[humanser] The New Device for the Blind

[David Stayer]

I can see someone in the middle of a crisis saying hold everything I must 
adjust my technology to determine what your facial expression is.  It does 
not matter if you are totally out of control since I need to know your 
facial expression to know what you are up to.

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From: "Lindsay Yazzolino" <lindsay3.14 at gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2010 11:10 PM
To: <humanser at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [humanser] The New Device for the Blind

> 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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>
>
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