Seeing-Eye Computer Guides Blind 136
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)."
ATM's (Score:4, Funny)
;-)
Re:ATM's (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:ATM's (Score:1)
Re:ATM's (Score:5, Insightful)
Two things
1) Pedestrians are not allowed to use the drive through cash machine, blind or otherwise, for safty reasons. If you were blind would you want to wander where the cars go? Know of any fast food places that take orders for fast food without a car? Would your drive up teller do business with a pedestrian?
2) I've noticed that while they have put brail on drive up cash machines... none of the ones *I* know about have any sorta voice ability. As in a blind man can use one, know where the buttons are, but isn't going to know the first menu is 3rd button for english, 5th for spanish. Let alone the menu after you hit withdraw is asking for the hot buttons for the ammount of cash, or the last right one for other ammount, is this correct, do you want a rescript.
I have walked a few blind people through the process, well until the bank manager yelled at us for being pedestrians in the drive through lane. Each of the people I helped decided just to use the debit at the local supermarket. Far less dangerious.
I'm all for brail being standard on these machines. I'm all for rectroactivly putting brail stickers on the machines. However expeding blind people to just use the drive through lane is a touch silly!
Re:ATM's (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, there's a couple of problems with that. Not all (relatively few, apparently!) blind people know braile for a start. Verne doesn't.
And the ATM machine doesn't provide any feedback.
They don't speak, and when they beep it's only to draw attention to something on the screen.
There's no indication that the machine accepted the pin number, g
Pedestrians (Score:2)
Why is it unsafe to mix pedestrians and cars in this situation? Wal-Mart mixes them in their parking lot, and cars move a lot faster in a parking lot than waiting in line for the ATM. I'll grant that the blind will have more trouble than a seeing person, but if the drivers are paying attention (a different rant) this isn't more of a problem than anywhere else. Less of a problem than crossing the street for instance because the cars are moving slower.
I regularly use the drive up ATMs as a pedestrian, the
Re:ATM's (Score:1)
Re:ATM's (Score:2)
No I get that, I get that 100%. I have no issue with a standard keyboard where the standard is brail. This is not silly. Retrofitting the drive up cash machine with brail when that's the only one... that is silly.
It makes perfect sense to have one standard of keyboard, and it having brail bumps on it. It makes NO sense to order peel and stick
Re:ATM's (Score:2)
Re:ATM's (Score:4, Insightful)
A blind person could do the same if someone drove them there. It allows them to use the machine without assistance.
But... Can it read PrOn? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:But... Can it read PrOn? (Score:1)
Re:But... Can it read PrOn? (Score:1)
Re:ATM's (Score:1)
Yes, we could. The blind person could drive up, scan the buttons using the iCare Reader, do their banking, and drive off.
Re:ATM's (Score:1)
heh (Score:1, Funny)
Photography and copyright (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Photography and copyright (Score:1)
True... (Score:2)
Re:Photography and copyright (Score:1)
Re:Photography and copyright (Score:2)
Re:Photography and copyright (Score:1)
Re:Photography and copyright (Score:2)
Unless it commits it to a disk, and doesn't process it real-time (which it would have to, seeing as it's a real-time application), it would be "recording" it. As it isn't, it isn't. :-P
Re:Photography and copyright (Score:1)
BTW what does the box say when there are no words, characters etc for it to process? "Nothing to see here...nothing to see here either...nothing-" ??
Re:Photography and copyright (Score:2, Informative)
Wrong, imprecise blurb (Score:5, Insightful)
This is wrong for two reasons. First, this only helps blind people who can hear. Yes, that's most of them, but not 'any' individual.
Second, you are wrong that this allows a blind person to read a book. This allows a book to be read to a blind person. These are two different situations. Some Braille advocacy groups have participated in and helped publish studies showing that books on tape are processed differently that literature that is read. Those who read have better comprehension and retention of both the text, and provide better analysis of the subtext.
Being read to is not a substitute for being able to read. Teach a man to fish and all of that. Nifty technology, but the submitter and author of the linked article present it as something it isn't.
Re:Wrong, imprecise blurb (Score:2, Insightful)
So let the blind folks decide if this technology lives or dies.
-b
Re:Wrong, imprecise blurb (Score:3, Informative)
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 w
Re:Wrong, imprecise blurb (Score:1)
Re:Wrong, imprecise blurb (Score:1)
Re:Wrong, imprecise blurb (Score:2, Informative)
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).
That looks amazingly cool. (Score:2)
Re:Wrong, imprecise blurb (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Wrong, imprecise blurb (Score:1)
And I was complaining about a blurb. Something that I would assume an 'editor' would 'edit'.
Re:Wrong, imprecise blurb (Score:2)
Something that I would assume an 'editor' would 'edit'
You must be new here. Welcome to slashdot.
Re:Wrong, imprecise blurb (Score:2, Insightful)
i must be new here, i know.
Re:Wrong, imprecise blurb (Score:1)
Re:Wrong, imprecise blurb (Score:1)
Some people might claim that reading Braille text is closer to reading printed text than listening to text.
Re:Wrong, imprecise blurb (Score:1)
Let me try again. EEGs show that a blind person who uses braille is activating the same sections of the brain as a sighted person who reads. A blind person who listens does not activate the same centers. Of course, the visual cortex isn't activated with braille reading, but this is one of the few exceptions.
The best alternative to reading with your eyes is reading with your hands.
Re:Wrong, imprecise blurb (Score:2)
It seems to me that such a device with a simple brail output like you'd find on a blind terminal would allow a blind person to read a book in text, depending on how good the OCR is. I'm not sure how common those devices are, i've only seen larger clunky 70s vintage blind terminals.
Not that anything modern isn't already in digital format by the time it's published, they don'
Re:Wrong, imprecise blurb (Score:1)
What I've been doing is grabbing some bookwarez. If the publisher won't comply, I'm not averse to a little self-help. Since my wife and I share
Hmmmm (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)
I'd rather have a queer-eye computer (Score:3, Funny)
Reminds me of my dorm life (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Reminds me of my dorm life (Score:1)
Re:Reminds me of my dorm life (Score:2)
Re:Reminds me of my dorm life (Score:2, Funny)
Would be nice if they had a 3D Pop up for the centerfold though.. Blind and sighted would benefit from that!
Re:Reminds me of my dorm life (Score:3, Funny)
Sight for the blind. (Score:3, Interesting)
Curiosity, thy friend is Google. (Score:2)
Re:Curiosity, thy friend is Google. (Score:5, Informative)
I also found this [wired.com] more recent article that predicts the technology to be avaiable in 4-5 years time.
Re:Curiosity, thy friend is Google. (Score:2)
Re:Sight for the blind. (Score:1)
How Ironic, (Score:2)
Now combine this with a Norelco optical mouse, and I think you've got a wiener.
I meant winner.
Is it just me, or... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Is it just me, or... (Score:1)
Not "Seeing Eye" (Score:1)
This cannot be described as "Seeing Eye" technology unless it's developed in conjunction with The Seeing Eye Inc. [seeingeye.org]
At last! Now a whole world is open to the blind. (Score:1)
Yes, but... (Score:1)
As a Blind Harvard Teaching Fellow (BTF).....
Interesting but.... (Score:4, Interesting)
1. These programs read absolutely everything on a screen thats displayed.
2. The people using them usually have the speed/pitch turned up to max to get through the nonsense, and therefore the computer sounds like its got the Smurfs (tm) trapped inside.
Has the technology gotten better than this or is it still as annoying to hear? I'd hate to be a library listening to that in the background...
Re:Interesting but.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Interesting but.... (Score:1)
Of course, this is not quite true: your other choice is not to use the technology, which is sadly the fate of many funky projects and prototypes that require too much effort on the part of the user to be worthwhile to use. The
Re:Interesting but.... (Score:3, Informative)
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 thr
Nothing.... (Score:1)
Great news (Score:2, Insightful)
But..
When getting real about all this, this is the best news I ever heard. This is precisely what computers should be used for. And it happens cause you and me are so stupid that we buy those silly computer and webcams we do not need, for alot more money then they worth. If you and me wouldnt be so dumb, they wouldnt become mainstream, and if they didnt this stuff wouldnt be invented.
This is the greatest computer use I
For hearing impaired (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:For hearing impaired (Score:1)
Re:For hearing impaired (Score:1)
I am not sure what you mean. They provide the same information that the ear receives for the most part (depending on display resolution).
Again, some researchers have learned to read them and understand what was being spoken. (Although I am not sure it was in near real-time or not.)
Re:For hearing impaired (Score:2)
Mobile Eye Phone (Score:5, Interesting)
A combination of the two technology would create a fallback when this new technology fail. And it will fail, just look at OCR.
Re:Mobile Eye Phone (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Mobile Eye Phone (Score:1)
For comparison/benchmarking... (Score:4, Informative)
seeing eye computer goes blind (Score:1)
similar to something I wrote.. (Score:5, Interesting)
My blind friend uses a barcode reader to scan cans and bottles in his cupboards. At the moment, the script looks up the product description from a textfile provided by the local supermarket, but we've found things like "WAT TM SSE" to be less-than-ideal. (it runs under linux, scanner plugs into keyboard plug, script runs on console, greps for barcode and reads the 'description' via festival.)
The next version, his wife will be able to scan the groceries and record a proper description, cooking instructions, etc, as short mp3 files while she unpacks the weekly shopping.
So, no more cat-food or tomato-sauce incidents when he's looking for a can of spagetti for lunch!
Re:similar to something I wrote.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:similar to something I wrote.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm guessing RFID would be a huge boon to your friend. Hold the scanner near the item, it won't matter what orientation it's in.
Re:similar to something I wrote.. (Score:1)
RFID would be a HUGE bonus!!!
But what about moving around? (Score:3, Interesting)
I read about a project to develop a portable technology for blind people that turned their environment into a soundscape (via a camera and an earpiece). Not a cheesy avatar-based load of crap with samples, but a real-time sonic rendering of the visual world. To the untrained ear it sounded like a complete noise, but to people who'd been using it for ages, it gives insight into what's going on around them. Another example of the brain's incredible capacity to make sense out of what appears to be complete nonsense.
Re:But what about moving around? (Score:1)
Re:But what about moving around? (Score:2)
Re:But what about moving around? (Score:1)
This made no sense what so ever (Score:2)
Bah - way to early in the morning for my brain to work.
Looks like a circumvention device to me. (Score:1)
Re:Looks like a circumvention device to me. (Score:1)
Seeing-Eye Computer Goes Blind (Score:1)
Did anyone else read the subject line and 'see' what I did? :-D
Re:Seeing-Eye Computer Goes Blind (Score:1)
I noticed my mistake after reading your question!
Seeing with sound (Score:2, Informative)
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 learnin
allergies... (Score:3, Interesting)
Just Realised it is April 2nd (Score:1, Funny)
Misread the headline (Score:1)
Re:Enough with the "goes blind" thing! (Score:2)
Does it run windows? (Score:3, Funny)
OCR and the community (Score:1)
It seems ridiculous to me that copyright laws should prevent someone -- especially if they are Visually Impaired -- from having access to a book someone already has digitized once. Will they be forced to set it up for scanning, turn the pages, spend more energy (human and machine) re-doing something that could be close
Re:OCR and the community (Score:1)
Another living thing goes obsolete... (Score:1)
Note to self (Score:1)
Re:How many fingers? (Score:2, Funny)
The machine needs more work then, unless you actually have nine fingers.
Re:How many fingers? (Score:1)
Um, how many do you have?