Oculus announced that voice speech recognition is now available in English for users of the Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR headset. You can use your voice to navigate games and apps, and new features will be coming soon to enhance the social VR experience. Oculus wants everyone to be able to share their VR experience with all of their friends.
Although this doesn’t make the VR experience fully accessible for a blind person, it is a step in the right direction. Using this feature along with several other features for low vision users definitely helps those users enjoy the VR headsets that are out there.
NEWS
Math Melodies is a Fun Way for Visually Impaired Children to Learn Math.
The creators of Math Melodies have developed a fun and interactive way for blind and visually impaired children to understand basic math concepts that are usually presented in a visual way. Although this app will work on an iPhone, it is designed to work best on an iPad. It allows a child to get audio feedback while feeling the layout of the math problem on the screen. In this way, a visually impaired child can see how the math problem looks in the same way a sighted child does. This might seem like a minor thing, but it is incredibly difficult for a young visually impaired child to understand these math problems when they are read by a screen reader on a computer. They just don’t get how the problems are being presented to them.
Virtual Assistant Guiding a Blind Man in Marathon
A local runner from Massachusetts will be testing out some cutting edge technology during the Boston Marathon on Monday.
Erich Manser and his running partner, Dave, look like any other pair training for the Boston Marathon.
Their will be a third person who is from California that will be virtually joining the run, she’s acting as his eyes.
Courtesy of technology from AIRA.
The technology consists of Google Glass, a mounted camera on the frame of specialized glasses connecting to an app on Manser’s phone where he can connect to someone anywhere in the United States who sees everything from his vantage point.
VIP: I Got a Feeling Somebody’s Watching Me
This week the Cool Blind Tech team discuss some major issues affecting your privacy while you are logged on to the internet. Joel, Jessica, and Hugo share their thoughts on Virtual Private Networks, how it affects you and why you should care. Plenty of important and fun topics are just waiting for you to press play on your favorite podcast player.
Topics This Week Include the Following:
I Can Set Up Windows With Just My Voice?
The Microsoft team continues to work on making the out-of-box experience for everyone as easy and fun as possible. You’ll be amazed at the latest changes they made and how it can help you with your next installation of windows 10. If you’re still using Windows 7 or XP, this will definitely get you to upgrade.
ASU Professor Helps Develop a Medical Device to Help the Blind See
ASU Associate Professor Bradley Greger helped develop a medical implant to help the blind see. The implant, developed in partnership with California based company second sight, is implanted in a person’s visual cortex. The idea is to provide visual information directly into the brain and help individuals who don’t have a functional retina receive visual information.
Associate professor Greger stated that the implant will be based off concepts from another project by Second Sight called the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System which is implanted directly onto the retina. The visual cortex implant is currently undergoing a study to determine how consistently the implant will provide visual sensations and to make sure it can be used long-term without any harm to the patient. For more information, visit the following article on this implant and others in development at ASU.
Spotlight On COMMTECH USA: Empowering Through Technology
Join Jessica for an exciting spotlight interview with Gabe Vega, CEO of Commtech USA..
He provides some insight into why he started the company and introduces us to his exciting new video project, Commtech Academy. Commtech USA offers a variety of products and services taylored for the blind and visually impaired, including Remote Training. For those living in Arizona, Commtech also prupides local training out of their Tucson offices.
Please be sure and tune in to this spotlight, as Commtech is offering our listeners a special discount code which you can only get when you tune in
!
Be sure and check out Commtech USA on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Introducing Tile: A Wireless way to Find Anything You Have Misplaced.
Have you ever misplaced something: like your keys, wallet, or phone? Well, Tile can help with that, and do even more.
Tile is a small Bluetooth enabled device that is shaped like a tile. It is 34MM wide, and less than 5mm thick. The Tile Slim is even thinner.
Once you have the Tile, you pair it to your phone using the Tile app, which is available for both iOS and Android.
You can then identify in the app what you are going to attach that Tile to. You can pair several Tiles, and give each a different object to attach to. The Tile has a small hole that allows you to place it on a keyring, but you can also slide it into a wallet, or stick it on a laptop.
When you activate a Tile in the app, you will hear a distinctive ringing. The Bluetooth range is good up to 100FT. If you are out of range, the app will show you the last known location of the object on a map. If the object is no longer at that location, you can have the network of Tile users around the world track the object until it is found. If you have misplaced your phone, you can press on any of your Tiles, and your phone will ring, even if it is on silent. You will need to allow the app to run in the background for this feature to work.
Cool Picks- March 11, 2017
In this episode of Cool Picks, Joel Ramos, Hugo Gallegos, and Rachel Feinberg tell us all about their favourite gadgets from this year’s Assistive Technology Conference, hosted by California State University Northridge.
Cool Picks
Orbit Reader 20
KNFB Reader for Windows 10
ChromeVox Screen Reader
InsideOne: A Windows 10 Tablet with a Built-in Braille Display.
Inside Vision has created one of the coolest products for people who are blind. The InsideOne is a full size Windows 10 tablet with 32cells of refreshable braille located along the bottom of the screen. This device also allows a person to type in braille on the screen, but there is no longer a need to make sure that your fingers are perfectly allied to be recognized. There are indentations in the glass, and this is where you place your fingers when typing in braille. I think this is a much better design than trying to add a Perkins style physical keyboard in addition to the 32cell line of refreshable braille. It also makes it feel more in line with a traditional Windows tablet. You don’t have to use braille input. There is an option for a virtual on screen keyboard. In addition, you could use a Bluetooth connected keyboard or a USB connected keyboard. The tablet still has a touch sensitive glass screen that responds to Windows 10 gestures.
Spotlight with Grapheel: Making STEM Education Accessible for Blind Students
In this exciting Spotlight interview, James Oates sits down with the highly intelligent team at Grapheel Innovation. The team consists of:
• Daniel Hajas: Blind, theoretical physics student with PhD in Informatics, special research interest on accessible STEM.
• Tim Lingard: Programmer and physicist, PhD student at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (Portsmouth), Head of Information Systems and online services.
• David Turner: Physics student at Sussex, Head of R&D at Grapheel, researching engineering solutions for the Tactile Graphics Display.
The team discusses the enormous problem that exist in providing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics education to people who are blind or visually impaired. They explained the three-pronged approach that they have devised to conquer this problem.
Step one is called “Iris,” which is a science community based image description service specifically for STEM graphical content used as teaching material. The student uploads an image, and receives a detailed description from a volunteer who is a professional in that field of study.
The second is a consultancy scheme where they will advise on solutions that are in existence for accessible science. Various assistive software, hardware, teaching resources, good practice in science accessibility and so on.
The third is the development of a Tactile Graphics Display. They wish to carry out hardware research and development and concentrate on materials science for developing cost and performance efficient actuators. They also wish to collaborate with the various initiatives developing their own tactile displays and open their operating system for third party developers. This way Grapheel could develop STEM specific applications for already existing tactile graphics display devices, since there are organizations like the American Printing House for the Blind, doing a great job in the hardware development front.
Visit Grapheel’s website to learn more or get involved in helping in this remarkable effort.
You can also follow Grapheel on Twitter.