[bksvol-discuss] Re: High-tech devices help disabled get back lives

Cindy <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx> · Fri, 18 Mar 2005 10:43:31 -0800 (PST)

Wow! Cool! Awesome!  And I'll add How wonderful.

As someone said in an earlier post, technology is
wonderful, and the people who use their imaginations
to solve these problems are, too.

Cindy

-- "Shelley L. Rhodes" <juddysbuddy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> 
> 
> Los Angeles Daily News
> Friday, March 18, 2005
> 
> High-tech devices help disabled get back lives
> 
> By Brent Hopkins, Staff Writer
> 
> Gadgets at CSUN conference offer sights and sounds
> 
> For $110, the blind can see. For $6,800, the mute
> can speak.  At the 
> California State University, Northridge, Technology
> and Persons With 
> Disabilities Conference, wheelchairs rolled through
> crowded exhibit halls 
> while red-tipped white canes tapped their sightless
> holders through a sea of 
> people. The six-day exposition, which runs through
> Saturday, has drawn 
> medical professionals, manufacturers, educators and
> those simply hoping to 
> improve their quality of life.
> 
> "This is a lifesaver," said Fran Mero, a Lancaster
> resident who works in a 
> blind persons assistance program, peering through a
> powerful monocular. "I 
> can read again! My vision's only about 2 feet, so I
> have to rely on other 
> people. Now, I can rely on myself."
> 
> She's had limited vision her entire life, seeing the
> same things at 20 feet 
> most people can see 300 feet away. Slowly focusing
> the metal grip of the 
> 6x16 magnifier, she could make out signs and read
> posters across the room. 
> What began as fuzzy orange blobs became letters,
> then words, then sentences. 
> She was soon reaching for her wallet, ready to buy
> the device that gave her 
> normal vision once again.
> 
> "This is what makes this job fun," said Marv
> Walters, president of Agoura 
> Hills-based Low Vision Optics. "They can find a bus,
> they can find their way 
> around, they can go out in the street again."
> 
> The conference is expected to draw 4,500 attendees
> this year, the most in 
> its 20-year history. Manufacturers from as near as
> Woodland Hills and as far 
> away as Germany debuted new, more powerful devices,
> targeting everything 
> from childhood disabilities to senior care. Bank of
> America showed off a 
> talking automated teller machine, Nokia brought out
> a cell phone that speaks 
> to help visually impaired users work through its
> menus.
> 
> "It's neat to see people come in and say, I had no
> idea -- now we can do all 
> these things we couldn't do before," said Jodi
> Johnson, associate director 
> of CSUN's Center on Disabilities.
> 
> Words+Inc. debuted its latest edition of the Say-it!
> Sam talking computer. 
> Designed for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and
> muscular dystrophy patients 
> who've lost their ability to speak, the computer
> uses a touch-screen 
> interface to allow them to construct sentences that
> it reads aloud.
> 
> "It brings them their speech back," said Erik Reedy,
> who demonstrated the 
> device for the Lancaster-based company. "You lose
> that, you lose a lot. This 
> brings back so much we've even had people get
> college degrees with them."
> 
> A few rows over, a large crowd gathered around Sound
> Foresight Ltd.'s booth, 
> as blind visitors listened carefully to the British
> company's demonstration 
> of its UltraCane. The thick-handled device employs
> an ultrasonic 
> echolocation system, similar to the sense used by
> bats to navigate, allowing 
> users to detect objects in their path and above
> them.
> 
> Since regular white canes only help the user feel
> obstacles at ground level, 
> low hanging objects present a unique hazard for the
> visually impaired.
> 
> A five-minute test was all it took for Tom Lange, a
> Woodland Hills computer 
> instructor who's been blind since birth, to fork
> over $800 for one of the 
> devices.
> 
> "I was walking around awhile ago and thought I was
> approaching a wall, but 
> it turned out there was a (semitrailer) parked
> there," he grinned ruefully. 
> "I smacked right into it, but with this cane, I
> probably would have picked 
> up on it."
> 
> The canes made their American debut at the
> conference, as Sound Foresight 
> looked for ways to distribute them beyond its
> www.ultracane.com Web site. 
> Stuart Newsome, the Yorkshire-based company's health
> care director, chuckled 
> as he described the enthusiastic American response
> to the high-tech gadget.
> 
> "You get it into people's hands and they're very
> excited," he said. "This 
> being the States, the most frequent words we get are
> 'Wow, cool!' or 'That's 
> awesome!' Yes, lots of words like that."
> 
> Brent Hopkins, (818) 713-3738
> brent.hopkins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 
> IF YOU GO
> 
> WHAT: CSUN 20th Anniversary Technology and Persons
> with Disabilities 
> Conference
> 
> WHEN: Today 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
> 
> Saturday 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
> 
> WHERE: Hilton Los Angeles Airport, 5711 W. Century
> Blvd.
> 
> Los Angeles Airport Marriott, 5855 West Century
> Blvd.
> 
> PHONE: (310) 641-5700
> 
> 
>
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20950~2768770,00.html
> 
> 
> 
> 
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