More Innovation by T. V. Raman

Miguel Helft writes about T. V.'s continuing work to make technology available to blind users. Read his article, "Google's Phone Apps for the Blind, and Everyone Else."

Back in January, I profiled Mr. Raman, who has a long history of adapting technology to his needs. I thought the work on touch screens he was doing with Mr. Chen was intriguing:

Since he cannot precisely hit a button on a touch screen, Mr. Raman created a dialer that works based on relative positions. It interprets any place where he first touches the screen as a 5, the center of a regular telephone dial pad. To dial any other number, he simply slides his finger in its direction -- up and to the left for 1, down and to the right for 9, and so on. If he makes a mistake, he can erase a digit simply by shaking the phone, which can detect motion.

Full article: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/googles-phone-apps-for-the-blind-and-everyone-else/