UW Students Develop Apps to Aid Disabled
From: KOMO News (WA) - 03/15/2010
By: Denise Whitaker

Computer and engineering students at the University of Washington have
developed five accessibility applications for mobile phones. Janet Hollier
and her team developed Braille Learn, a virtual pet game designed to make
learning Braille fun for blind children. Players use the touch pad and
vibrations in the phone to choose the correct Braille symbols, and earn
tokens that can be used to feed, exercise, or play with their pet and keep it
happy. Jason Behmer led a team in using Google Maps to develop an application
that can help people who are blind, deaf-blind, or have low vision determine
their location, the direction they are going, and what points of interest or
businesses lie ahead. Other applications include a daily task trainer and
scheduler that uses the phone's camera to read characters for the blind, and
the Where Am I? program, which can help blind or low-vision people find
nearby people or places. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/87737592.html

Links:
MobileAccessibility: Bridge to the World for Blind, Low-Vision, and Deaf-Blind People
http://mobileaccessibility.cs.washington.edu/

Projects:
http://mobileaccessibility.cs.washington.edu/projects/