Pasco, director of the radio reading service Sun Sounds of Arizona in Tempe, is gearing up to start using a new Productivity Works product called pwTelephone, which allows people without computers to listen to Web sites over the phone. By dialing a special phone number and punching in a pass code, visually impaired and physically disabled people will be able to listen to books, newspapers and magazines from the radio channel, he said. Blind people are also getting help from sensors that are increasingly small and reliable. At the University of Michigan, sensors that measure the distance to the object closest to a person are improving on the traditional white cane. The eight-pound GuideCane has a motorized, steerable foot with ultrasonic sensors on all sides.
Users push a small joystick near the handle to tell the cane where they want to go.
The cane complies, steering the user around obstacles. If the dog pulls you to one side, you can't avoid going that way. The GuideCane has been in development for three years, but the sensors aren't yet reliable enough for general use, Mr. Borenstein said. At JPL, robotics researcher Paolo Fiorini is using sensors to build a wheelchair that can navigate through crowds. The person in the chair puts in the direction and speed they want, and the wheelchair does the rest.