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Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Qualcomm and Project RAY announce eye-free smartphone for blind and visually-impaired people

Project RAY, which designs accessibility tools for blind and visually-impaired people, has announced a new mobile interface that’s designed to be used without sight. It’s been designed in partnership with the Qualcomm Wireless Reach initiative and uses a standard Android smartphone powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor.

The new UI supports phone calls, text messaging, navigation, object recognition, social networking, remote assistance, audio-book reading and other leisure & entertainment features. It combines touch-screen controls with vibration and spoken prompts.

Boaz Zilberman, chief executive officer of Project RAY, said “The breakthrough UI defines a new language for human-device interaction that is built ground-up for eye-free operation. The user touches any position on the screen and that position becomes the starting point for selecting an audio-book, messaging or other activity. Navigation is enabled by a few simple finger movements in different directions. The phone’s built-in vibration capabilities and voice prompts provide user feedback and the UI learns to adapt its behavior based on users’ preferences and usage patterns.”

A trial project in Israel is currently testing the new RAY mobile device with 100 people.

According to the World Health Organization, 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide; 39 million are blind while 246 have low vision.

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Opinion Articles

This week at The Fonecast: 9th July 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

Roaming charges are back in the news this week. Not the latest round of price cuts (or, to be technically correct, lower price caps) but the European Commission's plans for the future. As well as continuing the downward pricing trend for a few more years, Neelie Kroes also wants wholesale interconnection at capped rates and the option of a separate 'roaming contract' when you travel abroad.

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Mark Bridge writes:

Recycling an unwanted mobile phone makes sense. It's good for the environment and it generates cash as well.

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But what happens when people in those developing countries need to recycle their phones?

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Mark Bridge writes:

Recently Pizza Express introduced a new iPhone application that lets customers book a restaurant table and pay their bill. The app was developed by 2ergo, a UK company based in Manchester.

Last week I spoke to Colin McCaffery, Product and Technology Director at 2ergo, to find out how difficult it was to get the app and the restaurant's own technology working together.

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Anonymous opinions about technology are all over the web... and they're not always pleasant. PC versus Mac. Apple versus Android. WiMAX vs LTE. Even a relatively light-hearted rant can be misinterpreted. Still, if some unknown voice is trying to irritate you, you just ignore them - right?

Wrong. Not if you're Research In Motion.

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