Interesting visit and demo of the 7Sense company
16 October 2024
Detalės
Last week, at CEA List, we had the visit of the 7Sense company to showcase their product SuperBrain. 7Sense is an Estonian company (check the link below) whose objective is to improve the visually impaired people accessibility to the environnement, by providing awareness of the surroundings objects as they walk around. As they phrase it: "the Telehaptic Sight™ technology opens up a unique way for blind individuals to engage with their surrounding environment. With hundreds of physical pixels working intelligently together, we can create a haptic space that translates objects, motion, speed, and distance onto a person’s forehead through the sense of touch".
The SuperBrain device is basically like a headset that you put on your head and with a part adhering to the forehead. This part is equipped with a matrix of "pins" or tangible elements that come tangibly into contact with the forehead to stimulate it and indicate the presence of elements. The device also includes a 3D camera to sense the environment and AI functionalities. There are several modes, for example, a simple exploration mode, a people and door identification mode through dedicated patterns, or an audio translation mode. Depending on the proximity, the "intensity" of the stimulation changes to provide a sense of distance.
Nearly the whole team from the ABILITY project at CEA got to try to the device. We easily managed to feel motion and recognise the direction the person in front of us would move towards. We also managed to identify the number of people in front of us with the people identification mode. And we also managed to navigate to a door. Check out the pictures and the video illustrating this. It works particularly well for motion. To be able to navigate in the environment and get a sense of the different surroundings objects, it is a bit more difficult at first, it would surely improve with a bit of training. In terms of sensation, it was ticklish at times and depending on the testers, but it was not unpleasant and the headset was rather confortable to wear. In any case, it was a very interesting demo and a promising technology, we wish 7Sense all the best!
We hope that our pin matrix will be as effective and a complementary solution for more stationary contexts.
Naudingos nuorodos*
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