[humanser] The New Device for the Blind

[Lindsay Yazzolino]

I checked my calendar just to verify that it's not April Fool's Day. *Grins*

I'm sure that this is just what every blind therapist/social worker dreams of. *Shakes head*
Where did you run across this information?

Wow...

Lindsay
On May 16, 2010, at 8:49 PM, JD TOWNSEND wrote:

> 
> Hi List:
> 
> I could not just read this without passing it along to our list.  This device and the fantasy that we need such a device astounds me.
> 
> New Braille Technology Helps Visually Impaired 'See' Emotions
> ScienceDaily (Apr. 28, 2010) - Without vision it's impossible to interpret facial
> expressions, or so it's believed. Not any more. Shafiq ur Réhman, Umeå University,
> presents a new technology in his doctoral thesis -- a Braille code of emotions. "It
> gives new opportunities for social interactions for the visually impaired," he says.
> Lacking the sense of vision can be very limiting in a person's daily life. The most
> obvious limitation is probably the difficulty of navigation, but small details in
> everyday life, which seeing people take for granted, are also missed. One of those
> things is the ability to see a person during a conversation. Facial expressions provide
> emotional information and are important in communication. A smile shows pleasure,
> amusement, relief, etc. Missing information from facial expressions create barriers
> to social interactions.
> "Blind persons compensate for missing information with other senses such as sound.
> But it is difficult to understand complex emotions with voice alone," says Shafiq
> ur Réhman.
> His thesis addresses a challenging problem: how to let visually impaired "see" others'
> emotions. To make this possible the research group has developed a new technology
> based on an ordinary web camera, hardware as small as a coin, and a tactile display.
> This enables the visually impaired to directly interpret human emotions.
> "Visual information is transferred from the camera into advanced vibrating patterns
> displayed on the skin. The vibrators are sequentially activated to provide dynamic
> information about what kind of emotion a person is expressing and the intensity of
> the emotion," he explains.
> The first step for a user is to learn the patterns of different facial expressions
> by using displaying the emotions in front of a camera that translates the emotions
> into vibrational patterns. In this learning phase the visually impaired person have
> a tactile display mounted on the back of a chair. When interacting with other people
> a sling on the forearm can be used instead.
> The main research focus has been to characterise different emotions and to find a
> way to present them by means of advanced biomedical engineering and computer vision
> technologies. The project was founded by the Swedish Research Council.
> The research group's spin-off company Videoakt AB has been granted a patent for the
> technology, which soon will be available as a product on the open market. Tactile
> feedback is also interesting in other areas as a future communication tool, for seeing
> people as well.
> "We have successfully demonstrated how the technology can be implemented on mobile
> phones for tactile rendering of live football games and human emotion information
> through vibrations. This is an interesting way to enhance the experience of mobile
> users," explains Shafiq ur Réhman.
> 
> 
> 
> JD Townsend, LCSW
> Daytona Beach, Florida, Earth, Sol System
> Helping the light dependent to see. 
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