A Blind Legend: Video Game For Blind People

In A Blind Legend, your eyes will be of no help

So close them, sharpen your hearing and your blade�

and embark on an epic, perilous rite of passage.

For the sighted, playing a video game without any video may not make sense at all. But for the blind, it may be the next best thing since sliced bread.

The concept of "video-less" games is being adopted by more and more game developers who want to make video games accessible so that blind people could play them without any trouble. One of the games that will be coming out soon (early 2015) is "A Blind Legend" developed by Dowino studios in France after successfully completing a recent crowdfunding campaign. This is a game in which you play Edward Blake, a knight who has no eyes  and is on a mission to rescue his kidnapped wife. He is accompanied by his daughter Louise, who gives him directions and helps him navigate the environment and  fight Thork's army. There are forests, mountains, dungeons, a furious sea, lots of other obstacles and combat against numerous enemies!

Click to enlarge

This game does not have a video but rather a realistic, 3D sound environment which is most effective when heard using headphones. The sounds coming from different directions help you navigate and take appropriate action. A Blind Legend is very intuitive, and since it is a mobile game, there are various simple gestures that define different actions.

Dowino is aiming to offer non sighted gamers a video game that will give them a rich storyline and an immersive experience, not just a "game" that does things using audio. Once released, this game will be available free of cost for iOS and Android. A demo of the game is available on Dowino's website in English and French for both Windows and Mac. It can be downloaded from here.

To get a feel of what the sound is like, put on your headsets and listen to this clip. 

More from the developers here:

To read more about this A Blind Legend and other similar games, and to know what binaural technology is (that's used in this game), hit the source link.

Source: BBC
Websites: A Blind Legend, Dowino
Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, SoundCloud

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How Do Blind Users Use Smartphones?

There are several things that are just not easy to understand if you don't have any sort of exposure to them. One of those several things that (especially sighted) people have a hard time understanding is how blind people use smartphones? A device with just a flat screen and one to maybe four physical buttons was the bane of many blind users when it first came out, but we all know that things have changed in the last so many years, and phone have become really accessible. But what does that mean (especially to sighted users who are not necessarily familiar with accessibility)? How does accessibility help blind users? What do they do different with their phones to do what sighted users would do? What kind of apps do they use on their phones?

So many questions!

Jonathan Mosen couldn't have done a better job explaining how and what for would a blind user use their smartphone. See him explain how to turn on voiceover on iDevices, and use it to navigate through apps and use them. He also enlightens us about some special apps specifically for blind users (an app that lets you take pictures of an object and searches a crowdsourced database to identify it) that make use of the smartphone a breeze and also enhance their user experience.

Last but not the least, he emphasizes how important making apps accessible is only because there are more and more blind people using smartphones now. If you are a developer, you cannot afford to ignore accessibility.

Watch this amazing video and share it! This is good knowledge for anyone and everyone!

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Source: Twitter
Image source: New York Times

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CanTunes And CanPlan: iOS Apps For Cognitive Impairment

There are certain simple interests we all have that bring us immense pleasure. Needless to say, one of them is listening to music. Thanks to digital music and portable music devices, listening to music is much more fun, and the experience is more special. But what if someone has cognitive impairment and finds maneuvering regular music applications like iTunes difficult?

CanAssist, an assistive technology organization, has released an app for iOS with a minimal interface that helps people with cognitive disabilities play music on their iPhones and iPads with utmost east. CanTunes, a $.99 app on the app store, does not require knowledge of traditional music player buttons (play, pause, rewind, forward, etc.). The interface displays all the album covers on the device in the form of a circular disc. Tapping the album cover starts playing the music and spins the album art continuously, indicating that it is playing. Tapping the  same album art stops the music. You can also tap a different album cover to play that album and stop the current one. As simple as that!

This app also has sleep mode to turn off music after a certain period of time, and is also compatible with VoiceOver.

The same organization has developed another useful app called CanPlan which is a task management app that helps people with a range of cognitive challenges to complete activities with greater independence and confidence.

To set things up, a user would work with a support person and take pictures of each step in a task. For example, for all the steps required to make coffee (get coffee grinds, get filter, etc.), they can take pictures of every step, caption them and create a task. Whenever the user needs to perform that task, they will just go through all the steps one by one in CanPlan and finish that task. These tasks can also be scheduled - they can set reminders for themselves, so at a certain time of day, a message will alert them to perform that task, and they can go through all the steps one by one to accomplish it.

Watch this video for a simple demo of this app.

The free version of CanPlan supports a maximum of 3 tasks. The full version, which supports an unlimited number of tasks, is available for purchase from within the free app.

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I-Limb Ultra: Prosthetic Hand Controlled By iPhone App

Someone once sad �there�s an app for that,� and they weren�t wrong! In today�s society, everyday life is being made easier by apps on smart phones which can do anything from letting us check our bank balance on the move to helping us avoid the traffic on the school run. But the category that has shown the biggest boom in downloads are the medical apps. These range from apps that can help patients to control their long term illnesses, to apps that can allow doctors to visualise their patient�s x-ray radiographs on the move. 

One app that has made a big difference to patient�s lives is the iBGStar Diabetes Manager, and other
apps like it. They are used by diabetic patients to measure their blood sugar levels and keep track of previous reading to ensure they have good control over their condition. This is not only easier for the patient than the old �diary� method of recording their blood sugars, but it can help their doctors to see how treatment is working for their patient and whether it needs to be changed.

The award for the most innovative and life changing app must go to the i-Limb Ultra from Touch Bionics: the app is connected to a bionic prosthetic hand via Bluetooth and users can select different �grips� for any specific tasks they need to do. Sounds like something out of a movie, right? That�s what 16 year old Patrick Kane thought when he was fitted with the bionic hand. He lost his
hand as a baby due to meningococcal septicaemia, but because of this revolutionary new device he is able to live a normal life again, something that we often take for granted. The hand allows Patrick to carry out movements that are so precise they have not been possible with a normal prosthetic in the past: he can now hold a glass, pick up a piece of paper and tie his shoelaces with the touch of a button on his iPhone.

The limb can be controlled by electrical signals in muscles as well as by the iPhone, but this does take some practice to master as Patrick has already learned: "Controlling the hand feels very natural, although it does take a bit longer to learn how to use the automatic grips and gestures, so it was very useful to be able to work with the Touch Bionics therapist on these skills."

This innovation is a huge step for people like Patrick. At the moment the limb is still very expensive, between �30,000 and �80,000, but this technology means that in the not so distant future people that have lost a limb will be able to have the same quality of life as those who haven�t been so unlucky.

You can read the full article here.

This article was written by Niqui Stubbs, a 4^th year medical student with a love of gadgets and technology. She has worked with people who have lost a limb and knows the huge impact a bionic limb like this can have on someone�s life.

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Unus Tactus - Easy iPhone Interface For People With Motor/ Cognitive Deficits

Unus Tactus is a new iOS app that is designed to simplify the lives of people with mild cognitive and/ or motor deficits. The app creates an easy to use phone interface and adds quite many important features that can be easily used for making calls and in case of an emergency.

Unus Tactus creates an interface that shows all contacts in the phone in a 4x4 grid. Each grid has a contact's name and a big thumbnail of them. Calling them simply requires a tap on the thumbnail.

Another useful feature is the big help button on the app, which is available all the time. Whenever  the help button is pressed, two things happen: a phone call is made to an emergency contact, and at the same time a link is emailed to the emergency contact showing the person's exact location on Google Maps. 

The app also has a very interesting feature called Geofence which keeps track of the phone owner's physical location. If the person exits the "fence" (which can be set on the phone - 1 to 15 miles radius), an email with a link to that person's exact location on Google Maps, and an iCloud link (for tracking in real time if the emergency contact knows the phone owner's iCloud login) is sent to the emergency contact. 

Both these features can be especially helpful to people who suffer from Dementia, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, or any other disease that affects judgement, cognition etc.

The idea behind the app is to give peace of mind to caregivers, and to assure them that their loved ones are safe. Although this app is meant for people with cognitive deficits, I see this app as a very useful tool for even people with visual impairment who may use the help button if they get lost during their daily travels, or exit their "geofence". People with low vision too may find the big thumbnails very helpful for making calls.

Currently, this app is only available for iOS (4.2 and above) for $9.99. Go to the Apple app store to buy this app.

To visit the developer's website, click here. The developer also has a Facebook page (Unus Tactus) and a twitter handle (@unustactus).

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FotoBabble: Add Voice To Your Photos

Sharing your photos with people with visual impairment just got a lot more easier and fun. Well, visual impairment may not allow them to see your pictures, but they would still love to hear  about your experiences, right? But what if they are far away from you - a couple of states, maybe an ocean away? That's when FotoBabble comes into the picture. FotoBabble is a web/mobile service that lets you add voice to your pictures. You can sign up for this service (it's free) and use either their website or iPhone app to create pictures with audio descriptions. You can either upload your own picture or choose one from Facebook, and add an audio description (maximum 60 seconds) to it.

Here is picture from FotoBabble with a very good audio description of the picture (click the play button at the bottom left corner of the picture to hear the audio).

Here is a quick tutorial on how to add audio to a picture using FotoBabble.




Website: www.FotoBabble.com
iPhone app (free): iTunes Store

Source: Mashable

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Audiobooks: Audiobook App for iOS

Audiobooks is very true to its name, and if you like (free) audiobooks, then this is the app for you. Available for both iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad, Audiobooks has over 3,500 classic books available for free. Most of the books come from the LibriVox Project where people from around the world release classic audiobooks that they themselves recorded.

Audiobooks is very intuitive  and easy to use. The first option on the app on the left navigation bar is "Top 50" from where you can choose one of the most popular classic books. You can also search for a book using the search option on the top left corner.

Notice that some of the books are highlighted in green and some in grey. The ones in grey are totally free whereas the ones in green have both free and paid options.

If you choose a book highlighted in green you will get multiple versions of it. The first version is always the paid version. 

There is also an "All A - Z" option that lists all the books this app has. Here, the ones highlighted in grey have both free and paid versions, however, the ones in blue are paid only. There are no free versions of those books available.

This app has a rating of 3/5 on iTunes. I noticed that most of the critical reviewers were looking for modern day books on this app which they obviously did not find. After reading those comments, I think I should mention here again that this app only has classic books. I tried three audiobooks and did not have any problems going through them (not the entire lengths, just bits and pieces for the sake of this blog post). 

The ad supported app is available for free. If you don't want to see ads and access some more features, you can get the app for $.99.

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CATRA - Smartphone Accessory That Detects Cataract

CATRA is a highly portable, and easy to use accessory that attaches itself to a smart phone and easily detects cataract. Made from off the shelf components, and consisting of no moving parts, CATRA, developed by Ramesh Raskar's team at MIT, is being considered to be ideal for the developing world.

The user is made to look through the accessory and press a few buttons. Doing so allows the app to collect quantifiable data and create an attenuation map, which in turn helps detect cataracts.

Watch this (technical) video to know more about CATRA.

Note: Although the price of the accessory is not mentioned anywhere, the same team designed a similar accessory called NETRA for eye exams which costs $1.

For more technical details, and to read the paper, hit the source link.
Source: MIT

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Netflix Adds Captioning to iOS

Netflix recently announced that it has added captioning capabilities to its iOS apps on iPhone/ iPod Touch/ iPad. Turning on captioning is very easy. If captioning is available for a movie/ show you are watching, a little balloon appears right on top of the "controls bar" (where the volume bar, pause button are displayed). Clicking the little balloon brings up a list of languages in which captions are available (currently English). Choosing a language starts the captions.

Click the little balloon to see a  list of languages

Choose language

Captions now turned on

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ZoomReader - Speech to Text App for iPhone/iOS

Ai Squared has created a new app for the iPhone and iPod Touch (soon iPad 2) that not only zooms text for visually impaired people but also reads the text back to them.

So what's so special about this app? It sounds like just another text to speech app, doesn't it?

ZoomReader is meant not only for text in documents but pretty much any text - even on boxes, bottles, or any object you can think of that has some text on it. The concept behind the app is very simple - The user takes a picture of the text on an object/ document with their iPhone camera. The app then converts the picture digitally into text using OCR, and reads the text out loud to the user. The app automatically focusses the camera before taking a picture. However, the user can manually focus the camera too by tapping the screen in the center. The app also does a digital zoom on the object so that users could just read enlarged text without going through the OCR process.

Ai Squared claims that this app can have 98% accuracy if the phone is used with a "clamp stand" so that the camera does not shake while taking pictures (perhaps like this one?).

This app is available in the iTunes App Store for $19.99 for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and will soon be available for the iPad 2 (this app is compatible with iOS 4.2+ only). There is no news on when Android users would get this app.

Please watch this video to see ZoomReader in action.



Source: WSJ Blog

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Money Reader iOS App For Blind And Visually Impaired (Video)

Looktel's Money Reader is a revolutionary augmented reality app for the iPhone, iPod Touch (with camera) and iPad (with camera) for the visually impaired that counts US dollar bills ($1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100 bills). As soon as the app detects the bills, it starts counting. There is no need to place the bills in front of the phone camera in a certain orientation. The app detects the bill artwork and immediately recognizes the denomination.

Money Reader does not require an internet connection which makes it usable everywhere. This app is available for $1.99 (app description here).

A quick note about iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch fourth generation (from Money Reader's description on iTunes):

"Note: If you are using an iPhone 3GS or 4th Generation iPod, LookTel Money Reader requires an environment with plenty of light."

Check out the video for a very impressive demo!



Source: Looktel via Engadget

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Text to Speech App for iPhone/iPod/iPad

Here's a great app for the iPhone/iPod/iPad that lets people with speech impairment to communicate very easily and efficiently with others. It is called Assistive Chat, and the strong point of this app is predictive text. Once the user types a letter, Assistive Chat gives them a list of six words. They can either choose one of the six words or type the next letter to get more suggested words. Once the needed word appears in the list, the user simply selects it, and that word becomes a part of the sentence. Once the entire sentence has been typed, a "speech" button read it out loud.

The idea behind this app is to have a decent conversation without involving too many keystrokes because that can be somewhat time consuming, and tiring.

Watch the video to see a demo of Assistive Chat.

The creators of this app advice people with disabilities to use it on the iPad because of its bigger screen surface. It sells on the app store for $24.99.

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