Posts about tech

Some (more) thoughts on smart canes

Why more?

In early 2021, I wrote a blog post about smart canes, why they usually are hipe, and why canes have design elements that make them so versatile. This blog post got a couple orders of magnitude more traffic than I expected, and based on the feedback I have received, it was educational for many people. It has been posted on many peoples blogs, and even Hacker News. I want to make sure the positive reception of my article is used to guide the industry in an appropriate direction, and generate new useful technologies, instead of being synical and bashing anyone who may have the thought to attach something to a cane.

Read Some (more) thoughts on smart canes… (6 paragraphs remaining).

Some Thoughts on Smart Canes

over the last few years, many attempts have been made at creating a smart cane. None of them have successfully lead to a market transforming technology that's actually used by any substantial users.

I saw a recent example of a smart cane getting news coverage, and it deserves particular attention because of a particularly egregious argument used within. I've seen this argument, or variations therein, made in several posts about smart canes. I will address this below, and lay out why this argument does not present a solid case in favor of a smart cane. I will then lay out several design and engineering constraints that must be met before I would ever be able to recommend a smart cane to another blind person.

Read Some Thoughts on Smart Canes… (6 paragraphs remaining).

Changes to Googles Youtube for IOS, and how to use it with voiceover.

Youtube was recently updated, and several voiceover changes were put in. At first, you may do what I did. "oh, damn, it, google, stop, breaking, things!!!" It turns out that google actually fixed a lot of things in this version, making the user experience more streamlined and much more efficient. They did seem to break one thing though.

Read Changes to Googles Youtube for IOS, and how to use it with voiceover.… (4 paragraphs remaining).