Intelligent fingertip 'eye' to help the blind

Ultrasound canes and voice-enabled GPS devices that help blind and partially sighted people in navigation may soon be history, for scientists have created a new intelligent fingertip 'eye'.

The device may change how such people interact with their environment.

George Stetten, a bioengineer at the University of Pittsburgh, has launched the idea of a tiny video camera that sits at the end of a finger and connects to a portable computer that can analyse the footage and flag up objects of interest.

In fact, the camera mounting also has the capability to vibrate for providing physical feedback from the computer to signal when it sees something significant.

Thus, the camera can warn when it spots a nearby obstacle, like a wall or the edge of a table.

In fact, it could even trace out the shape of the obstacle to guide the user past, reports New Scientist.

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Its about time they come up with something like this. I just hope that this will help blind people in ways they have never been helped before.

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[edit on 2/18/2009 by Badge01]