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R.Wreck
SFN Regular
USA
1191 Posts |
 Posted - 07/09/2010 : 14:50:37
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A car designed to be driven by blind people is under development (link)
The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and Virginia Tech are teaming up to create a car designed to be driven by blind people. Instead of creating a fully autonomous machine, the creators put total control over the car's movements in the driver's hands.
To give blind people control, researchers are developing innovative, non-visual interfaces that provide drivers with information about the road ahead. The car may come with gloves that provide tactile information about the road's twists and turns. TG Daily reports that cars may include "a vibrating vest that gives feedback on speed, a click counter steering wheel with audio cues and spoken commands for feedback on the car's direction."
"This is not the car telling the blind person to turn right, this is providing the blind person information -- information that people generally get through their eyes, but through a different method," Mark Riccobono, executive director of the National Federation of The Blind Jernigan Institute, told PRI's The Takeaway. Riccobono believes the technology created for the car could help classrooms for blind children and blind people more generally. |
While I am all for using technology to improve the lives of those with disabilities, I am dubious about this effort. Driving safely is a skill that requires visual input and mental processing that I don't think technology can replace. The use of peripheral vision and the ability to react quickly to visual inputs are critical. There are plenty of visually abled drivers out there who are a menace to others on the road. With all due respect to the blind, I don't think we need to add blind people piloting 3000 pound projectiles to the mix. I think the effort would be better spent designing car / roadway systems that allowed the cars to pilot themselves.
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The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley
The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2010 : 15:07:05 [Permalink]
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Yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you need functional eyes to drive unless you are the only vehicle on the road.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2010 : 01:13:50 [Permalink]
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Until there is a fully autonomous vehicle that can drive the streets, roads, and highways, a car for blind drivers is a pipe dream. Possibly a dangerous dream, depending on how deluded and persistent its designers actually are.
What we've needed most since the first Model T has always been to take the clumsy damned apes out of the chain of command. That goal applies to both blind and sighted apes. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2010 : 04:19:52 [Permalink]
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| When did this story come out? April first! They not looking at one slight problem. How would a blind person pass the eye test required for a drivers license????? Ooops! Seems they didn't see that coming! Maybe the car salesman, Mr Magoo, can take the test for them. SS |
There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2010 : 20:15:44 [Permalink]
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The link dates the story at July 6th.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Car for the Blind
