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Researcher uses virtual reality ( Streetlab ) to test a patient ’ s vision © Serge Picaud , 2019
Solutions for life without light and sound For the millions of people who live with deafblindness , the sense of touch is central for perceiving and interacting with the world .
The result was a smart , tactile interface that extends the perception and spatial orientation of the user , making it possible for them to interact with others . The technology was nominated for an
Innovation Radar Prize .
Capturing the environment using computer vision Describing the ins and outs of the technology , Olson said : ‘ First , our “ haptic intelligent personalised interface ” also known as HIPI
captures the environment using computer vision and sensor technologies . The camera , sensors and computer vision algorithms collectively detect and recognise objects , scenes and faces . An object can be “ a chair ” or “ a cup ”, a scene can be “ a corridor ” or “ an office ” or “ a bathroom ”. The system also detects faces and whether they are known to the user or not . The sensor technologies also observe the distance between things .’ If the user is looking for their cup of coffee , for example , the HIPI will observe that it is on a table three metres away , to the left of the user .
Once the platform has all of this information , what does