Each summer at Stanford University, the Army High-Performance Computing Research Center (AHPCRC) invites a select group of undergraduates from across the country to gather for a two-month immersion into advanced computing. New Mexico State University student Adam Duran worked with mentors Adrian Lew, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and Sohan Dharmaraja, a doctoral candidate at Stanford studying computational mathematics, on a touchscreen Braille writer that stands to revolutionize how the blind negotiate an unseen world by replacing devices costing up to ten times more.
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00:00:07 [sound] Stanford University. >> I touched my eight fingers to the screen, anywhere. >> Calibrated. >> And the keyboard is built. This project is piece of software that allows visually impaired users to type very efficiently on these modern day tablet PCs such as iPads, Android mobile phones. Essentially anything with a touch screen. >> B, C, D. >> The way it works is instead of having fingers which find
00:00:30 the buttons. We build buttons that find the fingers. >> Calibrated. >> Once you shake the device, the menu is activated. >> Menu activated. >> You interact with the menu options by dragging your finger across the screen. >> [inaudible] chemistry. >> Once I've selected the menu option, I simply release my
00:00:47 finger from the screen. >> Chemistry launched. >> So now the keyboard is set to type chemistry. >> 2H plus O. >> What currently exists is physical note takers which are generally big and clunky and could range from 3,000 to 6,000 dollars. Tablet PCs are available at a fraction of the cost and do so much more. >> Email launched, compose, edit box, sending message
00:01:08 >> Just because you're vision impaired doesn't mean you have anything less to offer. Who knows what we're going to get because of this device. But it's opening a door that wasn't open before. >> Calibrated, calibrated >> For more, please visit us at Stanford.Edu.
