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Software Hardware

Seeing-Eye Computer Guides Blind 136

Posted by simoniker from the jpegs-also-readable dept.
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)."
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Seeing-Eye Computer Guides Blind More

Seeing-Eye Computer Guides Blind

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  • ATM's (Score:4, Funny)

    by slimsam1 ( 591962 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @02:32AM (#8744664)
    Maybe now we can stop paying for braille buttons at drive-through ATM's.


    ;-)

    • Re:ATM's (Score:5, Informative)

      by prichardson ( 603676 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @02:38AM (#8744686) Journal

      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.

      • Well, I actually knew that, but you see the reason I didn't say that is the joke just isn't funny anymore with all the details. :-(

      • Re:ATM's (Score:5, Insightful)

        by zakezuke ( 229119 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @03:07AM (#8744791)
        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.

        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)

          by zcat_NZ ( 267672 )
          Verne has the same problem; he complained about the high 'teller' charges, and the bank told him that he should use the ATM machine. "they have braile on the buttons".

          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

        • 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

        • I think you missed the posters point. The reason brail is on the Drive-Thru machines is cost reasons. If they only have to stock,order,manufacture,track one type of keyboard rather than it is cheaper. I worked on a banking project in Canada during the merge of two banks. They had dozens of different machines what did they do, just bought all new machines for each location. It is just easier to have one machine type for different situations.
          • The reason brail is on the Drive-Thru machines is cost reasons.If they only have to stock,order,manufacture,track one type of keyboard rather than it is cheaper.

            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
      • Every braile pad I've seen on an ATM has been a plastic add-on sticker - a sheet that eventually ends up peeling off on the corners with wear. That doesn't sound like something that's manufactured into the machine. It's something slapped onto it afterward, and therefore NO it doesn't make it cheaper to make all machines with it.

      • Re:ATM's (Score:4, Insightful)

        by batura ( 651273 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @04:21AM (#8745005)
        The other thing is really obvious... Just becuase it is a drive up ATM, it doesn't mean that the driver is the one using the ATM. I've had my friend drive to my bank while I was in the back seat and went ahead and used the drive through ATM from there.

        A blind person could do the same if someone drove them there. It allows them to use the machine without assistance.
    • If that dohickey can describe the contents of a playboy to a blind man in sufficient detail to give him a high quality woody then I say it's nobel prize time. Why? It's no big deal for a blind man to find someone to read literature to him. However, it is considerably more difficult for a blind man to find someone willing to describe naked women to him while he jerks his gerkin. Do you have any idea what kind of overtime the average aide would charge for that level of service?
    • Maybe now we can stop paying for braille buttons at drive-through ATM's.

      Yes, we could. The blind person could drive up, scan the buttons using the iCare Reader, do their banking, and drive off.
    • These damn ATMs are no good to me! I need Braille on my car controls!

  • heh (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    i read seeing-eye computer GOES blind...it would have been a much better article

  • Photography and copyright (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TACD ( 514008 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @02:37AM (#8744680) Homepage
    This is a great idea, but I can see issues arising when this is used in an environment which stipulates 'no photography' or in any circumstance where photography would be discouraged. People trust dogs to be unable to reproduce images or sounds they've experienced after the fact, I doubt that a machine would ever be granted this same trust.
    • Meh, I doubt it would record any of the images... and if the blind guy knows how to guide his e-dog into women's locker rooms, I think someone would figure out what's going on...
    • At least Goldie the Guide Dog would't end up leading someone under a juggernaut due to an error in unpatched software..
    • You are right in pointing out cases where no photography could cause us problems further down the line. Thanks for your input. That is something to consider if my bosses and colleagues haven't already thought of this.
    • It doesn't actually record anything, so there's nothing to duplicate any copyrighted material from. Also, the fact the camera is hidden in glasses on a blind person means most people aren't gonna cause a fuss.
      • It does have to record the video stream in order to process it but it might choose to discard the video once it is done. This is an operational decision to be made by the bosses.
        • That's heading towards the pedantry section at alarming speed... ;)

          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

    • If there was a sign stating " No Photography", then surely the 'e-dogbotoid' would recognise it and read it out to the blind user.. allowing him/her to veer away, much as intended with "No Entry" etc.

      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-" ??

    • If it's "no photography" because of concerns about copyright (which is rarely the reason), the device might fall under the exception found at Section 121 of the Copyright Act, Limitations on exclusive rights: reproduction for blind or other people with disabilities. 17 USC 121 [findlaw.com]

  • Wrong, imprecise blurb (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gmhowell ( 26755 ) <gmhowell@gmail.com> on Friday April 02, 2004 @02:37AM (#8744682) Homepage Journal
    which allows any individual who is blind to read a normal library book through this product,

    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)

      by Anonymous Coward
      who knows, some blind person may want to read advanced quantum mechanics book that ain't available throigh braille. To me, this doesn't sound about idealism; it's about choice that becomes available to the blind individuals.

      So let the blind folks decide if this technology lives or dies.

      -b

      • Nowhere did I say that a blind person shouldn't be able to do that, or use the tech. What I complained about is that the blurb and article are not well written. Fact: it does not let a blind person read. The only way I am aware of that allows a blind person to read is with braille or some other tactile writing method. Fact: it only helps some (admittedly, most) blind people.

        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
        • You are quite correct in stating my error in reporting this article. It does read to an individual who is blind but has hearing. I think we did consider the case of an individual who is both blind and deaf. Personally I would like to see a refreshable braille device for a pda because the long term goal of this product is to be a "wearable" device. Having said that I think the technology to accomplish that is still a few years away. But when it does become available and if I am still on this project, I will
          • I seem to recall seeing a product a few years ago that looked like a prosthetic hand. A blind and deaf person could carry it around and it would sign to them (using the alphabet) what people said. I believe that it used some kind of voice to text software, but I could be wrong and there was a keyboard involved. Has anyone else seen this?
          • Have you seen this [blinksoft.biz]?

            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).
            • I have come up with an amazing use for it, too. Amazing! Heh heh, just realized I was saying that. Anyway, get that and a normal ebook reader, and put them together. It would be tricky to do but with a guide to braille characters handy (heh heh again) you would have a neat system for learning braille (for the sighted, obviously.) It would be even better to get the two to communicate, but just having them in the same physical location would be enough. It won't help anyone who really needs help, but I'd love
    • We should let you filter all of the comments on slashdot. It would get rid of all the useless crap. Oh, wait. Anyone who doesn't like useless crap shouldn't be here anyway! ;-)
    • OTOH, a blind person will never be able to experience reading like you do since they can not see. This technology seems to be the best alternative out there to actually seing, WRT reading at least.

      • Some people might claim that reading Braille text is closer to reading printed text than listening to text.

      • EEGs show that the brain of a blind person who learns braille quickly begins to look like a person who reads.

        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.
    • 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.

      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'
      • Not sure what the 70's era machines looked like, but as always, Google is your friend [google.com]. Alva [alvabraille.com] makes tons of them, but they are hella expensive. The ABT320 in the middle is one of the cheapest, and I think it cost voc rehab about $3000 to buy it for my wife. The Bookworm [blinksoft.biz] is another product we'd like. It only has 8 cells, but is a nice size. Unfortunately, $1400, IIRC.

        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)

    by Neil Blender ( 555885 ) <neilblender@gmail.com> on Friday April 02, 2004 @02:38AM (#8744685)
    That explains why my dog has been moping around all day. His dreams have been crushed.

  • I'd rather have a queer-eye computer (Score:3, Funny)

    by britneys 9th husband ( 741556 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @02:52AM (#8744733) Homepage Journal
    Instead of having a seeing eye computer, I'd rather have a queer-eye computer that could tell me whether or not my clothes match in the morning.

  • Reminds me of my dorm life (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Neil Blender ( 555885 ) <neilblender@gmail.com> on Friday April 02, 2004 @02:56AM (#8744745)
    This is totally OT but when I was a freshman I had a blind neighbor in the dorm who subscribed to a braille version of Playboy. It came in a cardboard box because it took four bound paper volumes for each edition - each one was at least an inch thick. Of course, we made all the obvious jokes about the pictures being in braille.

  • Sight for the blind. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by s0rbix ( 629316 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @02:56AM (#8744747)
    I am curious to know if there are any systems in development to let blind people regain their vision through the use of computers/computer implants.
  • seeing how most Slashdotters' computers make them go blind.

    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)

    by Quattro Vezina ( 714892 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @03:07AM (#8744792) Journal
    Did anyone else misread the headline as saying that the ``seeing eye computer guides'' were blind?
  • Namely that of porn and disturbing images - mind you, would want a seeing eye device describing just what the goatse guy is/was doing to his ass? And don't even get me started on a S.E. device trying to wrap its head round pain.jpg
  • *ahem*

    As a Blind Harvard Teaching Fellow (BTF).....

  • Interesting but.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by seanvaandering ( 604658 ) <(sean.vaandering) (at) (gmail.com)> on Friday April 02, 2004 @03:14AM (#8744810)
    I work for a Major ISP in tech support, and I've heard some of these things actually work over the phone, and I'm all for technology that enriches peoples lives, however, listening to some of these calls, I've noticed that for instance,

    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...
    • Yes the technology has gotton much better. The quality of the voice is, dare i say, almost human. (We dont use the Microsoft Sam etc voices). To answer your questions: 1) We are gonna try to make the reading more in tune with how a person might actually read. For instance, we all dont start reading from page 1 so if you wanted to find pg 33 and you have no clue as to which page is currently open how would you get to page 33. These and other things are under consideration right now and are being worked on.
      • One of the key factors is motivation. As a sighted user, you will probably find a screen reader slow, frustrating and difficult to use. As a non-sighted user you will have the same problems but you won't have any other choice so you'll grit your teeth and learn to make the most of it.
        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
    • I'm a web developer for the Employment and Disability Institute.

      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 replaces man's best friend, especially when he's knowingly helping a man see.

  • Great news (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I must say I actualy only been in the computerfield cause I think its fun geek stuff..

    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)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @03:21AM (#8744833) Journal
    About 10 years ago I though about a device [geocities.com] that allows deaf people to "see" sound by looking at a spectragraph of sound waves. Researchers have learned how to read spoken words by studying spectragraphs, so I figure deaf people could also be trained. Now such software could probably be put on an off-the-shelf pocket computer instead of a custom device.
    • Very true. Although from what i have been told, these devices are very tonal. As such you cant get a detailed analysis of what is actually there.
      • Very true. Although from what i have been told, these devices are very tonal. As such you cant get a detailed analysis of what is actually there.

        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.)
    • That's a very old idea. In fact, it was one of the motivations behind creating spectrograms. Unfortunately, when it was tried, real-world users just had too many problems with it for it to be useful. Maybe it's worth giving it another try, with a modern handheld computer and better UI, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

  • Mobile Eye Phone (Score:5, Interesting)

    by halftrack ( 454203 ) <jonkje@gmailLION.com minus cat> on Friday April 02, 2004 @03:24AM (#8744845) Homepage
    This reminds me of a project in Norway. In relation to the upcoming UMTS rollout here, Telenor - the largest Norwegian telco - is introducing something they call Mobile Eye Phone [telenor.no]. It's basically just a camera, microphone and earplugs connected via UMTS to a remote guide. He gets a live video feed and can assist the blind person in navigating in new places. I've seen this on TV tested with a blind person taking his 6 year old daugther on a trip out of the country and it seemed to work really well. Given that the person only need to place a call when he need help navigating.

    A combination of the two technology would create a fallback when this new technology fail. And it will fail, just look at OCR.
    • OCR technology has significantly improved over the last 20 years. I would say that the technology we are devloping is till in its infancy and an assessment of failure can only be made once we get a test team to use it. THanks for your comments however. Very enlightnening about the Mobile Eye Phone.
    • Indeed, OCR still has a long way to go to make it work reliably with live camera views, as is stressed also at the Mobile OCR for the Blind [seeingwithsound.com] page. It at least gives some proof of concept for others to improve upon. The open software interface makes it easy to try other command-line driven recognition engines. Anyone who knows of some useful recognition engine to plug in there? By the way, complementary to the remote sighted guide idea, there is also mobile camera phone [seeingwithsound.com] software that gives blind people direc

  • For comparison/benchmarking... (Score:4, Informative)

    by smartsight ( 579540 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @03:32AM (#8744882) Homepage
    Related experimental technology for the blind is also available for free elsewhere ("The vOICe"): Mobile OCR for the blind [seeingwithsound.com] includes speech recognition and speech synthesis support. Currently the proof-of-concept demonstrator uses the GOCR OCR engine, but other (object?) recognition engines can be easily added. Stereo vision for the blind [seeingwithsound.com]
  • anyone else see the cyclops computer headline?

  • similar to something I wrote.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zcat_NZ ( 267672 ) <zcat@wired.net.nz> on Friday April 02, 2004 @05:08AM (#8745145) Homepage
    .. well, still working on, in my 'copious free time'.

    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!

  • But what about moving around? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dave420 ( 699308 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @05:40AM (#8745213)
    This will help someone find out what's on TV later, via the TV guide, but it won't stop them from walking into a kid in Ralphs...

    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.

    • Actually our iCare project is not just the Reader for the blind, it is also a scene detetection and description. So for instance, if a user is walking down a street and a person is walking up to them, our system will be able to tell them who is coming as well as the fact that they have a finger up their nose :-) As for the soundscape, I think most individuals who are blind are able to discern things about their environment. An example I can provide is a lady i work with who can tell excatly where an openin
      • I know what you're saying, but I think I didn't explain myself properly :) What the software I'm talking about does, it effectively make a vision->hearing bridge. It doesn't convert to a form understandable by humans. You certainly can't put one of these devices on and walk around your apartment with your eyes closed - you'll hurt yourself. What the software does is bombard you with as much information about the visible world, by turning it into sonic information. Facial recognition and accurate hea
    • That's right, and the software for seeing with sound is available as The vOICe Learning Edition [seeingwithsound.com] It can be complemented with verbal feedback from automatic OCR, face and object recognition once reliable vision-based recognition engines become available, but at present it still seems beyond the state of the art in computer vision to do this in typical real-life environments.
  • I read that "Seeing-Eye Computer Goes Blind" and was thinking "sooo...?"

    Bah - way to early in the morning for my brain to work.
  • I'm sure the owners of the copyright on that material don't *intend* for it to be used in that way!

  • Did anyone else read the subject line and 'see' what I did? :-D

  • Seeing with sound (Score:2, Informative)

    by 4Lorn ( 736594 )
    See here. [seeingwithsound.com]

    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)

    by drenehtsral ( 29789 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @10:25AM (#8746130) Homepage
    Once I was on a greyhound bus and I talked to a blind guy who was allergic to dogs, so he didn't have a guide dog, and that was making his trip more difficult than it needed to be just because the layout of the buildings and the terrain surrounding each bus station was unfamiliar and had lots of more-or-less random noise going on.
  • I read this as Seeing Eye Computer Goes Blind!
  • I thought it said, "Seeing-Eye Computer Goes Blind"

  • Does it run windows? (Score:3, Funny)

    by nizo ( 81281 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @02:16PM (#8748373) Homepage Journal
    If it does, and it crashed while the blind person is crossing the street, it could bring a whole new meaning to "blue screen of death".
  • Now, if someone is the first to OCR a book with this system, and forgetting about all the copyright violation crap, wouldn't it make sense to make the OCR'd digital version available somehow?

    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
  • Bah! Who needs seeing-eye dogs, anyway? Another thing to put on the obsolete list. Living creatures are way overrated. I prefer the cold sterility of machinery, myself.
  • Ensure own website is accessible to blind people before writing out websites that aren't accessible to the blind.

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