Reading glasses, smart magnifying glasses or an application to The Way of Santiago. Companies from more than fifteen countries present from this Friday in Madrid the latest technological innovations for the blind or partially sighted at the Tifloinnova 2022 fair, organized by ONCE.
Under the motto ‘The friendly face of technology’, this is a fair in which “it is forbidden not to touch” and in which the ear often becomes the protagonist of new technologies.
An example of this is the application of Blind Explorer, which, after a geographical study of Spain has launched a mobile phone application so that blind people can, among other things, travel the French Way of Saint James through accessible routes.
“With our mobile application, we want to give everyone the opportunity to create safe routes through the Spanish geography, visually and properly adapted to any handicap“, be one of the creators on the opening day of the fair.
Committed to global accessibility, a focus has also been placed on children’s accessibility, with games and reading to help little ones become familiar with the Braille alphabet or the usefulness of some instruments, such as walking sticks for children.
There are also printers on display that can showcase any initiative; speech recognition systems for household appliances; glasses that allow reading dictation or navigation systems for cities or commercial areas.
For those looking for a replacement for the conventional magnifying glass, Canadian company Humanware has presented an “intelligent macro magnifier”, a device similar to a mobile phone, of different sizes, that allows accurate readings thanks to a camera with zoom and an LED for night vision.
The Flowy Pro application, from the South Korean company Overflow, pursues a similar goal, but in software format: it can be used on the mobile or on the computer and, in an intuitive way, an electronic magnifying glass will scroll to see the content better that is seen, with voice commands for the blind.
One of the great claims of this edition, with its special space, is the video game development for the blind or with impaired vision.
“I’ve been blind since birth, but I’ve always loved video games, since I was little I played audio games or thanks to friends who guided me, but what we want is to be included in the big titles, adjust things like 3D sound or the vibration of the controls,” said Mai Rodriguez, 28, an employee of the ONCE science and technology center.
The fair, inaugurated by ONCE’s General Manager, Ángel Sánchez; the Deputy Mayor of Madrid, Begoña Villacís, and the Director of the ONCE Center for Tiflotechnology and Innovation (CTI), Carmen Millán, It will remain open through Sunday.
