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Oskar the blind kitten (previously at Neatorama) has grow into a good-sized cat -and he has a Facebook page. In this video, he wrestles that strange thing we call a Christmas tree. His friend Klaus watches from the sidelines. -via The Daily What
Oskar the kitten may have been born blind, but things are looking up for him! Watch him in his new home, discovering what toys are for. We saw a slightly older Oskar in a video last month, playing with the wind from a hair dryer. That turned out to be a copy of the original video (now corrected) which did not explain that Oskar is blind. -via I Am Bored
Jack Sprat is a greyhound who put every ounce of heart he had into racing, clocking 40 miles per hour in training. But when he made his professional debut at Wimbledon last year, he came in last in both of his races. It was only after his owner retired him and sent him to Dogs’ Trust in Snetterton, Norfolk, England, that veterinarians figured out how much effort Jack really put into racing -and everything he does. It turns out that the dog is blind!
Vets at the animal charity examined Jack and realised a rare condition had left him completely blind in his left eye and with only 20 per cent vision in his right.
They diagnosed him with Chorioretinitis, a swelling and irritation of the middle layer of the eye, which is irreparable.
Kate Brewster, 27, of the Dogs’ Trust, said Jack would have been ‘terrified’ racing with no vision in his left eye – used by dogs to follow the rabbit.
She said: ‘We don’t think Jack’s racing owner realised the severity of his blindness and it would have been terrifying for him to race because of the noise.
‘He must have followed the other dogs or maybe used his sense of smell to get around the track. He clearly had no way of seeing the rabbit.’
Jack stills runs very fast at the shelter, where he knows exactly where the fences are. The animal charity says Jack will make a great pet, and hopes to find him a home with no small children or other pets. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: SWNS)
Hansub Lee designed this Finger Reader for visually-impaired people. The idea is that scanning bar codes with the “finger” will send information about the product to the user’s blue tooth, making shopping much more convenient. It can even, additionally, be worn around the neck as a unique fashion accessory.
Link -via Laughing Squid
Not everything is bad in the world today. Here’s the story of a pet goose taking a blind dog under its wings:
Buttons the four-year-old goose leads her pal around everywhere either by hanging onto him with her neck, or by honking to tell him which way to go.
Owner Renata Kursa, 47, of Lublin, Poland, was heartbroken when Bak was left blind after an accident last year.
‘But gradually Buttons got him up on his feet and starting walking him around. They’re inseparable now – they even chase the postman together,’ she said.
Link via TheDailyWh.at
Alexia Sloane is only ten years old, but she got the opportunity to work as an interpreter at the European Parliament in Brussels. Alexia received an exception to the age 14 minimum rule because she is fluent in English, French, Spanish, and Mandarin, and is now learning German -and she does a great job interpreting. Did I mention that Alexia is blind?
Alexia has been tri-lingual since birth as her mother, a teacher, is half French and half Spanish, while her father, Richard, is English.
She started talking and communicating in all three languages before she lost her sight but adapted quickly to her blindness. By the age of four, she was reading and writing in Braille.
When she was six, Alexia added Mandarin to her portfolio. She will soon be sitting a GCSE in the language having achieved an A* in French and Spanish last year. The girl is now learning German at school in Cambridge.
Alexia has wanted to be an interpreter since she was six and chose to go to the European Parliament as her prize when she won a young achiever of the year award.
(Image credit: Geoff Robinson)
Ever since he was a little boy, Bart Hickey has always loved cars – so it’s only natural that he became a mechanic. In fact, he has his own car shop, called Bart’s Auto and Towing or B.A.T. The name is very apt, because Bart is blind as a bat since birth.
When someone tells you that something’s impossible or you simply cannot do it, just think of this post:
A kitten named Jack Tripper was born with no eyes at all. But he doesn’t let that stop him from doing what he wants, As far as Jack knows, all cats are like him. Jamie adopted him from a colony of barn cats and Jack adapted to his permanent home just fine.
“He’s growing like a weed and every day gets more daring and adventurous! He’s comfortable with the entire house now, which means I have to go looking for him if I want him. You can take your eyes off of him for just a second and he’s gone, climbing up onto something or grabbing at something he shouldn’t be. But he’s cute, so it’s okay.When I take Jack outside to play in the yard he doesn’t just walk around the garden now, he runs everywhere! I have never seen a cat run as fast as him. When he hits something, he just turns around and runs the other way.” – Jamie
See more pictures of this handsome kitten at Love Meow. Link -via TYWKIWDBI
Austin Seraphin got an iPhone. Since he is blind, the first thing he did was activate VoiceOver, which reads text out loud. Then later, he tried the Color ID app, which identifies colors picked up by the camera.
I have never experienced this before in my life. I can see some light and color, but just in blurs, and objects don’t really have a color, just light sources. When I first tried it at three o’clock in the morning, I couldn’t figure out why it just reported black. After realizing that the screen curtain also disables the camera, I turned it off, but it still have very dark colors. Then I remembered that you actually need light to see, and it probably couldn’t see much at night. I thought about light sources, and my interview I did for Get Lamp. First, I saw one of my beautiful salt lamps in its various shades of orange, another with its pink and rose colors, and the third kind in glowing pink and red.. I felt stunned.
The next day, I went outside. I looked at the sky. I heard colors such as “Horizon,” “Outer Space,” and many shades of blue and gray. I used color queues to find my pumpkin plants, by looking for the green among the brown and stone. I spent ten minutes looking at my pumpkin plants, with their leaves of green and lemon-ginger. I then roamed my yard, and saw a blue flower. I then found the brown shed, and returned to the gray house. My mind felt blown. I watched the sun set, listening to the colors change as the sky darkened. The next night, I had a conversation with Mom about how the sky looked bluer tonight. Since I can see some light and color, I think hearing the color names can help nudge my perception, and enhance my visual experience. Amazing!
Technology is a wonderful thing. Link -via Metafilter
Esref Armagan was born blind to an impoverished Turkish family.
First, using a Braille stylus, he etches an outline of his drawing… When he is satisfied with his drawing, he starts to apply the oils with his fingers. Because he applies only one color at a time (the colors would smear otherwise), he must wait two or three days for the color to dry before applying the next color
His work has been displayed at dozens of exhibitions in Turkey and in Europe. A gallery of his work (non-flash version).
Previously on Neatorama: The Blind Painter (a different one).
Link, via The Oyster Club.
Just because they can’t see, it doesn’t mean that blind people can’t be artists. Indeed, there’s NEBA – the National Exhibits of Blind Artists – an organization dedicated to showcasing the work of artists who are blind or visually impaired.
But can a blind person be a successful photographer? Meet Rosita McKenzie, 56, from Portobello, Scotland. Her photographs are now being showcased in an arts festival in Edinburgh:
Speaking to the BBC Scotland news website she said she never thought she would be able to take photographs.
She said: "This whole process helps me to burn something into my memory, something I can use to recall as images in your head can become less clear.
"People explain to me more about the things that are around me when I have my camera. [...]
"I have had photographers say that I have captured things they would not have been able to for example I took a picture of a bridge of the Edinburgh Canal and in the bottom right hand corner there was half an image of a jogger.
"I can then have the pictures produced into raised drawings."
And yes, she has a digital camera with autofocus: Link
A newly-design Rubik’s cube seems to have one purpose: increase the number of people frustrated by the ever-popular Rubik’s cube.
Instead of colors, every square is covered with Braille, allowing the blind to endlessly turn cubes until eventually they throw their hands up in frustration.
This gives new meaning to putting a "stumbling block before the blind."
One of the more sensible concepts in a long time that hopefully will delight the sighted folks too! Maybe we’ll learn Braille in this process!
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by nmiller.
British soldier Craig Lundberg of Walton, Merseyside, England was blinded by a by a rocket propelled grenade in Iraq in 2007. He has been fitted with a prototype BrainPort device that converts images from a video camera in his goggles into electrical impulses send to a plate in his mouth that he can read with his tongue.
L/Cpl Lundberg said it felt like “licking a nine volt battery or like popping candy”.
“You get lines and shapes of things, it sees in black and white so you get a two dimensional image on your tongue, it’s a bit like a pins and needles sensation,” he said.
“It’s only a prototype, but the potential to change my life is massive, it’s got a lot of potential to advance things for blind people.
“One of the things it has enabled me to do is pick up objects straight away, I can reach out and pick them up when before I would be fumbling around to feel for them.”
Link to story (with video). -via Arbroath
Link to BrainPort Technologies.
This cane designed by Wonjune Song is meant for the blind, but there are two big innovations that set it apart from the classic cane:
1) Its got a sensor lens fitted at the bottom of the cane. So when a blind person approaches a traffic light or stairs, the cane senses it.
2) It warns the user of the obstacles via a vibrating handle.
The Eye Stick is fitted with a sensor lens towards the bottom part, from where it picks up location bearings, like is the person nearing a staircase, or is he near the traffic lights. It then sends feedback to the blind commuter via vibrations, communicating the scenario, so that the person can be aware of his surroundings and take his next step with confidence.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Design Freak.
Still in the concept stage, the Touch Color is a device that would allow visually impaired people to create two-dimensional art:
This innovative device comprises a Rainbow Picker in a form of a scroll wheel, which contains Braille dots that allows blind people to select a color from 24 available. After selecting a color, this device differentiates the colors by generating varied temperatures through LED bulbs. Then the user can paint on a thermal art board by using their fingers and the thermal-color display technology keeps the track of the lines and colors the blind artist is using.
There are more pictures and diagrams of this gadget at the link.
If you’re visually impaired, it can be hard to fill a mug (or any other vessel) without spilling over the edge. The Braun Bell Mug beeps at each of three different levels, so the user can know how much liquid s/he’s getting, without making a mess.
Researchers at the University of Bristol have developed a helmet that helps visually impaired people make use of echolocation to find their way around:
The system takes real-time imagery of local obstacles, be they stairs, walls, or trees, as well as moving objects like cars and other people, and alerts the wearer using the sounds perfected in the Spanish echolocation system mentioned above.
The helmet uses stereo headphones to denote where the objects are relative to the wearer, and the volume of the sound indicates the distance. The device has a 60-degree range of vision, and can identify objects as far away as 15 feet. The researchers are also currently looking to integrate GPS data into the rig, so that users can use it to plot specific courses.
Engineering students at Virginia Tech have built a car that can be driven by the visually impaired. The vehicle is equipped with laser range finders and a semi-autonomous computer that helps direct drivers around a course that they can’t see:
The steering wheel is hooked up to a distance monitor that gathers information from laser range finders, and it uses voice software to tells the driver how far to turn the wheel. For example, the monitor will tell the driver “turn left three clicks.” As the driver does that, the monitor makes three clicking noises.
A vibrating vest provides cues to follow when accelerating and decelerating. The vest vibrates in different places — the back, the belly and the shoulders — to convey different commands. When the entire vest vibrates, it means, “Slam on the brakes!”
Rob Spence of Eyeborg blog is a filmmaker that lost an eye, so naturally he decided to get an eye-cam!
Priya Ganapati of Wired Blog has the story:
Rob Spence looks you straight in the eye when he talks. So it’s a little unnerving to imagine that soon one of his hazel-green eyes will have a tiny wireless video camera in it that records your every move.
The eye he’s considering replacing is not a working one — it’s a prosthetic eye he’s worn for several years. Spence, a 36-year-old Canadian filmmaker, is not content with having one blind eye. He wants a wireless video camera inside his prosthetic, giving him the ability to make movies wherever he is, all the time, just by looking around.
"If you lose your eye and have a hole in your head, then why not stick a camera in there?" he asks.
Spence, who calls himself the "eyeborg guy," will not be restoring his vision. The camera won’t connect to his brain. What it will do is allow him to be a bionic man where technology fuses with
the human body to become inseparable. In effect, he will become a "little brother," someone who’s watching and recording every move of those in his field of vision.
Link | More on Rob’s blog: Eyeborg | Not squeamish? Check out the surgery video: Link [Dailymotion] – via ligress
(Photos: Steve Mann)
