Seeing is believing

device helps the blind read

whole new world opened up for Tommy Craig as he tested a new handheld device for the blind that converts print to audio.

Craig was able to “read” everything from menus to cooking directions by positioning the reader over print and taking a picture. In seconds, the device’s synthetic voice read the printed message to him.

“The reader provides access to materials that a lot of times you just didn’t read,” said Craig, 51, of Austin, Texas, who was one of about 500 blind people who tested the device over the past few months. “It certainly makes you more independent.”

$10 Hand-Held Braille Writer

A group of university students at Johns Hopkins University has created a hand-held braille writer made from inexpensive mechanical parts. The device is expected to cost as low as $10.

From Johns Hopkins University:
To help provide a low-cost communication tool for blind people, undergraduates at The Johns Hopkins University have invented a lightweight, portable Braille writing device that requires no electronic components.

For a class called Engineering Design Project, four mechanical engineering majors were asked to produce such an instrument that would cost less than $50 each. The more sophisticated and generally more cumbersome typewriter-style or computer-based Braille writers available to blind people typically cost much more.

At the end of a two-semester research, design and testing process, the student inventors came in well below the target price. They estimated that their Braille writer, if mass-produced, would cost about $10 each in an easy-to-assemble kit. The team members recently presented their prototype to the project’s sponsor, the Baltimore- based National Federation of the Blind.

Bionic Eye Restores Sight to the Blind

Scientists have made incredible advancements in the development of technology that has the ability to restore sight. The first phase of development has successfully restored patients sight to the pont where light and motion is discernable and the outlines of well-defined objects can be identified.

Phase two will enhance these abilities and include several additional light-sensitive electrodes and plans are to advance the technology to the point where blind patients can discern faces and be able to get around on their own.

This bionic eye may be available commercially as soon as 2009, given the great success seen so far.

A bionic eye that can restore sight to the blind should be available commercially within two years... An early version of the prosthetic retina has already been fitted to six patients... All have recovered the ability to detect light and motion, and even to make out large letters and to distinguish between objects such as a cup, a knife and a plate. The second-generation device that is now starting trials should provide even better vision, as it contains 60 light-sensitive electrodes, compared with 16 in the previous model. More improvements are expected within five to seven years with a 1000-electrode implant that will enable previously blind people to recognize faces, Humayun said.