New Technology Helps Visually Impaired to 'See' Emotions From: Umea University (Sweden) - 04/27/2010 By: Karin Wikman Umea University's Shafiq ur Rehman has developed a system that offers visually impaired users a method for interpreting people's facial expressions. The system features a Web camera, hardware the size of a coin, and a tactile display. The system converts visual information from the camera into advanced vibrating patterns displayed on the skin. "The vibrators are sequentially activated to provide dynamic information about what kind of emotion a person is expressing and the intensity of the emotion," Rehman says. The user first must learn the vibrational patterns associated with different facial expressions. The researchers' main focus has been to characterize different emotions and find a way to present them using biomedical engineering and computer vision technologies. "We have successfully demonstrated how the technology can be implemented on mobile phones for tactile rendering of live football games and human emotion information through vibrations," Rehman says. Read the entire article at: http://www.expertsvar.se/4.fe857aa117caa42683800010.html?prid=13478 Link: Expressing emotions through vibration for perception and control (Thesis) http://umu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:308457/FULLTEXT01