Greetings to all, from the iCare team at Arizona State University ASU,
I wanted to write to the list regarding this article by Louise Knapp
that recently appeared in Wired News at
http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,62810,00.html. I and my
co-workers at Arizona State University were contributors and are quite
dismayed over the pie in the sky manner in which our research was
presented.
First, the research being done by Nikolaos Bourbakis and his team from
Wright University is not connected to our research at Arizona State
University. We had explored the possibility of working collaboratively,
but found that we didn't have a shared vision and approach to the
research and development of the final product for consumers who are
blind. Thus, at this time, there is no actual connection between the two
programs, iCare from ASU and Tyflos from Wright University.
Before I start into the actual project, let me say it was absolutely
inappropriate to name this "Seeing Eye Computer" as you all know Seeing
Eye is a trademark of the Seeing Eye School that trains Dog Guides.
Also our student, David Paul, was miss quoted regarding students who are
blind never having finished a computer course at ASU. What he actually
said is that there haven't been any students who are blind that have
graduated from ASU with a degree in Computer Science. Such a miss quote
is absurd and shows a real disrespect to those students that are blind
who have successfully completed Computer Science courses at our
institution.
Now let me address directly the information that was presented in the
article that relates to our iCare project. Remember, that Tyflos is
Wright University's project and so I can not speak to that. It is
accurate to say that our research in currently grounded in the lab, and
we are not apologetic about that. We are working on solving the issues
we must solve before we bring something out to the consumer to try out.
We feel that to rush a prototype to quickly can damage our credibility
with consumers who are blind, and we don't want that to happen.
We are working directly with users who are blind to build a prototype,
of the iCare Reader, that will soon be deployed in the community where
consumers at large can try the machine out. This is supposed to happen
by late this summer. The machine to be be deployed is called iCare
Reader and is a digital camera that is mounted above a table, and
aregular computer. The computer will have the application software for
the Reader that includes a OCR package and the necessary algorithms to
provide a communication link between the camera image and the OCR, as
well as navigational tools that the user would need to move back and
forth through the print material they wish to read. This is very much a
reality. For phase two, we also have plans to develop a portable brief
case size unit that an individual can carry with them in a year or so.
Our thinking is that the person shouldn't have to bring the print to the
system, rather they should be able to take the system to the print.
Thus, in phase three we ultimately will have a wearable system with tiny
cameras mounted in a pair of "cool" looking glasses with tiny speakers
at the ends of the leads or stems of the glasses, which will fit behind
the ears so as to not interfere with the wearer's hearing. The brains of
this system will be contained in either a mini laptop or PDA depending
on the power available at this future point in time. This third phase is
probably about 3 years or so down the road.
We are also working on face recognition and detection which will
eventually reside on the same system as the third phase iReader. This
will allow the user to identify those around them and the user will then
be able to initiate contact with others, with out the other person first
making some identifying sound; be it speaking or some other sound by
which we might know them such as keys on a belt or their shoes. There is
a lot of work being done in face recognition following the 9/11 tragedy
. However most of this work isn't very helpful in a whereable system,
since with a wearable system the lighting and point of approach are not
constant. Another drawback to current work in homeland security face
recognition is that it is primarily limited to either right or left
profile or straight on frontal view of a face. Imagine if you are
mingling with others, such as in a meeting or conference, you will
encounter people from all manner of directions. So these are the major
challenges we are working on currently with face recognition.
The third item mentioned in the article related to ASU iCare was the
iCare Assistant, which is a keyboard accessible interface to our
university's course management system called Blackboard trademark
www.blackboard.com. There areas of Blackboard where the cursor doesn't
even go, yet important course information is displayed there. Trying to
navigate through all the links, half of which are just navigational in
nature, to find what you are looking for is a royal pain if you rely on
a screen reader. So we are developing this interface that allows the
user to issue a query or command and all related information contained
in that course site will be brought directly to you, it becomes the
primary focus of the screen. By Summer end, we hope to have included in
this interface the ability of a query pulling even related information
from within PowerPoint slides and other files stored in the particular
course site. We plan to have this interface loaded on the ASU system so
that this functionality and capability will be available to all students
who are blind or can otherwise use the interface.
One more thing: I am also blind and my iCare research and development
team always hears from me, and supports wholeheartedly, loud and clear
is that the wearable system has to be unobtrusive , truly functional and
cool to use and look at. We refuse to develop anything that is going to
make the end user look like
a Marshin.
If you'd like further information, let me know. I hope this explanation
has cleared up some of the misleading info in the article. Also, if you
have sent the original article out to other lists, I ask you to please
forward this as well.
My sincerest thanks and appreciation for reading this editorial,
Terri Hedgpeth
Disability Research Specialist
Cubic, iCare box 87-8909
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-8909
(480) 727-8133 (voice)
(480) 965-2751 (fax)
http://cubic.asu.edu
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