In a story reported by El Mercurio, new technologies are inspiring startups to make the world more accessible to the visually impaired. In Barcelona, at this year’s FYFN (4 years from now) innovation fair, several startups presented their ideas to help visually-impaired people become more autonomous.
Here are the inventions you need to know about:
Braibook: Only 6% of the world’s books are available in Braille, and those that exist are prohibitively expensive. Braibook is a small, portable device that can turn any electronic text into braille using small pop-up buttons that scan the text and transform it into Braille. It can save up to 4000 books and costs EUR$395.
Box One4All: This device analyzes and transmits information from someone’s surroundings, including colors, temperatures, and environmental changes. Invented by the company, Tech4All, the device translates visual cues to spoken word. It also includes Near Field Communication tags, which can be attached to any object that requires a description, such as a bottle of pills.
Biel glasses: These glasses are meant to supplement the sight of people with low-vision. Named after the son of the founder, who is vision-impaired, the glasses use virtual reality to fill in a portion of the user’s eyesight. They are currently just a prototype and have not yet been developed.
These devices are helping make the world more accessible to people of all abilities.
