Blind engineer designs "smart," obstacle-detecting, haptic feedback cane

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/02/25/blind-engineer-designs-smart.html

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This is great, a truly useful tool that innovates and improves on old technology. What a fantastic idea. I’m only surprised it hadn’t been thought of sooner, but of course the course of innovation is “make stupid stuff for rich folks; eventually figure out how similar ideas can improve the lives of those who are marginalized.”

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Articles about popular prescription drugs sometimes mention how treatments are discovered when testing for another problem. You make me wonder what percentage of pharmaceutical products fall into that category.:thinking:

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That is a really interesting thought. I wish there were a break down of how many times drugs created for one reason end up being used for entirely unrelated issues. Either “never worked for original purpose but totally worked for this other thing” as well as “worked for original purpose, but also works off label for this other thing.”

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You’re ignoring the fact that, while there may well have been plenty of people who could have envisioned, (pun intended), this sort of equipment, it could only happen once technological advances in the sort of sensor suite necessary become available at a price where this type of item could be made economically.
There’s zero point in designing something that is large, bulky, heavy, and prohibitively expensive, because the intended user group would be unable or unwilling to carry the thing around because it’s unwieldy nature would prevent elderly and movement impaired using it for extended periods of time - it needs to weigh grammes, not kilograms - the development of ultra-compact sensor suites for mobile phones by companies with vast research and development budgets now allows that technology to be used for sight impaired people in a way that fully enhances their lives in a way that would not have been possible probably five years ago, let alone ten.

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