New Technologies for the Visually Impaired

As of 2007, there were over 161 million visually impaired people around the world. While in itself a considerable number, this figure represents less than 3 percent of the world's entire population. The result of this is that technological developments catering to the blind are not usually considered a profitable undertaking considering a comparatively small target market. Nevertheless, such technologies continue to emerge, with developers and manufacturers guided by their moral principles rather than the expectations of a strong revenue stream.

In fact, innovations that would allow visually impaired to take advantage of the Internet began appearing almost at the same time as the popularity of the Internet exploded. One of the first among such innovations, way back in 1990, was the Navigator, a mechanical device that provided a one-line tactile Braille display of what appeared on a computer screen (Romano, "Technology Helps the Blind on the Job," par. 12). Word synthesizers, converting written text into audible speech, have come on the scene even earlier, with the advancement of the personal computer into the private consumer marketplace.

Up until the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, the technology for the blind has struggled to go beyond allowing the visually impaired to access text on the Internet and allow them to access images as well. Devices like IBM's multimedia browsing accessibility tool offered an improvement on the previous systems by eliminating the need to use the mouse and streamlining controls ("New Technology Helps Blind People Experience Streaming Video and Animation on Internet," par. 3), but it still offered the users a descriptive rather than sensory experience through an auditory converter of what is happening on screen into words. The system's efficiency was further reduced by the fact that if the original streaming content contained an audio track of its own, it often overlapped with the auditory converter and thus made the "viewing" experience cumbersome and far from pleasant.

A much more revolutionary approach was taken by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), which in 2002 came out with a prototype of the first graphic display for the blind. Using refreshable tactile graphic display technology, the device allows the user to feel through one's fingertips a succession of images on a reusable surface. It operates on the principle of a novelty toy called "bed of nails," where a user can create an image of any object or body part by pressing it against the pins on one side of the toy and thus raising the corresponding pins into a shape of an object of body part on the other side ("New Technology Helping the Blind to 'See' Images," par. 5). In this case, the place of an object or body part is taken by electronic signals. The device uses close to 3,600 small pins, called actuator points, which can be raised in any pattern and then locked for "reading." The device receives images electronically from the computer and uses special software for the creation of the matching tactile displays (Barr, "Helping the Blind See Electronic Images," par. 2).

An even more recent technological development by the NIST catering to the blind is a tactile graphic display for localized sensory stimulation. This device utilizes an array of about 100 small, very closely spaced actuator points set against the user's fingertips. This enables the user to "view" a computer-generated image by using a device-tipped finger across a surface to scan an image from the computer memory. The computer sends a signal to the display device and moves the actuators against the skin, thus "translating" the pattern. This way, the computer replicates the sensation of the finger moving over the pattern being displayed.

Both of these technologies appear to have a bright future. A licensing agreement for both has been completed in October 2007 ("New Technology Helping the Blind to 'See' Images," par. 1), which indicates that the prototypes have proven to be operationally effective. The localized sensory stimulation display looks particularly promising; there is potential for this technology to be used to make fingertip tactile graphics practical for virtual reality systems. Robotics and space industries may also benefit, since the technology could be used to give a detailed sense of touch to robotic control and space suit gloves (Barr, "Helping the Blind See Electronic Images," par. 3). For now, however, their application is directed specifically at allowing visually impaired individuals to experience the graphical side of the Internet and computer-generated images. Future application for widespread commercial use is indeed a byproduct of a very noble technological undertaking.

Works Cited
Barr, Roni. "Helping the Blind See Electronic Images." The Future of Things. 4 Dec 2007. TFOT Online.
"New Technology Helping the Blind to 'See' Images." Gizmag. 31 Oct 2007.
"New Technology Helps Blind People Experience Streaming Video and Animation on Internet." What's Next in Science and Technology. 13 Mar 2007.
Romano, Jay. "Technology Helps the Blind on the Job." The New York Times. 8 July 1990.