[optacon-l] Re: Optacon research and development
- From: Karla Westjohn <kawstjhn@xxxxxxx>
- To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2012 21:27:02 -0600
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
>>
>>
>>
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>>
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>>
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>
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