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Steve Hoefer

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Meet The Tacit Project. It’s Sonar For The Blind. Meet The Tacit Project.

Meet The Tacit Project. It’s Sonar For The Blind.

It’s Sonar For The Blind. This is a project I’m calling Tacit. No, I didn’t bother making an awkward backronym for it, it just seemed like an appropriate name that’s a lot shorter (though less descriptive) than “Hand-Mounted Haptic Feedback Sonar Obstacle Avoidance Asstance Device”. It measures the distance to things and translates that into pressure on the wrist. Grathio Labs - Haptic device gives blind a helping hand. San Francisco-based inventor Steve Hoefer has developed a prototype haptic device which applies pressure to the wrist when objects come in range of its sensors.

Haptic device gives blind a helping hand

The device has a pair of sensors at the front which send out ultrasonic pulses measuring the distance of objects from one inch to 10 feet. Motorized rubber pads at the rear apply increasing amounts of pressure as users get closer to an object. Hoefer has released details of the Tacit project on his web site under a Creative Commons license. San Francisco-based inventor devises cheap haptic device to help visually impaired "Tacit" uses sensors which measure distances from one inch to 10 feetRubber pads apply more pressure as a user gets closer to an object (CNN) -- It started out life as a new video game concept but quickly morphed into a prototype with a far more practical vision -- a haptic device to help the blind and visually impaired.