According to the WHO there are 285 million people estimated to be visually impaired worldwide (39 million blind and 246 with low vision).
That mean a large section of the world’s population consists of people who are missing out on many moments of life because of their disability, people who have never witnessed the beauty of a full moon night, people who are unable to read and write.
And only 7 % of the total number books published in the world are in Braille.
What is FingerReader?
A group of researchers from MIT have developed an amazing wearable gadget which can read aloud printed text – FingerReader. Basically a ring with a mounted camera connected to a microphone & backed by a modified open-source software, and all you need to do is to point your finger at the text you wish to read aloud.
All you need to know about FingerReader
Don’t worry about going astray, the device constantly gives a feedback of the scanning process and if you are starting to deviate from the text, a dial tone like sound increases. It is also empowered with haptic feedbacks to convey messages like end of line or paragraph, new paragraph, etc to the user.
The voice although, is not exactly something that you would describe as pleasant, the FingerReader team is aware of it and is working to get rid of this shortcoming. The device itself is very compact, light-weight and weighs almost equal to an ordinary ring which justifies the device being classified as a wearable.
Is FingerReader a substitute for Braille?
The device is not meant to be a substitute for Braille, rather it is a connecting link that can fill a huge gap, newspapers, magazines and those 93% of total books in the world are not published in Braille creating a barrier for the growth of visually impaired people and also shatters their belief and any hope that may be left deep down in their hearts.
Ís it only for the visually impaired?
That’s not it, FingerReader is not intended to serve only the visually impared but also for people with “ability and superability” as well. Roy Shilkrot, a member of the research team behind FingerReader suggested its use in translating text written in languages unknown, imagine reading a book written in Spanish without having to learn Spanish or maybe learning a new language just by reading something.
Another implied benefit is the joy it brings for those visually impaired people who can now at least read, for some people this experience is empowering as it adds a dimension to their lives, gives them something to look up to in life.
As for the researcher, the response that the FingerReader has received worldwide is overwhelming yet they haven’t planned about commercialization in any way and instead are working to improve the experience trying to make it more seamless and natural.
