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“What if a visually impaired can read a newspaper? Or read signages on the road,” asks Gunjan Gupta Director of Tellmate, a wearable developed by a Jaipur-based start-up.
What the visually impaired needs to do is just press a button on the wearable glasses. It takes a picture sends the info to the start-up’s servers for processing. “After the processing, the device would read out the text to the user,” Gunjan Gupta, Director of Tellmate, told BusinessLine .
The service, which is going to be rolled in two months, is available in app form (Android to start with) too. “You will be able to download the app and follow a similar process to have the phone read the text for you,” he said.
Currently in beta version, the start-up is planning to hit the market in early July. It can read English and Hindi texts for now. The 12-member start-up has not raised any funds so far.
This and a few other apps and tech-based products were on display at the Microsoft Accessibility Summit held here on Tuesday. Innovision Tech, a Mumbai-based start-up, has developed a mini-typewriter-like device that serves as a personal computer for the visually challenged. Christened BrailleMe, the device can be connected to phones, laptops and computers. Developed by Innovision Tech, the device is priced at ₹20,000 a piece.
“The device enables reading via electro-mechanically actuated pins. The device also has a Braille keypad to key-in the text, which can be converted to regular text and transferred to other devices. It is a Braille tablet in standalone mode. You can plug in an SD card or a pen drive with regular text. This can be converted to Braille,” Surabhi Srivastava, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Innovision, said.
The firm, which is planning to release the product in October, is looking to sell 100-200 units initially.
Naraynan Ramakrishnan has come out with FJ Typer, which is a touch-typing tutor for the visually impaired. “It comes out with an audio bytes as a feedback each time a user presses a key on the keyboard. It helps users explore the keyboard and familiarise themselves with it using audio feedback,” he said, demonstrating the product.
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