What I’m truly impressed with these days is the technology being developed for the blind. The latest comes in the form of the more ‘old school’ tool, the walking stick. A company called Primpo that has its home base in Korea have re-designed the conventional cane and added some seriously user-friendly tech to assist the visually impaired when they’re out and about. The iSonic cane (hate it when they put the ‘i’ in front of things to make them seem all techie), is loaded with a supersonic sensor capable of detecting obstacles in a horizontal range of about 25 degrees as well as a vertical range of about 50 degrees. It’s been designed to even detect objects that are narrower than 3cm wide and as far as 2 meters in front of it. The system will cause the cane to vibrate to inform the users of an upcoming obstacle in their path. What’s even more impressive is that also comes equipped with an audible option to announce colors via a special color sensor (up to 10 different shades of varying brightness).

[Ohgizmo]