learn to read it.
How it Works
The technology behind the Dot is actually quite brilliant. It collects text data from the user’s smartphone and translates the data into braille. On the face of the device are four groups of six dots which react to a series of magnets to create braille letters.
Technology exists like this in other formats, but having a device so portable makes the Dot incredibly unique. Currently, the developers are trying to hit a price point somewhere under $300 for the device, which is about on par with how much most smartwatches cost anyway. Considering $300 is much cheaper than the reported $2000 of most braille e-book readers, many people might find this to be a pretty attractive price.
Facing Criticism
Despite the device still being in development, the watch has already received some criticism in regards to how many braille letters the smartwatch can display at any given time. In a lengthy comment in the original article, Eric Ju Yoon Kim, CEO of dot incorporation, mentioned that the braille cells will actually act as an “escalator” as the data is translated for the user.
Currently, the dot Team hasn’t mentioned when exactly this might hit shores here in the US, but users can visit the start-up’s page in order to sign up for updates.
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I took the class for 4 semesters and it came very naturally to me. I’m an animated speaker so I use my hands when I talk anyway; why not be saying something with them too? I’ve made friends with so many deaf students and tutors from school, and it honestly is something that still excites me today to be able to talk to a deaf guest when they come into my restaurant.
Many people don’t know that being deaf is not a “handicap.”
To put it simply, deaf culture is just like any other culture where there might be a language barrier. Just as the Germans speak German and we speak English, deaf people speak ASL. Well not speak, but you get my point. Some people actually do speak.
I had a guest back when I was bartending who spoke to me and ordered her meal and drinks and I didn’t notice anything about it. She turned to look at the menu and I asked her a question. When she didn’t respond, I realized she didn’t hear me at all.
It’s actually more common for older deaf people to have some speaking abilities because for many years, their parents sent them to schools that taught them to be like us instead of teaching them how to communicate in their own language; to communicate in a way that they could instead of forcing them to pretend they could hear.
At the time, it was definitely seen as a handicap and parents didn’t want their children to be different. The culture was something that was still new and being learned about. Also, let’s just clear this up right now: if someone is deaf, it does not mean they can read your lips. That’s actually quite an offensive assumption to a deaf person.
Deaf people feel music much more than hearing people.
The most interesting thing I learned about deaf culture (and I really learned so many interesting things) was how they “hear” things. As an ASL student, we were required to attend different deaf events to acclimate ourselves to the culture. One of the first events I went to was an after party for the deaf school’s homecoming game. They had a hardcore band that took the stage by storm! These kids were so good. I was so amazed, and still learning, and didn’t even think of the fact that they could feel the sound vibrations on the stage. That’s how they kept tempo. They were awesome.
“Hearing” Gadgets Galore! Deaf Technology has advanced so much.
There are many different devices that deaf people use to communicate. First, let me mention cochlear implants, which have given many members of the deaf community another option. Basically, these little guys are implanted behind or above the ear and give the ear a sense of sound. I think, as a hearing person, one of the most convenient forms of technology to come out for distance communication is the FaceTime function on the iPhone. For many years, technology has been trying to encompass this concept and there have been devices created with this function, but none that I’ve seen (again, as a hearing person) that is as able and at-your-fingertips.
Earlier this year, the FDA approved a gadget that allows deaf people to “hear” with their tongue. It may not immediately sound like the most appealing way to communicate, but the science behind it is pretty cool. I’m sure your first though was someone licking all over a cell phone-like device. Maybe that was just me?
The FDA has also recently approved a device that will similarly help a blind person to “see.” This new form of “hearing” or “seeing” doesn’t require a surgical implant, unlike the cochlear implant, and is expected to be more affordable. In the same way that the implant sends signals to stimulate the auditory nerve, this new device will take sounds and convert them into patterns and impulses which will then be sent to a smart retainer held the in the mouth. The retainer, when pressed by the tongue, will send out tiny impulses in patterns to stimulate the tongue’s nerves. From there, the signals are relayed to the brain. The similar device made for the blind does the same thing, but will send different patterns for different colors in an image. It records with a camera, attached to a pair of glasses, the person’s surroundings and sends the signals to the mouthpiece.
Crossing The Bridge of Language
I know I’m excited to see how this device adds to my local deaf community. Technology has become such an incredible resource to many different cultures and now even more so to the deaf culture. While most of the technologies mentioned take time to adjust to, and require some training, it’s awesome to see more and more options become available to help bridge the language barrier between so many different cultures.
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A device that helps blind people ‘see’ with their tongues has recently earned FDA approval. The BrainPort V100, which had already been available in Europe since 2013, converts video imagery to electrotactile signals that paint a sort of picture of the world around the user. It took 15 years of research to develop the revolutionary device, and blind people in the United States can now benefit from it thanks to this recent development.
How does the BrainPort device work?
The BrainPort V100, created by Wisconsin company Wicab, uses a video camera to gather visual data. That visual data then gets translated into moderate electrical stimuli for the tongue. The device features a 400-electrode sensor array, allowing the electrical stimuli to paint a sort of feel-based image on the tongue. The electrodes as sort of like pixels, and can show locations of objects as well as their direction and speed. After some practice with the device, a blind user can use it to “see.”
69 percent of study sample population could identify objects thanks to the BrainPort device.
FDA testing showed that after a year of practice with the BrainPort V100, 69 percent of the 74 people in the study could “see” with their tongues based on an object recognition test. Word identification tests were also concluded. The only side effect of the device seems to be a slight amount of discomfort, according to the study. Some users reported a burning or stinging sensation, as well as a metallic taste from the device. Either way, the Brainport device poses no real risks to health, and a very valuable potential benefit to blind people all over the world.
Where did the idea for the BrainPort V100 originate?
The idea behind this important new device came from Paul Bach-y-Rita, an American neuroscientist who championed the idea of using neuroplasticity to treat patients with disabilities. Neuroplasticity is the changing of neural pathways and synapses due to changes in thinking, emotions, environment, behavior, as well as those resulting from injury. Bach-y-Rita developed a chair in the 1960s that would translate visual images into tactile patterns on a patient’s back. He then came up with the technology for a new idea, a brain-tongue connection, thus paving the way for the BrainPort device to help blind people today.
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