[optacon-l] Re: Optacon research and development
- From: "Nick Dotson" <nickdotson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 04:47:02 -0600
Karla:
Let me "respectfully" and hopefully "civilly" beg to differ with some
aspects of your analysis.
The evolution of Nana Technological processes used in the production of
clothing makes cloth using the characteristics a cost-effective spin-off
from the cloth used by Gamers, and those engaged in Military, Law
Enforcement, and other types of training and activities an off-the-shelf
item and consequently less expensive than say--the one-off unique to the
needs of its user's-group array of the Optacon. This is the Lateral
thinking to which I alluded in my first response to Dr. Teller's offering to
the list...
I also believe that I could make a good case for encompassing the problems
faced by Younger Blind Persons as a concomitant to the dumbing-down of our
entire culture as a consequence to faddish educational and psychological
theories, as well as entertainment, and the expectations of parents and
culture at large. Yes, blind children deprived of the use of braille and
Optacons have damaged the flexibility and functionality of younger blind
people, but that isn't the fault of vendors and developers of technology as
much as it is of overwhelmed, overburdened, and in some cases incompetent
unthinking educators and their administrators and Visual Disabilities
Education Faculty.
And to decreased employment within our Community, it can be convincingly
argued that the Politicians who wrote the Americans With Disabilities Act,
and those who regulated it have pandered to the Private Sector's paranoia
about the worst case scenarios pertaining to the cost of equipping a blind
person. On the other hand, agencies have failed there too, looking to get
out of their legally defined roles in the loop of enabling Us to become tax
payers, hoping to shift some of that burden onto the Private Sector. And I
know most of if not all of us have seen mal fesant, non-fesant, ignorant
and/or corrupt Blindness Agency personnel equip clients with devices they
can't use for the sake of a favored Adaptive Equipment provider for a lunch
or similar off-the-books compensation...
There is allot of blame to go around. But another truth is, they don't just
make vanilla RLF/ROP blind kids today. The preponderance of kids being
served have a panoplies of problems to be addressed ranging from physical,
cognitive, and those stemming from their cultures of origin...
My request is that we acknowledge problems such as the education and
employment needs of the blind are rarely simple in nature, and there is no
one panacea--not even our beloved Optacon which holds all of the answers to
resolving them.
Nick
-----Original Message-----
From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Karla Westjohn
Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2012 11:53 PM
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [optacon-l] Re: Optacon research and development
Because those things cost thousands, and the message is getting around that
we cannot travel without them. If one goes all over the country for work,
and the GPS application comes with a Smartphone used in an executive
position, that is one thing. Blind people do NOT need some device planted
in our clothes. We do not need special sensory shoes, as suggested by one
researcher. What we need is solid skills and versatile devices. If the
boss thinks you can't get from Point A to Point B without some big hoo-ha,
you will not get the job. Period. Done. End of story. We've been doing
this kind of nonsense for the past four decades, and our educational
abilities have fallen--as a college instructor who has worked with several
blind students, I speak from experience--and our unemployment rates have
stagnated or risen.
Karla Westjohn
On 11/11/2012 11:38 PM, marsha wrote:
> Hi, Marsha here. While I don't post much if at all on this list, I
> would like to differ with Carla on this one. Even sighted people use
> GPS and other devices such as this on their I-phones, cars, and even
walkig these days.
> Yes, solid travel skills with a cane or dog is the way to go but why
> not enhance what you already have? If sighted people can use GPS and
> other technologies, than why the heck not.
> Marsha
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Janet Wallans
> Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2012 8:52 PM
> To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [optacon-l] Re: Optacon research and development
>
> I agree with Karla's comments, especially regarding using this device
> as a mobility aid and the importance of a device to access print.
>
> Good luck with your research and hope it can be a new and improved
Optacon.
>
> Janet Wallans
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Karla Westjohn
> Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2012 10:27 PM
> To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [optacon-l] Re: Optacon research and development
>
> We don't need the mobility information. Solid travel skills coupled
> with a white cane or guide dog provide that better than any itching
> thing in my business suit or dress ever could. What we need, for the
> trillionth time, is a portable, efficient way to read print and
> examine graphics in real time, with our brains doing the interpreting. We
had that in the Optacon.
> After you produce said device, please do a better job of marketing.
> Try employing blind people who have actually worked
> somewhere--preferably outside the blindness system and in a job where
> blind people were not being sought.
>
> Failures in Optacon marketing: Trying to sell the Optacon as a
> replacement for Braille. It decidedly is not. Actually, because they
> are good readers and thereby motivated to read,many, if not most,
> Optacon readers are proficient Braille users. Use sensible teaching
> methods. If intensity, magnification, and threshhold are so low that
> letters are indistinguishable, tactile blobs, it is no wonder the user
develops no speed and proficiency.
> I had conventional Optacon training, gave up on the device, and, years
> later, purchased one in law school as another option for print use.
> In the intervening years, I had retained my knowledge of print,
> examining large, raised numbers and letters when the chance presented
> itself. The second time around I taught myself the Optacon. I junked
> the nonsense peddled by TSI and its sponsored instructors and taught
> myself the device the way people learn to read.
> I reviewed the sheets of raised letters and numbers until I knew them
cold.
> Intensity, threshhold, and magnification were turned up to the point
> of clear recognition. No more Dolch word lists. I read what I wanted
> and needed to read: a copy of Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of
> Ivan Denisovich--bought at a used bookstore for 45 cents; law school
> supplements; the phone bill.
>
> Then a miracle happened. Because I truly could recognize the
> characters, magnification, intensity, and threshhold came down. Speed
> came way up--to about 100 words a minute. I discovered that, as a
> matter of fact, I could use the Optacon to examine some handwriting,
> logos, and other graphics. Fix the problem. Do not attempt to solve
> problems already well solved. Employ qualified blind people on your
> research team. Those fixated on the inferiority of the blind and the
> inferiority of blindness skills like Braille and travel--skills which
> should be reinforced and celebrated--should be permanently excluded.
>
> Karla Westjohn
>
> On 11/11/2012 8:07 PM, Seth Teller wrote:
>> Dear Optacon users and list members,
>>
>> This post is prompted by the many messages that have appeared
>> recently expressing interest in a successor to the Optacon.
>>
>> We are researchers at Northeastern University and MIT who are
>> developing a high-resolution tactile display intended to provide
>> blind people with a way to gather visual input through their fingertips.
>> The display, based on MEMS (micro-electromechanical
>> systems) technology, will have roughly one "tactel" (or tactile
>> pixel) per millimeter in both horizontal and vertical dimensions, and
>> will accommodate touch by several fingertips simultaneously rather
>> than just one. Thus it will have both higher spatial resolution, and
>> more total area, than the Optacon.
>>
>> Like the Optacon, the tactile display will be linked to a camera or
>> "retina" so as to provide direct sensation of printed material and
>> CRT displays. However, a significant difference between our approach
>> and the Optacon is that our device is intended to code information
>> not only spatially but spatiotemporally, for example as particular
>> patterns of motion under the fingers. Compared to the Optacon, the
>> relatively higher resolution of the device we are designing should
>> enable access by the user to both more kinds of information, and more
>> dynamic information, than can be conveyed by an Optacon.
>>
>> One use case would involve coupling the device to sensors integrated
>> unobtrusively into clothing, to provide real-time information about
>> the wearer's surroundings, including: orientation with respect to
>> the compass or landmarks; mobility hazards such as obstacles and
>> dropoffs; the presence, identities and motion of any people nearby;
>> the presence and contents of nearby signage; and other aspects of the
>> environment, to be determined in consultation with users. (In this
>> way the device would produce sensations at the fingertips analogous
>> to those on the tongue described in Nick Dotson's recent posts.)
>>
>> The system would "interpret" raw sensor data to varying degrees as
>> per the task and the user's preferences. For example, while names of
>> approaching people might be displayed as Braille, the user could also
>> elect to receive raw data directly, for example to read distant
>> signage or to feel the shape of others' faces at a remove. And of
>> course the system would support an Optacon-like mode in which the
>> user could move the retina across any document or object in order to
>> experience a minimally interpreted tactile version of whatever data
>> the retina was capturing.
>>
>> This effort has been underway since early 2011, and has been informed
>> by many conversations with blind people at MIT, at The Carroll Center
>> for the Blind, at the National Braille Press, at the Bay State
>> Council of the Blind, and elsewhere. We would be delighted as well
>> to learn your opinions, either on or off this list, about how such a
>> system might meet your needs or fall short.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Prof. Seth Teller <teller@xxxxxxx>
>> Prof. Carol Livermore <livermore@xxxxxxx> Dr. Luis Fernando
>> Velasquez-Garcia <lfvelasq@xxxxxxx>
>>
>> On 11/11/2012 6:43 PM, Ninette Legates wrote:
>>> Hi List,
>>> Could we, as a group, approach engineering
>>> departments who might be interested in working on a modern version
>>> of the Optacon? Perhaps a group of researchers would take the
>>> information that has come out on this list and produce a prototype.
>>> The realm of possibilities for such a device is truly
>>> exciting.-Ninette LeGates
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> to view the list archives, go to:
>>>
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>>>
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