A Tool To Help The Visually Impaired “See” Facial Expressions

Shafiq ur Réhman, a doctoral student at Umeå University in Sweden has unveiled his thesis project — a technology that converts facial emotions into special tactile sensations for the visually impaired.

The system uses a webcam to capture faces, and then subsequently converts the captured emotion into a series of vibrations that correspond with the expressed emotion.

The users are expected to train themselves by making their own faces into the webcam and getting a feel for how the vibrations change with the faces they’re making.

The technology has been granted a patent and reportedly will be brought to market in the near future.

Press release: New technology helps visually impaired to ‘see’ emotions

(Hat Tip: PopSci)

Image credit: daveograve @ flickr

*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*


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