The Blind Can Read With New Finger Mounted Device That Converts Text to Audio in Real Time

Courtesy of the researchers Researchers at the MIT Media Laboratory have built a prototype of a finger-mounted device with a built-in camera that converts written text into audio for visually impaired users. The device provides feedback — either tactile or audible — that guides the user’s finger along a line of text, and the system generates the corresponding audio in real time. Researchers at the MIT Media Lab have created a finger-worn device with a built-in camera that can convert text to speech for the visually impaired. “You really need to have a tight coupling between what the person hears and where the fingertip is,” says Roy Shilkrot, an MIT graduate student in media arts and sciences and, together with Media Lab postdoc Jochen Huber, lead author on a new paper describing the device. “For visually impaired users, this is a translation. It’s something that translates whatever the finger is ‘seeing’ to audio. They really need a fast, real-time feedback to maintain this connection. If it’s broken, it breaks the illusion.” Huber will present the paper at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Computer-Human Interface conference in April. His and Shilkrot’s co-authors are Pattie Maes, the Alexander W. Dreyfoos Professor in Media Arts and Sciences at MIT; Suranga Nanayakkara, an assistant professor of engineering product...
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Smart Phones Xperia GX & Xperia SX: Sony Unveils LTE Running On Android ICS

Sony Mobile Communications has proclaimed two new Xperia smartphones – Xperia GX and Xperia SX – both operated on the Android operating system. Both soon usable in Japan in the few months but in India launch date has not been announced yet. The devices are the first Sony-branded LTE mobile phones launched in Japan and will ensure download speed of up to 75mbps. Let’s take a look at the devices. Xperia GX: This one has a 4.6 inch capacitive touchscreen Reality Display (720×1280 pixel resolution), powered by the Mobile BRAVIA Engine, and runs on Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) OS (right out of the box). It is powered by a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor (no Quad-core here) and has 1 GB of RAM. The internal memory of the device is 16 GB. The phone has a mammoth 13MP rear camera with Sony Exmor R for mobile that can also record full high definition (HD) videos (1080p) at 30 frames per second. And the rear camera is also capable of taking 3D panoramic still images. Sony has also provided a 1.3MP front-facing camera for video-calling. On the connectivity front, the device has Bluetooth4.0, Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G (depending on the region). It also comes with a micro USB port and a micro HDMI port. It has a 1700 mAh battery, weighs 127 gram and the dimensions measure 131mm x 69mm x 10.5mm. The device features a matte...
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New Way To Make Electricity from Magnetism

Credit: Kipp van Schooten and Dali Sun, University of Utah By showing that a phenomenon dubbed the "inverse spin Hall effect" works in several organic semiconductors - including carbon-60 buckyballs - University of Utah physicists changed magnetic "spin current" into electric current. The efficiency of this new power conversion method isn't yet known, but it might find use in future electronic devices including batteries, solar cells and computers. "This paper is the first to demonstrate the inverse spin Hall effect in a range of organic semiconductors with unprecedented sensitivity," although a 2013 study by other researchers demonstrated it with less sensitivity in one such material, says Christoph Boehme, a senior author of the study published April 18 in the journal Nature Materials. The upper part of this illustration shows the device, built on a small glass slide, that was used in experiments showing that so-called spin current could be converted to electric current using several different organic polymer semiconductors and a phenomenon known as the inverse spin Hall effect. The bottom illustration shows the key, sandwich-like part of the device. An external magnetic field and pulses of microwaves create spin waves in the iron magnet. When those waves hit the polymer or organic semiconductor, they create spin current,...
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