Tel Aviv University's tactile sensor
According to some research published in the venerable Science Daily, they just might.
You see, some enterprising Israeli researchers are developing the most innovative assistance for the blind since Braille.
Pixels and Policy investigates how virtual worlds are giving eyes to the blind, and why you can run the program on your old Apple II.
Building a Non-Linear World...With Walls
Israeli scientists have co-optedvirtual worlds to provide the blind and visually-impaired an opportunity to "feel out" real-world cities and locations before ever leaving the house. From the article:
[The world] is connected to a joystick, a 3-D haptic device, that interfaces with the user through the sense of touch. People can feel tension beneath their fingertips as a physical sensation through the joystick as they navigate around a virtual environment which they cannot see, only feel: the joystick stiffens when the user meets a virtual wall or barrier.
The software can also be programmed to emit sounds — a cappuccino machine firing up in a virtual café, or phones ringing when the explorer walks by a reception desk.
Developing worlds for the blind is not a new concept, but as the 2007 BBC article notes, developing tactile sensation technology that actually performed up to task proved difficult. Now, it seems, the major hurdles of tactile sensation are cleared - no more than two years after the concept first garnered media attention.
Here's the kicker: Because the world's users are blind, the virtual map can provide immersion to the user without the bottleneck of graphical rendering limitations. In fact, these worlds need barely any graphical rendering. Audible cues and physical response scripts can and have been developed by amateur programmers in Second Life.
Economies of Scale
This also means that scalability may not be as big a problem as it is in graphics-heavy virtual worlds. Cityscapes can be developed and altered easily, and the lack of textures means minute details like back alleys or deep dips in the pavement can be mapped and hitched up to the tactile sensation engine.
Looking at the speed of development in existing virtual worlds, models of a neighborhood or a small city could be produced as side jobs for innovative and entrepreneurial individuals and existing companies. There will certainly be a market for them.
In time, group efforts could even develop a Second Life-esque model for developing these public service projects, with multiple residents of a city pitching in to constantly improve the quality of the product.
Consider it crowdsourcing for the public good.
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