Vibrations series of products for deafblind

"Deaf-blind individuals are a unique, heterogeneous group of individuals whose disability is greater than the sum of the individuals’ disabilities of deafness or blindness (Kelly, 2002)....  In India, a lot of work has been done for single disability people but when it comes to multiple disabled people the services are almost negligible." (Dr Sushama Sharma, Reader, KUK | Services for deafblind individuals in India |(2011)

VIBRATIONS is a series of mobile apps, that will enable the deafblind to receive and produce information to communicate using a smart phone. The project plans to use vibrations to read text to make wikipedia readable (by filtering out the unnecessary text, images and details), explore benefit of speech-to-text to listen to others and text-to-speech facility to type in text and make it possible for them to post tweets.

Project VIBRATIONS was launched in November 2010 with the aim to develop mobile apps that would benefit persons who are both deaf and blind, enabling them to communicate bidirectionally and access information, without the caregiver. Under the project, apps will be developed to enable them to (1) read and send SMSes (1) access information from Wikipedia (3) Use speech-to-text and text-to-speech to communicate (4) Post tweets.

The objectives of the Project is:

• To create a tiny window into a dark and silent world of the deafblind to find ways for them to communicate and to access and produce a variety of useful information via smart phone.
• To help persons who are deafblind to communicate using Android phones.
  
• To train engineering students to write software for the disabled, while becoming sensitized to their needs.
• To raise awareness among the caregiver community and government, so that real change can be brought about in the lives of people who have seen negligible benefit from the information revolution.
• To keep costs as low as possible, so that the apps can continue to be made available to the deaf-blind community free of cost.

PocketSMS app, which has recently been completed, is the first app of the VIBRATIONS family, which has been completed and launched. It uses vibrations as in Morse Code to read text and gesture based handwriting recognition to type-in text, to read incoming SMS and send SMS (text).

Person who are both deaf and blind need to learn morse code to use the apps being developed under the Project VIBRATIONS. We have developed a simple app to help them learn morse code on their Android phone.

dbbug V2 a game for deaf-blind

This game can be played by a deaf-blind person. Others might also like to play it under the table at a boring meeting, or in the opera, without disturbing anyone.

Keep the screen horizontal, and play the game by tilting it. On the screen are a bug and a ball. The ball rolls in the direction you tilt the phone. When it touches the bug, it vibrates the score, and the bug flies to a new spot on the screen. Your score on the title bar is incremented by 1.

When the ball moves towards the bug, the phone vibrates. The faster it approaches the bug, the longer the vibration pulse. Slide your finger horizontally on the screen to increase/decrease the size of the bug

Please see the video

Download dbbug V2 App


Narangi2 A Slate for Deaf-Blind Children

Tap the screen to switch between draw and sense modes. To draw, switch to draw mode, upon which you feel a long vibration. Now drag your finger across screen. The drawing is black on orange. The device vibrates while you draw, with a slight change when you cross an existing line. To sense what you have drawn, tap the screen to switch to sense mode. You feel a short vibration. Now simply move your finger on the screen. The device vibrates when there is black color below your finger. To clear the screen, rotate your phone from portrait to landscape or vice versa.

Narangi in Hindi means "orange" which is the color of the background on which you draw. Na rangi, on the other hand, means "without color". Since this is a monochrome drawing app, that seemed like an appropriate name. This app has been designed with the help of friends from the Homi Bhabha Center for Science Education, Mumbai. It does not collect any data from you.

Please see the video

Download narangi2 App

dbbug a game for deaf-blind

This game can be played by a deaf-blind person. Others might also like to play it under the table at a boring meeting, or in the opera, without disturbing anyone.

Keep the screen horizontal, and play the game by tilting it. On the screen are a bug and a ball. The ball rolls in the direction you tilt the phone. When it touches the bug, it produces a long vibration, and the bug flies to a new spot on the screen. Your score on the title bar is incremented by 1.

When the ball moves towards the bug, the phone vibrates. The faster it approaches the bug, the longer the vibration pulse.

Please see the video

Download dbbug App


Narangi A Slate for Deaf-Blind Children

A free Android app that lets you draw with your finger in black color. You can sense the drawing by moving your finger on the screen: when black is under your finger, the phone vibrates.

Please see the video

Download Narangi App

dbtype Communication for the Deaf Mute with Low Vision

This app allows communication to a person who cannot hear nor speak, and also has low vision. A text box using large font sizes allows communication through typing. A Hear button activates speech to text, displaying the result in the text box, while the Say button converts the text in the box to speech and plays it through the speakers of the device. A Pick button lets you pick from prestored sentences. To edit these, type only the word "settings" (without parenthesis) in the text box. This opens another screen where you can edit a list of sentences, and also change the font size. When you press Save, you are brought back to the main screen.

Please see the video

Download dbtype App


Showitem Picture Based Communication for the Non-Verbal

Simple database functionality: associate short alphanumeric codes for pictures to call them up quickly. Press Select to find a picture in your gallery, type in a code in the text box, press Save. A list of all tags to pictures is available by pressing Pick. x deletes a single item in the database, Clear empties the database.

Please see the video

Download Showitem App


TellMyPhone English and Hindi speech recognition for the DEAF and LOW Vision

The TellMyPhone free app is for the deaf with low vision. It recognizes speech in Hindi/English and displays it in large roman text.

Please see the video

Download TellMyPhone