Breakthrough design opens door to 'full screen' Braille displays for the blind

"Right now, electronic Braille displays typically only show one line of text at a time. And they're very expensive," says Dr. Neil Di Spigna, a research assistant professor at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research.

 In order to develop a more functional, and affordable, tool that would allow the blind to interface with their computers, Di Spigna and his colleagues are working to develop a full-page, refreshable Braille display. Braille uses a series of raised dots to represent letters and numbers, allowing blind people to read.

Such a display would also translate images into tactile displays, effectively mapping pixels in an image and allowing the full-page Braille display to represent the images as raised dots.

The researchers have developed a concept called a "hydraulic and latching mechanism," which would allow the development of such a display system. The mechanism would be made of an electroactive polymer that is very resilient and inexpensive, when compared to current Braille display technologies. 

"This material will allow us to raise dots to the correct height, so they can be read," says Dr. Peichun Yang, a postdoctoral research associate at NC State and co-author of the paper. "Once the dots are raised, a latching mechanism would support the weight being applied by a person's fingers as the dots are read. The material also responds quickly, allowing a reader to scroll through a document or Web site quickly."

Earlier this month, the researchers presented their findings on the hydraulic component of the mechanism, showing that it is a viable technology. The next step is to demonstrate a proof-of-concept model of the latching mechanism. "We hope to have a fully functioning prototype of the mechanism within a year," Di Spigna says, "and that could serve as the functional building block of a full-screen refreshable display."

"Reading Braille is essential to allowing blind people to find employment," says Yang, who is blind. "We're optimistic that this technology will give the blind additional opportunities in this area."

"The last 20 years of computer technology have been relatively inaccessible - and today's common mobile computing devices, from smart-phones to digital navigators and iPads, have been completely nonexistent - to blind people, because the display technology for the blind has not kept pace," says David Winick, a researcher at NC State and co-author of the paper. "We hope to enable the development of applications that will give the blind more complete access to the internet and other computer resources, such as e-books."

A Cheap, Portable Wound-Healing Device

In mid-February, about a month after a massive earthquake leveled much of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, a wound-care team from Brigham and Women's hospital in Boston traveled to the devastated capital. The team's task was to help care for scores of patients suffering from the large open wounds that accompany amputations, crushed limbs, and other injuries.


Among the team was MIT graduate student Danielle Zurovcik, who arrived ready to test a device she had developed as part of her thesis research--a cheap and portable version of the negative-pressure devices currently used to speed wound healing in hospitals.

Zurovcik and her collaborators hope the device, which costs about $3, will provide a way to improve care for patients after the emergency phase of relief efforts, including life- and limb-saving surgeries, has ended. Even after many of the emergency medical teams leave the disaster zone, the dangers of chronic wounds remain high.

"My experience in Haiti and other major earthquakes is that after the acute medical response, such as amputating limbs and setting fractures, the major disease burden is wounds," says Robert Riviello, a trauma surgeon at Brigham and Women's, and Zurovcik's collaborator. Negative-pressure therapy decreases the need to change wound dressings from one to three times per day to once every few days, a major benefit when medical staff is in short supply.

Negative-pressure devices, which act like a vacuum over the bandaged wound, have become a central part of wound therapy in the United States over the last decade. They speed healing up to threefold, depending on the type of wound, and in some cases eliminate the need for plastic surgery or skin grafts.

A number of commercial versions are available in the U.S. and are used to treat burns and chronic wounds such as bed sores or diabetic foot ulcers. While scientists don't exactly know why this treatment accelerates the healing process, it likely helps by removing some of the fluid and bacteria that accumulates at the injury site and by increasing blood flow to the wound. The pressure itself may also help healing by bringing together the edges of the wound and delivering mechanical pressure, which has been shown to spur cell growth, says Dennis Orgill, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's who was not involved in the project.

Existing devices are often heavy, about five to 10 pounds, and require an energy source to create the vacuum, making them difficult to apply in disaster settings. Texas-based KCI, the leading maker of negative-pressure machines, has a portable version that's battery powered, but it costs approximately $100 per day to rent. A number of companies are working on even more portable versions, say Orgill.

"To basically take a toilet plunger and produce negative pressure over a prolonged period of time, that is really great," says Kristian Olson, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, who was not involved in the project. "Not only do I see it answering this need in developing countries, I think it could really enhance home therapy for chronic wounds in the U.S."

A Disposable Toilet That Could Help Grow Crops

From: NYTIMES


A Swedish entrepreneur is trying to market and sell a biodegradable plastic bag that acts as a single-use toilet for urban slums in the developing world.


Once used, the bag can be knotted and buried, and a layer of urea crystals breaks down the waste into fertilizer, killing off disease-producing pathogens found in feces.


The bag, called the Peepoo, is the brainchild of Anders Wilhelmson, an architect and professor in Stockholm. “Not only is it sanitary,” said Mr. Wilhelmson, who has patented the bag, “they can reuse this to grow crops.” In his research, he found that urban slums in Kenya, despite being densely populated, had open spaces where waste could be buried.


He also found that slum dwellers there collected their excrement in a plastic bag and disposed of it by flinging it, calling it a “flyaway toilet” or a “helicopter toilet.” This inspired Mr. Wilhelmson to design the Peepoo, an environmentally friendly alternative that he is confident will turn a profit. “People will say, ‘It’s valuable to me, but well priced,’ ” he said.


He plans to sell it for about 2 or 3 cents — comparable to the cost of an ordinary plastic bag.
In the developing world, an estimated 2.6 billion people, or about 40 percent of the earth’s population, do not have access to a toilet, according to United Nations figures.
It is a public health crisis: open defecation can contaminate drinking water, and an estimated 1.5 million children worldwide die yearly from diarrhea, largely because of poor sanitation and hygiene.


To mitigate this, the United Nations has a goal to reduce by half the number of people without access to toilets by 2015. The market for low-cost toilets in the developing world is about a trillion dollars, according to Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization, a sanitation advocacy group. As far as toilets go, “the people in the middle class have reached saturation in consumption,” said Mr. Sim, who calls himself a fan of the Peepoo. “This has created a new need, urgently, of looking for a new customer.”


Since 2001, his organization has held an annual World Toilet Summit, and Mr. Sims said he was excited that in recent years there had been an emergence of entrepreneurs devising low-cost solutions.


At the 2009 meeting, Rigel Technology of Singapore unveiled a $30 toilet that separates solid and liquid waste, turning solid waste into compost. Sulabh International, an Indian nonprofit and the host of the World Toilet Summit in 2007, is promoting several low-cost toilets, including one that produces biogas from excrement. The gas can then be used in cooking.
But Therese Dooley, senior adviser on sanitation and hygiene for Unicef, said that inculcating sanitation habits was no easy task.
“It will take a large amount of behavior change,” Ms. Dooley said.
She added that while “the private sector can play a major role, it will never get to the bottom of the pyramid.”