Great idea guys, this will benefit the visual impairment community greatly :). I had a similar idea several years ago but for the web. Where you could use a sighted person's eyes to navigate a webpage.
Be My Eyes – Lend your eyes to the blind
141–150 of 165 posts
Re: Be My Eyes – Lend your eyes to the blind
#142My only question is how do you handle trolls, idiots, abuse etc? What happens if for example 4chan decides to 'raid' your app and direct blind people into unfortunate situations. I must admit it's a very low act but that's my only real thought about this. If abuse wasn't a possibility I think the app is 100% amazing.
Not exactly abuse, but I think this app might be a way for non-blind people to get to know some random potentially nice person. Sort of like chat roulette but without the dicks.
Re: Be My Eyes – Lend your eyes to the blind
#143Does the app keep in mind that it's nearly impossible for blind people to operate a smartphone? There's no keyboard or braille on such a device.
Re: Be My Eyes – Lend your eyes to the blind
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blindness is unfortunately a nearly crushing disability economically. 74% of the blind are unemployed [1] (there is another figure you will occasionally also see of 13% unemployment for the blind, that's a US Government statistic that excludes anyone who is not considered in the list of potentially employed people). Equally important for HN-type readers to know is that Braille literacy is highly correlated with emplo…
Wow, I would not have expected those low Braille literacy figures. For the UK, numbers seem to be similar. I couldn't find any for other European countries, but at least here in Germany Braille markings are very common, so I'd always thought that most blind can use them.
The 12% figure refers to legally blind children, the majority (90%) of whom are partially sighted.
For someone who is able to read text at close distances with significant optical assistance, it is far more beneficial for them to learn a written language than to learn braille characters. Until recently, many legally blind US children (and their parents) had the choice to either learn braille or written English. Those who learned braille ended up severely disadvantaged because of the utter lack of braille information produced in our society, and the difficulty of using any screen-based technology.
Re: Be My Eyes – Lend your eyes to the blind
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, I haven't abandoned it--literally working on it this very minute, in fact. :) The problem is that multi-platform video interchange is a hard problem. Very hard. SIP only gets you so far even with web RTC, then you hit issues where server X doesn't like delegating authentication to anything else, Y does but requires super-indepth knowledge of the protocol, and Z may or may not but it's got so many modules it…
I don't know the answer to your question but it should be a required exercise for every web developer to use their website with a screen reader and a blindfold. It would change the way they/we build websites. I would submit an issue to HN to fix their accessibility – there is no excuse (for HN) not to. Edit: Sentence subject-ambiguity clarification.
I expect that using a screen reader and a blindfold would take some considerable time to get effective at, even for accessible sites.
As for the sites I am responsible for, I try to make them accessible by reading and applying the guidelines, but I do appreciate feedback from blind people on ways to improve it for them.
Re: Be My Eyes – Lend your eyes to the blind
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blindness is unfortunately a nearly crushing disability economically. 74% of the blind are unemployed [1] (there is another figure you will occasionally also see of 13% unemployment for the blind, that's a US Government statistic that excludes anyone who is not considered in the list of potentially employed people). Equally important for HN-type readers to know is that Braille literacy is highly correlated with emplo…
The tools around Braille are expensive. Braille computer displays and typewriters are all in the thousands of dollars. Books are in the hundreds of dollars, and hard to obtain. Screen readers, the computer replacement for Braille, are also stupidly expensive (one I looked up was $900 for the home edition).
I'm not blind, but my father had low vision and so I know a little about the experience. It infuriates me that authors have pressured Amazon into removing the audio text reading ability of the Kindle. Such small-minded greed is indefensible.
Re: Be My Eyes – Lend your eyes to the blind
#147Does the app keep in mind that it's nearly impossible for blind people to operate a smartphone? There's no keyboard or braille on such a device.
The iPhone has VoiceOver, and there are bluetooth Braille keyboards/displays for typing.
This page goes into a bit more detail: https://andreashead.wikispaces.com/How+Do+Blind+People+Use+a...
Re: Be My Eyes – Lend your eyes to the blind
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
The tools around Braille are expensive. Braille computer displays and typewriters are all in the thousands of dollars. Books are in the hundreds of dollars, and hard to obtain. Screen readers, the computer replacement for Braille, are also stupidly expensive (one I looked up was $900 for the home edition).
I'm not blind, but my father had low vision and so I know a little about the experience. It infuriates me that authors have pressured Amazon into removing the audio text reading ability of the Kindle. Such small-minded greed is indefensible.
Most books exist as audio books.
Re: Be My Eyes – Lend your eyes to the blind
#149I just downloaded it, and I'm stuck at the "please enable the following to fully join the Be My Eyes network". I approved all the permissions. Nothing's happening. iOS 8.something on an iPhone5.
iOS 7 here, had same problem.
just switch between apps, it goes normal but there's no direct transition.
Re: Be My Eyes – Lend your eyes to the blind
#150Nice idea, but I think it would be better if it were commercial, with the blind user paying, the sighted helper getting paid, and the app developers getting a cut. The payment could be by the minute. I think the general public will be more inclined to treat blind people as equals if we demolish the notion that blind people require charity. Addendum: Lest anyone think I'm talking out of my ass, here's a blog post from…
Really? Equals? Don't require charity? They CAN'T SEE. Even if they can somehow manage to do "everything" a normal person can do, they can't do it with the same speed.
Every blind person is 100% totally self-sufficient and able to hold down a steady job that pays well enough to take care of all their needs? Job hunting is hard enough when you can see!
Imagine, a world where the government and employers didn't provide any extra help for the blind, and the blind didn't have families to lean on.
What the hell are you actually talking about?
"If we took wheelchairs away from crippled people, maybe the general public will be more inclined to treat them as equals and demolish the notion that cripples require the assistance of wheelchairs"