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Absolutely. for example, a big challenge for blind people is interacting with devices in the environment that report status via visual signals. For example, a b

Absolutely. for example, a big challenge for blind people is interacting with devices in the environment that report status via visual signals. For example, a blind coffee fiend I know can't tell what state his fancy espresso machine is in ("brewing", "out of beans") without sighted help to read the little display. He would happily wait a few minutes to get someone to tell him - it's quicker than waiting for his wife to come home.

chime 14y ago
If he has an iPhone, ask him to check out: http://vizwiz.org/ http://vizwiz.org/
drostie 14y ago
Thanks for this. Now I'm trying to think of ways that you could actuate thin metal rods, so that you could transform a greyscale picture into a sort of texture-photograph, so that you could "see" details by placing a hand atop it. If the rods are needle-thin you could probably get a reasonable resolution on it, and even have some brightness/contrast sliders on the side to help -- but it seems like the real problem is just moving all of those little rods automatically.
- paulsilver 14y ago
  If you built it, I think you'd find the real problem is having enough resolution in your fingertips to work out what the hell the picture is about. Lots of people who become visually impaired later in life can't read Braille as their fingertips aren't sensitive enough, especially if they did manual work earlier in their life. Working out a picture is even harder. As a side note about this, William Moon invented 'Moon script' which was a kind of simplified alphabet in embossed writing to help visually impaired people read. It was invented a little before Braille invented the raised dot patterns, and even after Braille became popular, Moon still had it's niche for those who didn't have the resolution for Braille. As Moon was based on the Roman alphabet, it was also easier to learn for people who'd been able to read then lost their sight.

chime 14y ago

If he has an iPhone, ask him to check out: http://vizwiz.org/ http://vizwiz.org/

drostie 14y ago

Thanks for this. Now I'm trying to think of ways that you could actuate thin metal rods, so that you could transform a greyscale picture into a sort of texture-photograph, so that you could "see" details by placing a hand atop it. If the rods are needle-thin you could probably get a reasonable resolution on it, and even have some brightness/contrast sliders on the side to help -- but it seems like the real problem is just moving all of those little rods automatically.

paulsilver 14y ago
If you built it, I think you'd find the real problem is having enough resolution in your fingertips to work out what the hell the picture is about. Lots of people who become visually impaired later in life can't read Braille as their fingertips aren't sensitive enough, especially if they did manual work earlier in their life. Working out a picture is even harder. As a side note about this, William Moon invented 'Moon script' which was a kind of simplified alphabet in embossed writing to help visually impaired people read. It was invented a little before Braille invented the raised dot patterns, and even after Braille became popular, Moon still had it's niche for those who didn't have the resolution for Braille. As Moon was based on the Roman alphabet, it was also easier to learn for people who'd been able to read then lost their sight.