This past week, Google made several improvements to their default text to speech engine. They added 6 new languages, which now brings the total number of languages to 35. The new languages are:
Spotlight with iMerciv: Creators of the BuzzClip
In this Spotlight Interview, James Oates sits down with Bin Liu and Arjun Mali, the founders of iMerciv and creators of the BuzzClip, which is a standalone wearable that helps people who are blind familiarize themselves with their surroundings and navigate unfamiliar areas both indoors and outdoors.
Glasses Demonstrate the Effects of Uncontrolled Diabetes Leading to Blindness
“Retinopathy is not curable,” says Anna Klineberg, a senior psychology major at Rice University who worked on the project with her teammates at Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen. “As soon as you get it, you can’t prevent it from happening and it will get worse.
Navigate VR with Oculus Voice Speech Recognition.
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.
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.
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.
The new focus and features of the Windows 10 creators update: Further Unifying experiences
As the new Creators Windows 10 update keeps rolling out, many will find themselves wondering: Is it worth upgrading anyway? What am I getting? Will I lose functionality I’ve had? The answer is yes, yes you possibly might. However, what you do lose is replaced and in a way that can help you transition seamlessly to this new Windows 10 version without feeling overwhelmed.
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.
An introduction and installation guide to the Windows 10 Creators update
Note: This is the first part of two in a series detailing what is to come in Microsoft’s new Creators update. Part 2 details new features and experiences.
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