[nabs-l] Device Helps Blind See with Tongue

[Sophie Trist]

I find the thought of operating my braillenote with my mouth 
slightly creepy and I'm not ashamed to admit it. And another 
reason sighted people are so inept at traveling is because (at 
least in school hallways) they never look where they're going. :) 
This boggles my mind...

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Brandon Keith Biggs" <brandonboy13 at comcast.net
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Tue, 22 May 2012 17:55:06 -0700
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Device Helps Blind See with Tongue

haha!
I really think that using the tongue to do things is a huge under 
exploited
part of our body... I'd like to see some way to control my note 
taker with
my tongue...
I doubt I'll be buying this, unless it makes sight-reading piano 
music
feasible.
As for sighted people not understanding that blind people are 
probably
better equipped to travel than they are, it probably has to do 
with the fact
sighted people have no idea how to travel without signs.
I'm highly amused and I hope the failure of their first product 
doesn't
deter them from making Bluetooth remote controls for the mouth!
Thanks,

Brandon Keith Biggs
-----Original Message-----
From: Justin Salisbury
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2012 3:13 PM
To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nabs-l] Device Helps Blind See with Tongue

Philosophy Discussion Time

I just caught this story on the local news, and I want to hear 
people's
opinions of it.  There are many different versions of this news 
story, but
here's a link to a page with a video and text article:

http://wearecentralpa.com/fulltext-healthcast?nxd_id=369932

Feel free to find other versions of this story using a simple 
search engine.

When I heard that Mark couldn't wait for the day that he could 
navigate his
own home independently with a device, I thought to myself "hey, I 
already
have one of those devices.  It's called a cane!"

In my reading on the story, I get the impression that researchers 
think that
this device is important because we blind people are oblivious to 
our
surroundings and need some way to get information about them.  I 
think this
is cool research for the sake of research, but I see absolutely 
no practical
need for the device.  With the proper skills and training, we can
independently navigate our own surroundings.  I further wonder if 
maybe
these uneducated or incorrectly educated researchers simply don't 
know about
the techniques we blind people can use to independently navigate 
our
surroundings or if they view them as inferior and think we should 
be trying
to operate as closely to sighted people as we can.

What does everyone on the list think?

Justin Salisbury
President
North Carolina Association of Blind Students


Justin M. Salisbury
Class of 2012
B.A. in Mathematics
East Carolina University
president at alumni.ecu.edu

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens 
can change
the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”    
—MARGARET MEAD

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