[Cabs-talk] WiiCane?

[Darian Smith]

Saw this on another list and decided to look it up and pass  this
along for thought and discussion.

http://www.ny1.co
m/content/top_stories/118714/wii-device-teaches-visually-impaired-to-walk-with-canes


05/15/2010 04:33 PM

Wii Device Teaches Visually Impaired To Walk With Canes

By: Kafi Drexel

Teaching the visually impaired how to use canes to get around is about
to become hi-tech. NY1's Health reporter Kafi Drexel filed the
following report.


Instructors at the Jewish Guild for the Blind on the Upper West Side
have found a new use for Wii technology. They are testing out a new
device called the
"WiiCane" to see if it can help improve mobility training and use of
the cane in young children.

"One of the greatest challenges for an [orientation and mobility]
instructor, which I am, is trying to teach a student to travel and
walk outdoors in a
safe line, in a straight line. And one of the greatest issues is to
try to prevent the students from veering which means angling left, or
right off their
straight line," says Stuart Filan of the Jewish Guild for the Blind.
"So the WiiCane is like a super idea. It's a great indoor training
device to have
our students get the feeling of what it feels like to veer and how,
independently, in real time, to correct that situation."

The training tool is being developed by the New York City-based design
team Touch Graphics. It uses Wii motion-tracking technology to help
students get
the feel for not only walking in a straight line, but practice turns.
A computer receives movement data and dings if the student remains on
track or moves
in the right direction.

"Evidence shows that once learned, those skills are translatable into
actual outdoor travel, and that's huge," says President Steven Landau
of Touch Graphics.
"Because then, people crossing the street won't veer into oncoming
traffic and lots of other things in the course of their independent
travel, where they
need that ability to continue walking in a straight line without a lot
of external information."

The Wii Cane training program is not meant to replace traditional
training methods, but is only a supplement. However, instructors at
the Jewish Guild for
the Blind say their young students respond to computers and they see
responses in training in some of them that they haven't quite seen
before.

"Some of the students are really getting off of it," says Filan. "They
keep talking about it, they can't wait to come back and to hold onto
the cane, work
the receivers and manipulate their bodies through space to get to see
if they can walk the straight line."

The WiiCane is also being developed for adults who are new cane users.
It is expected to be available for commercial use by January 2011.



-- 
Darian Smith
Skype: The_Blind_Truth
Windows Live: Lightningrod2010 at live.com
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are
spiritual beings having a human experience.” - Teilhard de Chardin