A lot of activity associated with the development of healthcare solutions is tied to the assumption that every other person has a smartphone. But access remains a major obstacle, and not just for people can’t afford these phones. When it comes to making smartphones more accessible for visually impaired users, progress has been spotty. But one group of developers who took part in PennApps student hackathon developed a device to help visually impaired users make the most of their smartphones. It combines access with a variation on navigation aids others have under development.
Fifth Sense uses a six-button braille input-output system, the article noted. Buttons send and receive messages in braille and include motors that vibrate in braille patterns.Here’s a description of Fifth Sense’s smartphone hack from the Philadelphia Magazine’s website:
“The app also contains voice capabilities for people to speak queries instead of manually typing braille patterns in. The need for a walking cane is also eliminated through the addition of a distance sensor on the device, which alerts the person through vibrations if something is too close and possibly hazardous to a visually impaired person.”
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The team from Carnegie-Mellon University included Edward Ahn, Cyrus Tabrizi, Rajat Mehndiratta and Vasu Agrawal.
This year Comcast helped move the venue of the biannual hackathon from University of Pennsylvania’s campus to the Wells Fargo Center — a Philly sports venue more closely associated with the city’s NBA and NFL teams than with technology geeks who enjoy staying up for 48 hours.
Speaking of sleep, another team produced a tool called Electric Coffee to prevent users from accidentally dozing off during the workday. Two infrared sensors are used to detect eye motion. If eyes are closed for too long, it causes the glasses to vibrate along with the Pebble Watch to which it’s synched.
Another group took on Parkinson’s disease with a tool to assess gait, called Gaitorade. It developed a way to map pressure points and sensors that can assess how users walk depending on how the pressure shifts in their footing. It also sees applications for other motion disorders.
