Finger Reader For Visually Impaired

Liu pattie maes and suranga nanayakkara.

Finger reader for visually impaired.

The finger reader lets people read only what they re pointing at promising a relatively fuss free experience especially when out and about. Unlike other devices for the visually impaired vi which scan words in chunks before vocalizing them fingerreader picks up words immediately. In proceedings of chi 14 extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems chi ea 14 video showcase p. Keeping everything on fingerreader the same the user s finger is likely to disrupt the movable text.

39 million are blind and 246 million have low vision severe or moderate visual impairment. A wearable text reading device for the visually impaired. In march 2015 the massachusetts institute of technology mit announced that researchers in its media lab had developed a prototype of a reading device that is worn on the finger. Finger reader is a device that assists visually impaired users with reading texts or words.

Roy shilkrot jochen huber connie k. Many people in the accessibility community were very excited by this prospect. Wired reporter sandy ong highlights the work of prof. This device is the most preferred for visually impaired people because of its one off cost can store a variety of audiobooks at a time and it is easy to use.

So basically what is a finger reader. Who about 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide. Suranga nanayakkara who as a postdoc at mit helped develop the finger reader a device aimed at helping people with visual impairments read without the need for clunky hardware. It is predicted that these numbers will be nearly tripled by 2050.

Right now the only solution is disabling the touch recognition component of the device. It works by storing a variety of audio files whereby audiobooks are one of them. Chronic diseases un operated cataract and uncorrected refractive errors are the main causes of visual impairments.