Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The Blind Connect Through Technology

New Gadgets Assist the Blind by Te-Ping Chen.  The Wall Street Journal.  October 14, 2012.

There are 285 million visually impaired individuals worldwide according to the World Health Organization.  Increasingly technologies are addressing the problem of keeping these individuals connected and participating in society.  This article relates the efforts of companies like Ocean Blue Software which speaks TV menu listings, on-screen prompts, and schedule listings.  Also important has been the proliferation of smartphones which has been a boon to assistive technology.  An example is an app that will snap photos of menus or box labels and read them aloud.  This relatively new industry has growth potential as the population ages and new uses for unimpaired individuals are developed.

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