[Ncabs] MIT Ring-Like Device Scans Texts and Reads to the Blind in Real Time

[Alan A. Chase]

MIT Ring-Like Device Scans Texts and Reads to the Blind in Real Time Device
helps make schools, doctors' offices and restaurants more
accessible   Cambridge, Mass. - Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology are developing an audio reading device to be worn on the index
finger of people whose vision is impaired, giving them affordable and
immediate access to printed words. The so-called FingerReader, a prototype
produced by a 3D printer, fits like a ring on the user's finger, equipped
with a small camera that scans text. A synthesized voice reads words aloud,
quickly translating books, restaurant menus and other needed materials for
daily living, especially away from home or office. Reading is as easy as
pointing the finger at text. Special software tracks the finger movement,
identifies words and processes the information. The device has vibration
motors that alert readers when they stray from the script, said Roy
Shilkrot, who is developing the device at the MIT Media Lab.

Reading medical forms   For Jerry Berrier, 62, who was born blind, the
promise of the FingerReader is its portability and offer of real-time
functionality at school, a doctor's office and restaurants. "When I go to
the doctor's office, there may be forms that I want to read before I sign
them," Berrier said. He said there are other optical character recognition
devices on the market for those with vision impairments, but none that he
knows of that will read in real time. Berrier manages training and
evaluation for a federal program that distributes technology to low-income
people in Massachusetts and Rhode Island who have lost their sight and
hearing. He works from the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Mass.
"Everywhere we go, for folks who are sighted, there are things that inform
us about the products that we are about to interact with. I want to be able
to interact with those same products, regardless of how I have to do it,"
Berrier said. Pattie Maes, an MIT professor who founded and leads the Fluid
Interfaces research group developing the prototype, says the FingerReader is
like "reading with the tip of your finger and it's a lot more flexible, a
lot more immediate than any solution that they have right now. Developing
the gizmo has taken three years of software coding, experimenting with
various designs and working on feedback from a test group of visually
impaired people. Much work remains before it is ready for the market,
Shilkrot said, including making it work on cell phones. Shilkrot said
developers believe they will be able to affordably market the FingerReader
but he could not yet estimate a price. The potential market includes some of
the 11.2 million people in the United States with vision impairment,
according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

Access to text not available in braille   Current technology used in
homes and offices offers cumbersome scanners that must process the desired
script before it can be read aloud by character-recognition software
installed on a computer or smartphone, Shilkrot said. The FingerReader would
not replace braille - the system of raised dots that form words, interpreted
by touch. Instead, Shilkrot said, the new device would enable users to
access a vast number of books and other materials that are not currently
available in braille. Developers had to overcome unusual challenges to help
people with visual impairments move their reading fingers along a straight
line of printed text that they could not see.
Users also had to be alerted at the beginning and end of the reading
material. Their solutions? Audio cues in the software that processes
information from the FingerReader and vibration motors in the ring. The
FingerReader can read papers, books, magazines, newspapers, computer screens
and other devices, but it has problems with text on a touch screen, said
Shilkrot. That's because touching the screen with the tip of the finger
would move text around, producing unintended results. Disabling the
touch-screen function eliminates the problem, he said. Berrier said
affordable pricing could make the FingerReader a key tool to help people
with vision impairment integrate into the modern information economy. "Any
tool that we can get that gives us better access to printed material helps
us to live fuller, richer, more productive lives," Berrier said.

-- 
Alan A. Chase, M.Ed.
Exceptional Children Program Facilitator, Durham Public Schools
President & Director, Envisioning Youth Empowerment Retreat