Hasta La Gadget!

One group of people has traditionally been left out of our modern tablet revolution: the visually impaired. Our slick, button-less touchscreens are essentially useless to those who rely on touch to navigate around a computer interface, unless voice-control features are built in to the device and its OS.

But a Stanford team of three has helped change that. Tasked to create a character-recognition program that would turn pages of Braille into readable text on an Android tablet, student Adam Duran, with the help of two mentor-professors, ended up creating something even more useful than his original assignment: a touchscreen-based Braille writer.

Currently a senior at New Mexico State University, Duran arrived at Stanford in June to take part in a two-month program offered by the Army High-Performance Computing Research Center (AHPCRC). The program is a competition: Participants are given research assignments, ranging in the past from aerospace modeling to parallel computing, and vie for honors awarded at the end of the summer. This year, projects aimed to solve a problem using the Android platform. Duran and his team’s project, titled “A virtual Braille keyboard,” was this year’s winner for “Best Android Application.”

Duran was challenged to use the camera on a mobile device, like the Motorola Xoom, to create an app that transforms physical pages of Braille text into readable text on the device. From the get-go, there were problems with this plan.

“How does a blind person orient a printed page so that the computer knows which side is up? How does a blind person ensure proper lighting of the paper?” Duran said in an interview with Stanford News. “Plus, the technology, while definitely helpful, would be limited in day-to-day application.”

So Duran and his mentors, Adrian Lew, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and Sohan Dharmaraja, a Stanford Ph.D. candidate studying computational mathematics, decided to develop a writer app, instead of a reader. Currently, the visually impaired must use desktop-based screen-reading software or specially-designed laptops with Braille displays in order to type using a computer.

Because a blind person can’t locate the keys of a virtual keyboard on a flat, glossy touchscreen, the team decided to bring the keys themselves to the user’s fingertips. Specifically, when the user sets eight fingers on the device, virtual keys align underneath each of the user’s fingers. The team’s Braille keyboard is comprised of eight keys: six that are used to compose a Braille character, a carriage return, and a backspace key. If the user gets disoriented, he or she can re-establish the keyboard layout with a lift and re-application of the hands.

“The solution is so simple, so beautiful. It was fun to see,” Lew said. Such a keyboard is also useful because it customizes itself to the user, adjusting the onscreen keys based on the user’s finger size and spacing. (I wish my iOS keyboard did that!)

Duran demoed the app blind-folded, typing out an email address as well as complicated mathematical and scientific formulas, proving the keyboard could be useful to educators, students and researchers. He also got to see a blind person use his app for the first time, which he said was an indescribable feeling, “It was the best.”

Lew said via email, “We do not yet know how exactly this will reach final users, but we are committed to make it happen.” The team has several options they will be considering over the next few weeks, so perhaps we could even see an app end up in the Android Market soon.

The tablet-based system costs 10 times less than most modern Braille typing solutions, and, based on the video below, appears to be anything but vapor.

Image and Video courtesy Steve Fyffe/Stanford University

Earlier this summer, a judge in The Netherlands ruled to ban sales of Samsung Galaxy S, S II and Ace smartphones, stating that the devices violated an Apple patent which deals with a “method of scrolling.” Well, nearly two months have passed, and Samsung is just now getting around to releasing “upgraded” versions of the affected devices, presumably implementing a non-infringing scroll tool. A Samsung spokesman told Reuters that the three phones will “shortly be available for sale,” neglecting to provide an exact release date — so we wouldn’t suggest lining up to get your Galaxy S II fix just yet. This small victory is only the latest in the Apple / Samsung lawsuit saga, which has created quite a stir in a handful of courts around the world. We have yet to hear about a solution to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 ban in Australia, for example, where fingers are being pointed in every direction.

Samsung modifies Galaxy smartphones to satisfy Dutch court, plans to resume sales soon originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Oct 2011 08:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The iPad’s stills camera might be terrible, but as a video camera it’s pretty good. And combined with iMovie in the big screen, it’s hard to beat. But even the big ol’ iPad is prone to shake, and iMovie has almost no special effects. Which is where Luma comes in.

Luma is a third party video-shooting app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. It adds a few filters to your footage, but its main purpose is as an image stabilizer. When engaged (it switches off in low light), the stabilizer will iron out bumps and jiggles in real time as you shoot.

And it works pretty well. I tested it by walking around my apartment with the iPad held out in front of me. The result isn’t steadycam smooth, but it’s way better than you’d get otherwise. The iPhone 5 will have anti-shake tech baked in, but Luma has some other tricks up its sleeve. It corrects the rolling shutter effect, for one. Rolling shutter is the jelly-like look that happens as the shutterless chip scans its way down the frame. It’s ugly, and Luma kills it.

The filters aren’t bad, either. You get B&W, high-contrast B&W, and “grunge,” which is a slightly soft, vignetted look with slightly brighter colors. There’s also a horrible negative effect you’ll want to avoid, and an optical zoom engaged by pinching (avoid this on the iPad’s low-res camera).

I will probably use Luma for all video shooting now, as there are no penalties in terms of speed and resolution, and the stabilized video looks great. What’s more, the app is free.

Luma product page [Midnox via iPhoneography]

See Also:

• How to Convert Video to Work With iPad iMovie
• New iPhone Software Beams FaceTime Video Calls to TV
• FiLMiC Pro Gives You Control Of Your iPhone's Video Camera …

A first encounter with a multitouch device gets any active imagination running, so of course a home theater fan thinks it could make for the ultimate remote. But can any of that promise be realized in the dead zone that is the consumer remote control space? The leader of that dead zone is ready to give it a try with the Harmony Link — a WiFi-to-IR bridge that allows you to control your TV from any room of the house via an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch or Android device. For $100, it’s a setup that promises to blend ease of programming with network connectivity and multitouch control. So exactly how good is Logitech’s attempt? We’ll reveal that after the break, of course.

Continue reading Logitech Harmony Link review

Logitech Harmony Link review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Try doing this with a desktop computer. Photo Veronica Belmont/Flickr

As if any Gadget Lab readers needed to be told, the mobile Internet is taking off. What might be surprising is that almost all tablet Internet traffic comes from the iPad. “In August 2011, iPads delivered 97.2 percent of all tablet traffic in the U.S.” says a new Comscore report. What’s more, the iPad is even beating its older brother the iPhone, managing 46.8 percent of iOS Internet use vs. the iPhone’s 42.6 percent.

According to the report, U.S mobile Internet use is still small compared to computer-based Internet use at just 6.8 percent, but it’s growing fast. More interesting is what the tablets (read: iPads) are being used for. Half of all tablet owners have made a purchase from their device (likely via the App Store), and more than half read the news regularly on their tablets.

Further, while iOS accounts for 43.1 percent of market share (by installed base, vs Android’s 34.1 percent), it accounts for a disproportionate 58.5% of traffic (Android 31.9 percent). This figure counts page views, so if you were to add in all the other non-browser Internet use, the number would surely jump a lot higher. Anyone used to a 3G connection for an iPad who suddenly has it cut will realize just how many apps rely on a data connection.

It may take a while, but computer Internet is going the way of the landline phone. We may still have internet-connected Wi-Fi networks in our homes to feed set-top boxes and stream things from here to there, but soon enough going to a special room and firing up a big machine to check Wikipedia is going to seem as clumsy and old-fashioned as punching a number into a landline phone.

Smartphones and Tablets Drive Nearly 7 Percent of Total U.S. Digital Traffic [ComScore via Twitter]

See Also:

• AT&T Adds iPhone Tethering, Kills Unlimited Data for iPad …
• Eight Great Tips for Traveling with the iPad