Every so often, we stumble upon a new piece of technology designed to assist deaf and / or blind individuals, but we've yet to see a creation so complete as this. HumanWare, working in tandem with the Washington State Office of Deaf and Hard of Hearing, has concocted a DeafBlind Communicator to provide a trio of communication options to handicapped individuals: face-to-face-, TTY and SMS. The DBS system consists of two separate components -- the BrailleNote and a DB-Phone, the latter of which is a specially designed handset with a QWERTY keyboard and unique software that helps the deaf-blind community converse with bus drivers, waiters, friends, family, etc. The Braille menus enable those folks to easily strike up conversations and live life more easily, and it seems as if sales inquiries are being fielded as we speak.

[Thanks, Drew]

The technology's already here, we just need a venture capital firm and a determined entrepreneur to make it happen. A foursome of designers -- Seon-Keun Park, Byung-Min Woo, Sun-Hye Woo and Jin-Sun Park -- have banded together to create the above pictured concept, an e-reader for those with limited or no vision. Their Braille E-Book concept theoretically relies on electroactive polymers in order to change the surface's shape as pages are turned, and while we fully expect the battery life to suffer due to all the necessary commotion, it's definitely a start that needs to happen.

Gadgets for the visually impaired are nothing new, but the Touch Sight camera is one of the most unique we've seen. Designed to be held against the forehead, the camera doesn't have an LCD, but instead displays a three-dimensional representation of the image on a built-in Braille screen and records three seconds of audio to assist users in locating and managing shots. Just a concept for now, but let's hope it makes it to market -- it seems like it'd be a fun toy for the sighted as well.

We've seen initiatives all over the globe created in an attempt to beat blindness, but researchers based at MIT are feeling fairly confident that their development is within a few years of being able to "restore partial sight to people who have slowly gone blind because of degenerative diseases of the retina." The bio-electronic implant, which is about the size of a pencil eraser, would actually sit behind the retina at the back of the eyeball, and images would be transmitted to the brain "via a connector the width of a human hair." As it stands, an FDA grant application is already in the works, and the scientists are hoping to have it implanted in an animal as early as this summer. Still, the solution only works for folks who "were once able to see and have partially intact optic nerve cells" -- those who were blind from birth or suffer from glaucoma are unfortunately ineligible for the procedure.

[Thanks, Rusty]

There's hardly a shortage of pocketable devices for the blind, but the Zen is lookin' out for the visually impaired who crave a more full-fledged computing experience. Essentially, the Sandbox PC (hardware) and Zen (operating system) would team up to "create a computing environment that could be used with eyes closed." More specifically, it would utilize an Active Surface for displaying text in Braille and producing images, windows and icons that could be felt. No word on whether this contraption would handle other tasks such as reading one's e-mail aloud or enabling the blind to still participate in Hot or Not, but nevertheless, it's definitely a step in the right direction.

A trade show held in Japan recently called AMEDIA showed off 18 new products aimed at helping the visually impaired better utilize technology. Among the devices on offer were an adaptive Braille display, which can convert text from a PC screen into the hand-read alphabet in real time, the REHA Vision "Color Talk," a handheld scanner which can recognize 220 colors and speak them to the user, and what appears to be GW Micro's VoiceSense PDA (here being employed to help those with visual impairments in the IT sector). The collection of gadgets clearly illustrates the kind of time and energy being put into making modern technology more accessible to everyone. Hit the read link for a (translated) tour of the show.

A project that saw a prototype form some five years back is finally nearing commercialization, as ELIA Life Technology has recently been licensed to bring a tactile graphic display device and fingertip graphic reader to market. Originally developed by NIST researchers, the aforementioned screen enables individuals to feel an array of images on a reusable surface by raising around 3,600 actuator points into a certain pattern, each of which can be sent electronically to the reader. Separately, a finger-based device utilizes 100 minuscule pins that can be activated as a person scans a given surface, which enables the pins to move across one's skin as it "translates" the text / image / etc. Regrettably, a concrete release date wasn't mentioned, but judging by the looks of it, it shouldn't be long now before it's widely available to those interested.

[Via Coolest-Gadgets]

Fort Wayne, Indiana based company GW Micro has developed a new type of PDA designed specifically for the blind and sight-impaired, called the VoiceSense. The assistant runs a modified version of Windows CE and features a vocal guidance system, a full function PIM, web browser, MP3 player, Daisy talking book player, FM radio tuner and MSN Messenger -- all accessible through its custom Perkins-style Braille keyboard. The device has a 540MHz PXA270 processor, 1GB of RAM, and also boasts 802.11b/g, USB 2.0, audio in and out jacks, SD and CF card support, and runs 12 hours on a full charge. The PDA is available right now for $1,795, though the price goes up to $1,895 after July 15th.

We've see a myriad of methods to communicate and even learn Braille, but we'll admit, most of the previous iterations lacked that sense of excitement necessary to motivate most folks to assimilate something new. Akinori Oishi's creation, however, seeks to be different, as the OtoTenji interactive machine allows users to press touch-sensitive pads and then hear back the letter / character in which they've signaled. We've no word on whether or not the machine is programmed to handle a one-on-one Braille spelling challenge, but if you're interested in just how this peculiar teaching tool actually goes about its business, be sure to click on through for a videotaped demonstration.

[Via FreshCreation]

Scientific American is reporting that a team of researchers at the Aristotle University of Thessaloníki in Greece have created a system that can convert video into tactile, three dimensional maps designed to help blind people navigate. So called "haptic maps" have apparently been developed before, but the new system works with standard video camera equipment. These maps are created by using software that maps a series of points to a virtual 3D space: a special glove and wand then apply forces to the fingers to simulate these virtual space points. The system can also simulate 3D street maps where the user can "run a finger or wand down the grooved roads of the virtual map" and have street names spoken to them using speech synthesis. This isn't the end of the problem however, as visually impaired people will still need a guide dog or cane to avoid smaller obstacles like potholes. There's also a great deal of potential here for fully sighted people: Dan Jacobson, co-chair of the International Cartographic Association's commission mentions that it could convey information about things that are not in view, and with a growing minority of sighted people trusting their gadgets more than their eyes, we'd tend to agree.

[Via Primidi, Image credit]

Completely bypassing the stunning fact that (legally) blind Texans are actually allowed to wield a weapon and fire at will during regular hunting seasons, a new piece of legislation could allow these folks to see what they're aiming at a wee bit better, which is thrilling news if you're being mistaken for game. Rep. Edmund Kuempel has initiated a bill that would enable legally blind hunters that have a valid Texas hunting license to strap a sweet laser scope on their weaponry in order to pinpoint exactly where the bullet is headed before pulling the trigger. The bill would require the hunter to be accompanied by a (not legally blind) licensed hunter of 13 years or older, and is being pushed as a "reasonable accommodation" for those with disabilities. Hey, we know Texas is good for helping out the less fortunate, but we'd seriously think twice before wandering out into the wilderness for a weekend retreat in the Lonestar state.

[Via Fark]

While places like Australia and Raleigh might be flooding certain areas (or in the Aussie's case, the whole continent) with more energy-efficient light, the US Army is looking to counteract those uber-green intentions by busting out a 7.5-million candlepower strobe floodlight system to be used as a "non-lethal crowd-control device." The government has awards Pennsylvania-based Peak Systems a contract to fabricate a modified Maxa Beam searchlight that will be xenon-based, sport strobing capabilities, and will act as an "immobilization system /deterrent device" on large crowds. Furthermore, this behemoth of a flashlight will be flanking an unmanned aerial system, presumably to cruise over a rioting crowd (or platoon of foes) and theoretically flash bomb them until they suffer from "short-term paralysis." While the idea sounds like a logical way to slow down millions of oncoming soldiers whilst at war, what happens with those baddies come over the hill rocking welding masks or ultra-tinted Thump shades?

[Via Wired]