Healthy Outlook Blog

Innovative New Apps for the Blind

By Britta Barrett | Posted April 30 2010

Blindness, Mobile, Smartphones, Technology, Vision

The blind have a unique set of hardships, but recent advances in mobile technology are making things a little easier. Ranging from voice-operated smartphones to a tongue-based vision device, these new offerings take a varied approach to tackling the same problem.

Here are some of the newest and most promising applications on the market:

Oratio – Working strictly with the Blackberry platform, Oratio is a straightforward screen reading software that lets you manage instant messages, emails and SMS functions audibly. You can place and receive calls (with caller ID) and use all of the calendars and alarms with an intuitive audio interface that’s customizable by selecting the voice’s rate, pitch and verbosity.

LookTel – A more imaginative use of the smartphone, LookTel considers itself an “artificial vision” application. Using the phone’s built-in camera it can distinguish common objects based on their shape and identifies them in real speech. Also promising: you can teach it to recognize new objects and, for more complicated situations like a street corner, it links you to a live assistant who can verbally describe exactly what’s in front of you.

BrainPort – A visual prosthetic device that connects to the tongue, BrainPort takes digital video from a pair of sunglasses and translates it into electrical stimulation in your mouth. Although it’s still in the prototype stage and not yet available on the market, studies show in less than 10 hours people can gauge the distance of far-off objects, which represents an exciting new option for the visually impaired.

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