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Science & Tech.
Pradeep Kumar

04/04/21 09:30 AM IST

Touch-sensitive watch for the visually impaired

In news

Two researchers from IIT Kanpur have developed a touchsensitive, tactile, haptic watch that can help visually impaired people learn what time it is by touching the face.

Highlights
  • The watch makes up for two of the disadvantages of watches made for the use of visually challenged people: first, the lack of privacy in watches that audibly announce the time and second, the large sizes of touch sensitive watches.
  • The watch conveys the time in the form of vibrations when a person touches the right spoke on the face.
  • The watches have resolution of five minutes right now, but with an improvement that would can help the resolution to go up to one minute.
  • The researchers have also developed a prototype smart watch which can, in addition to telling the time, measure vital health parameters.
Way forward
  • The other project – a computer user-interface that is friendly to visually impaired users - is gaining ground.
  • The device consists of a wearable headset or headband, to which is attached a camera eye, and a haptic glove.
  • The word haptic refers to technology that enables transmission and reception of information through touch.
  • By coupling the camera to the touch-sensitive glove, visually challenged users can be helped to navigate a virtual screen spread out before them.
  • Further if this virtual screen is coupled to a smart phone or ATM, they can operate the same even if they are not able to see it.
Source: The Hindu

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