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. Please see the Video on
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 universalcom Communicator for persons with poor vision, hearing and speech. Cursor eliminated. Please see the video of universalcom Download universalcom App SMS for Low Vision App This app provides you with a notification when sms arrives. When you select the notification, the message opens up in a text box with large fonts. A separate box holds the number. The menu allows you to change font size, select a contact to send sms to, and to send the message in the text box to the number in the number box. Please see the video of SMS for Low Vision Download SMS for Low Vision App Akhtar Akhtar is the first deaf-mute person with low vision we worked with, in develeoping software dbtype and Akhtar that allow him to communicate. Please see the video of Akhtar A menu offers text to speech, including of frequently used sentences, the ability to load and delete files, to share text for purposes of email, chat, etc., to split text so that selected paras can be pasted where desired. People who have difficulty with the cursor should find this a useful app Learn Akhtar App, please see the video Download Akhtar App 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 |
Vibrations series of products for deafblind
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