ysabetwordsmith (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ysabetwordsmith) wrote2019-12-04 07:20 pm
ysabetwordsmith) wrote2019-12-04 07:20 pm
Entry tags:
Talking Eyeglasses
OrCam MyEye attaches to any eyeglasses. It can read text, identify faces, name products, and more. Expensive, but probably much less so than paying for long-distance sighted service.
A probable drawback is that adding weight to one side will be awkward and uncomfortable. Adding an inert weight to the opposite side will fix the imbalance, but increase the risk of head or ear pain. Consider adding a strap, web, or other support to reduce the pressure. Sort of an obvious issue from the perspective of a highly sensitive person, but I bet you that lower-sensitive people won't realize this thing will cross a lot of people's thresholds and won't know how to solve those problems. If you can't find what you need in an eyeglass shop, try cannibalizing the shock web from inside an old helmet. If appearance is an issue, consider the suspension potential of things like hats or wigs. But don't worry, the tech should shrink rapidly as it becomes more popular. In a few years it'll probably fit inside the earpiece of most prescription glasses ... you'll just have to hope designers thought of the weight issues and addressed them effectively.
So this got me thinking about phone apps. There are jillions of smartphone apps now, and identification apps (for trees, health food, etc.) are popular. I wonder how many of these have accessibility features that would let them serve as prosthetic eyes for visually impaired people? And yes, some apps have a speaker function or are actually designed to help vision-impaired users.
In a society that cared about people with disabilities, there would be a simple, easy, cheap way to massively improve life for vision-impaired folks: make all these read-and-see apps free to them. Once it's developed, software essentially costs nothing to replicate. The government could pay developers to make and maintain accessibility apps for blind people. Probably the developers would get a higher and more consistent revenue stream that way than trying to hand-sell these things to consumers one at a time. If you went to an eye doctor or any organization for the blind, they could say, "And here's a list of free computer programs and smartphone apps you can use to compensate for your eye problems." The government would probably save money due to reducing accidents, malnutrition, and other issues that affect disabled people more than abled people. Sadly, I don't see that solution as probable in this society, but there's the instructions in case anyone wants them.
Since the government is a white elephant, programmers could instead solve this problem on their own. Anyone who makes programs could choose a portion of their work to release pro bono. For example, make 9 apps for sale and 1 pro bono, using the recommended 10% tithe for Christians. If you're Muslim, zakat is 2.5% of your qualifying wealth which would be 1 out of 40, probably better to do that by hours unless you write code as fast as I write poetry. If you are well supported, you might choose to make much more of your work pro bono. A nonprofit could make writing free disability apps their whole focus. Someone could then make a website collecting everyone's free accessibility apps, and advertise that website to eye doctors and organizations serving the blind.
As yet another option, people with disabilities could write accessibility programs. Computer programming is a skill that easily evades most disabilities. You don't need to be able to move or type or talk, you just need to be able to think and communicate in some fashion with an interface, then have a program that lets you do stuff. So most people with the mental potential could learn to code if they wanted to. (Not everyone thinks well in that direction.) It might be more effective to have sighted people write apps for vision-impaired people, and so on, but then again the very different perspective of blind programmers could be useful. If I were a tech company, I'd seriously consider building mixed-ability teams for sake of parallax. A team with an abled programmer, a blind programmer, a deaf programmer, a paraplegic programmer, and a neurovariant programmer should be able to write some seriously badass code.
A probable drawback is that adding weight to one side will be awkward and uncomfortable. Adding an inert weight to the opposite side will fix the imbalance, but increase the risk of head or ear pain. Consider adding a strap, web, or other support to reduce the pressure. Sort of an obvious issue from the perspective of a highly sensitive person, but I bet you that lower-sensitive people won't realize this thing will cross a lot of people's thresholds and won't know how to solve those problems. If you can't find what you need in an eyeglass shop, try cannibalizing the shock web from inside an old helmet. If appearance is an issue, consider the suspension potential of things like hats or wigs. But don't worry, the tech should shrink rapidly as it becomes more popular. In a few years it'll probably fit inside the earpiece of most prescription glasses ... you'll just have to hope designers thought of the weight issues and addressed them effectively.
So this got me thinking about phone apps. There are jillions of smartphone apps now, and identification apps (for trees, health food, etc.) are popular. I wonder how many of these have accessibility features that would let them serve as prosthetic eyes for visually impaired people? And yes, some apps have a speaker function or are actually designed to help vision-impaired users.
In a society that cared about people with disabilities, there would be a simple, easy, cheap way to massively improve life for vision-impaired folks: make all these read-and-see apps free to them. Once it's developed, software essentially costs nothing to replicate. The government could pay developers to make and maintain accessibility apps for blind people. Probably the developers would get a higher and more consistent revenue stream that way than trying to hand-sell these things to consumers one at a time. If you went to an eye doctor or any organization for the blind, they could say, "And here's a list of free computer programs and smartphone apps you can use to compensate for your eye problems." The government would probably save money due to reducing accidents, malnutrition, and other issues that affect disabled people more than abled people. Sadly, I don't see that solution as probable in this society, but there's the instructions in case anyone wants them.
Since the government is a white elephant, programmers could instead solve this problem on their own. Anyone who makes programs could choose a portion of their work to release pro bono. For example, make 9 apps for sale and 1 pro bono, using the recommended 10% tithe for Christians. If you're Muslim, zakat is 2.5% of your qualifying wealth which would be 1 out of 40, probably better to do that by hours unless you write code as fast as I write poetry. If you are well supported, you might choose to make much more of your work pro bono. A nonprofit could make writing free disability apps their whole focus. Someone could then make a website collecting everyone's free accessibility apps, and advertise that website to eye doctors and organizations serving the blind.
As yet another option, people with disabilities could write accessibility programs. Computer programming is a skill that easily evades most disabilities. You don't need to be able to move or type or talk, you just need to be able to think and communicate in some fashion with an interface, then have a program that lets you do stuff. So most people with the mental potential could learn to code if they wanted to. (Not everyone thinks well in that direction.) It might be more effective to have sighted people write apps for vision-impaired people, and so on, but then again the very different perspective of blind programmers could be useful. If I were a tech company, I'd seriously consider building mixed-ability teams for sake of parallax. A team with an abled programmer, a blind programmer, a deaf programmer, a paraplegic programmer, and a neurovariant programmer should be able to write some seriously badass code.
Well ...
Re: Well ...
Re: Well ...
a) human faces
b) different races
c) different genders
d) different ages.
Then you customize the program by telling it, "This is Aunt Marge." If the computer flubs, you might need to specify that Aunt Marge is a human female of Caucasian heritage aged 47, or whatever. The computer would then use its own onboard database to store and recognize people you interact with often. For others, it could tell you that someone is there and some general details about them, but nothing more. Doing it this way, you could ask everyone for permission to save their face to your database, and it would then be their choice yes or no. (I would further stipulate if they say no, they have no right to complain when you don't recognize them without your assistive device.)
Re: Well ...
Re: Well ...
* Split the current device across both ears of the glasses, instantly doubling the space available. You need to balance the weight anyhow. If more is required, consider wearable extensions to go in a pocket or backpack, as with some medical devices. Vision is valuable enough that people would probably put up with a lot of hassle to get it.
* Link it to a more powerful device such as a smartphone or tablet. If locked away from the internet, device-to-device communication can be relatively secure.
* Do the main learning at home via desktop, and then the portable won't need as much processing power just to run what it knows. However, this might limit the number of stored faces. Consider separating them into files like "church group," "family," etc. based on who you expect to see together.
* Concentrate on making the device smaller so it can do more in the same space.
*sigh* I am so not a technogeek, why am I having to do their job for them? Seriously, most geeks wear glasses. Why did nobody notice the imbalanced weight problem? >_< Okay, I frequently notice things that other people don't. But when I routinely outclass people in their profession and it's one of my least ept areas, I grumble.
Re: Well ...
Re: Well ...
I make a good sounding board, at least. It's gotten me hired in the past, albeit in a different context. If someone wanted to hire my insights for software or hardware development, I'd certainly consider that. I know how to do a lot more things than I can personally do, and I have a lot of ulterior information.