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Optacon
The Optacon (OPtical to TActile CONverter) is an electromechanical device that enables blind people to read printed material that has not been transcribed into Braille. The device consists of two parts: a scanner which the user runs over the material to be read, and a finger pad which translates the words into vibrations felt on the finger tips. The Optacon was conceived by John Linvill, a professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, and developed with researchers at Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International). Telesensory Systems manufactured the device from 1971 until it was discontinued in 1996. Although effective once mastered, it was expensive and took many hours of training to reach competency. In 2005, TSI suddenly shut down. Employees were "walked out" of the building and lost accrued vacation time, medical insurance, and all benefits. Customers could not buy new machines or get existing machines fixed. Some work was done by other companies but no dev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optacon
The Optacon (OPtical to TActile CONverter) is an electromechanical device that enables blind people to read printed material that has not been transcribed into Braille. The device consists of two parts: a scanner which the user runs over the material to be read, and a finger pad which translates the words into vibrations felt on the finger tips. The Optacon was conceived by John Linvill, a professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, and developed with researchers at Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International). Telesensory Systems manufactured the device from 1971 until it was discontinued in 1996. Although effective once mastered, it was expensive and took many hours of training to reach competency. In 2005, TSI suddenly shut down. Employees were "walked out" of the building and lost accrued vacation time, medical insurance, and all benefits. Customers could not buy new machines or get existing machines fixed. Some work was done by other companies but no dev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Telesensory Systems
Telesensory Systems, Inc. (TSI) (later'' TeleSensory Corporation'') was an American corporation that invented, designed, manufactured, and distributed technological aids for blind and low vision persons. TSI's products helped visually impaired people work independently with computers and with ordinary printed materials. History The Optacon, TSI's first product, was conceived by Electrical Engineering Professor John G. Linvill as a means for his blind daughter, Candy, to read ordinary print. The Optacon development, led by James C. Bliss, involved dozens of engineers and scientists at Stanford University and at Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) starting in 1962. Following the successful demonstration of a functional prototype in 1969, TSI was founded in 1970 in Palo Alto, California, USA. TSI developed a line of products for blind people during the 1970s, and expanded into the low vision field in 1984. TSI's products for blind people employed either tactile ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optophone
The optophone is a device, used by the blind, that scans text and generates time-varying chords of tones to identify letters. It is one of the earliest known applications of sonification. Dr. Edmund Fournier d'Albe of Birmingham University invented the optophone in 1913, which used selenium photosensors to detect black print and convert it into an audible output which could be interpreted by a blind person. The Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ... company, Barr and Stroud, participated in improving the resolution and usability of the instrument. Only a few units were built and reading was initially exceedingly slow; a demonstration at the 1918 Exhibition involved Mary Jameson reading at one word per minute. Later models of the Optophone allowed speeds of up to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SRI International
SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. The organization was founded as the Stanford Research Institute. SRI formally separated from Stanford University in 1970 and became known as SRI International in 1977. SRI performs client-sponsored research and development for government agencies, commercial businesses, and private foundations. It also licenses its technologies, forms strategic partnerships, sells products, and creates spin-off companies. SRI's headquarters are located near the Stanford University campus. SRI's annual revenue in 2014 was approximately $540 million, which tripled from 1998 under the leadership of Curtis Carlson. In 1998, the organization was on the verge of bankruptcy when Carlson took over as CEO. Over the next sixteen years w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Department Of Veterans Affairs
The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing life-long healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers and outpatient clinics located throughout the country. Non-healthcare benefits include disability compensation, vocational rehabilitation, education assistance, home loans, and life insurance. The VA also provides burial and memorial benefits to eligible veterans and family members at 135 national cemeteries. While veterans' benefits have been provided by the federal government since the American Revolutionary War, a veteran-specific federal agency was not established until 1930, as the Veterans Administration. In 1982, its mission was extended to a fourth mission to provide care to non-veterans and civilians in case of national emergencies. In 1989, the Veterans Administration became a cabinet-level Department of Veterans Affairs. The age ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Mauch
Hans Adolph Mauch (6 March 1906 – 20 January 1984) was an engineer known for his work in early jet engine development in Germany, and aeromedical and prosthesis work in the USA in the post-war era. His S-N-S artificial leg design remains in widespread use in the 2010s. Early life and career Hans Mauch was born in the Bad Cannstatt section of Stuttgart and studied mechanical, electrical and electronic engineering at universities in Stuttgart and Berlin. He received his Diplom at the Berlin Institute of Technology in 1929 near the top of his class. One of his professors was Georg Schlesinger, who had greatly advanced the art of prosthetics during World War I. Mauch began working on his PhD, but when another student published the same work at another university, he left school in 1930 and took a position at the E. Zwietusch company, where he worked on pneumatic tube designs. Here he worked on the development of an automated switching system that read labels on the capsules as t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Air Ministry
The Ministry of Aviation (german: Reichsluftfahrtministerium, abbreviated RLM) was a government department during the period of Nazi Germany (1933–45). It is also the original name of the Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus building on the Wilhelmstrasse in central Berlin, Germany, which today houses the German Finance Ministry (german: Bundesministerium der Finanzen). The Ministry was in charge of development and production of all aircraft developed, designed and built in Germany during the existence of the Third Reich, overseeing all matters concerning both military and civilian designs – it handled military aviation matters as its top priority, particularly for the Luftwaffe. As was characteristic of government departments in the Nazi era, the Ministry was personality-driven and formal procedures were often ignored in favour of the whims of the Minister, ''Reichsmarschall'' Hermann Göring. As a result, early successes in aircraft development progressed only slowly and erratically dur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Speech Synthesis
Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal language text into speech; other systems render symbolic linguistic representations like phonetic transcriptions into speech. The reverse process is speech recognition. Synthesized speech can be created by concatenating pieces of recorded speech that are stored in a database. Systems differ in the size of the stored speech units; a system that stores phones or diphones provides the largest output range, but may lack clarity. For specific usage domains, the storage of entire words or sentences allows for high-quality output. Alternatively, a synthesizer can incorporate a model of the vocal tract and other human voice characteristics to create a completely "synthetic" voice output. The quality of a speech synthesizer is judged by its similarity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electromechanics
In engineering, electromechanics combines processes and procedures drawn from electrical engineering and mechanical engineering. Electromechanics focuses on the interaction of electrical and mechanical systems as a whole and how the two systems interact with each other. This process is especially prominent in systems such as those of DC or AC rotating electrical machines which can be designed and operated to generate power from a mechanical process ( generator) or used to power a mechanical effect (motor). Electrical engineering in this context also encompasses electronics engineering. Electromechanical devices are ones which have both electrical and mechanical processes. Strictly speaking, a manually operated switch is an electromechanical component due to the mechanical movement causing an electrical output. Though this is true, the term is usually understood to refer to devices which involve an electrical signal to create mechanical movement, or vice versa mechanical moveme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battelle Memorial Institute
Battelle Memorial Institute (more widely known as simply Battelle) is a private nonprofit applied science and technology development company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Battelle is a charitable trust organized as a nonprofit corporation under the laws of the State of Ohio and is exempt from taxation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code because it is organized for charitable, scientific and education purposes. The institute opened in 1929 but traces its origins to the 1923 will of Ohio industrialist Gordon Battelle which provided for its creation and his mother Annie Maude Norton Battelle who left the bulk of the family fortune to the institute after her death in 1925. Originally focusing on contract research and development work in the areas of metals and material science, Battelle is now an international science and technology enterprise that explores emerging areas of science, develops and commercializes technology, and manages laboratories for customers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Audio Oscillator
An electronic oscillator is an electronic circuit that produces a periodic, oscillating electronic signal, often a sine wave or a square wave or a triangle wave. Oscillators convert direct current (DC) from a power supply to an alternating current (AC) signal. They are widely used in many electronic devices ranging from simplest clock generators to digital instruments (like calculators) and complex computers and peripherals etc. Common examples of signals generated by oscillators include signals broadcast by radio and television transmitters, clock signals that regulate computers and quartz clocks, and the sounds produced by electronic beepers and video games. Oscillators are often characterized by the frequency of their output signal: *A low-frequency oscillator (LFO) is an electronic oscillator that generates a frequency below approximately 20 Hz. This term is typically used in the field of audio synthesizers, to distinguish it from an audio frequency oscillator. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
