A consultant from i-send came across a most recent press release by LookTel announcing that two mobile solutions companies, Ipplex and LinkMe Mobile, have partnered to create mobile applications for elderly and vision-impaired consumers.
“LookTel allows users to instantly interact with their world through their mobile phone – recognizing everyday objects such as text, money, packaged goods, CDs or medication bottles, even signs and landmarks,” explained Ipplex in a March 24 press release.
The application also provides additional support to the vision-impaired by way of live video, audio chat, push-to-talk audio, and GPS-tracking data.
Their groundbreaking application was selected as a finalist in the CTIA Wireless Emerging Technology Awards Healthcare/Public Safety/Transportation Category in 2010.
Augmented reality-like technology has previously been used to help vision-impaired and blind people see with their ears. Almost 10 years ago, a senior scientist at Philips Research Laboratories in the Netherlands developed a “seeing” system called The vOICe.
The vision technology offered totally blind users a sonic representation of visual sensations by way of image-to-sound renderings. The technology is now available as an Android application from the Seeing With Sound website, http://www.seeingwithsound.com/.
I-send White Paper 2010: Access for the Visually Impaired by using Bluetooth. If you would like a copy please email promote@i-send.co
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