(otherwise known as BrailleWare) By Edward Ahn, Cyrus Tabrizi, Rajat Mehndiratta, Vasu Agrawal
Fifth Sense is an assistive device that helps people that are visually impaired use the capabilities of a smartphone. The device includes six buttons that allow braille I/O; these six buttons can be pressed in braille patterns to relay information, and these six buttons can be felt to receive information (since the six buttons are equipped with six vibrating motors that vibrate in braille patterns). This communication interface is also connected to an Android app via Bluetooth that contains a personal assistant. Therefore, the person can relay queries to the device, and will receive answers to that query through the process of the Android app. The app also contains voice capabilities for people to speak queries instead of manually typing braille patterns in. The need for a walking cane is also eliminated through the addition of a distance sensor on the device, which alerts the person through vibrations if something is too close and possibly hazardous to a visually impaired person.
This device was created at PennApps XII during September 4 - 6, 2015.
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