For sports fans who are blind or have a weak vision, it can be difficult to feel all the excitement of a game without being able to see where the ball is located or what the players do.
But a Seattle technology company hopes to change this after having created the first tactile sports show, transforming the gameplay into traceable vibrations for visually impaired sports fans like Hank Vogel.
“I’m blind, but I don’t just see darkness,” said Hank, 11. “Blindness does not mean darkness.”
Hank has an Aniridia, a rare degenerative eyes disease which gave birth to it without iris – the colorful part of our eyes.
“It just means that I can’t see as well as other people, so I can see, it’s just vague,” he said.
Hank Lit of the large print text, uses a monocular to see in the distance and a white cane to help it navigate during walking. And when he attends a basketball match, there is the brand new technology he can use.
“We have mainly developed a haptic display of the size of a laptop capable of communicating dynamic information such as sporting events via touch,” said Jerred Mace, CEO and founder of Onecourt.
Technology uses real -time data that already collected by the NBAUsing cameras installed in the podiums of each arena that follow the movements of each player on the field.
“So you can think about it as a normal screen, but instead of visual pixels, they are tactile,” he said. “You can feel the player’s motion with the ball moving on the field in real time.”
The Onecourt device looks like an iPad thicker and oversized with a rubber mat located on top. The carpet has an increase in the court, and Mace said that users can follow the action in several ways.
“By placing their hands flat on the surface, you feel these vibrations in your palms and your fingers, and you have a great sense of location in general, but you can then use your fingers to zoom and really choose some of these details,” he said.
For blind and low vision sports fans, technology could change the situation to help them get involved.
“(Studies show that) low vision patients, especially children, tend to participate less in social activities and tend to have lower quality of life,” said Alan Labrum, A low vision optometrist at Oregon Health & Science University Casey Eye Institute.
Labrum thinks that a technology like Onecourt could give patients access to something that doctors cannot generally: pleasure.
“In my clinic, I focus on daily tasks, as how to help someone achieve their educational goals or work goals-things that are very practical as helping them,” he said. “And I think it’s great to find ways to improve accessibility to have fun.”
And onecourt can be used for all kinds of sports, not just basketball, because the rubberized carpet is removable and can be exchanged for a Different playground.
This year, the Portland Trail Blazers have become the First NBA team to do it available For games. Blind fans or who have a low vision can consult a device for free at any home game, said Matthew Gardner, principal director of customer information with the Trail Blazers.
“We have five devices available for the rest of the season,” said Gardner. “Three of them that we have on a reservable basis, so that you can contact our invited experience team to put one side, then we keep two on a base of the first arrival, first served.”
Consumers cannot yet buy an onecourt device for personal use, but the founder Jerred Mace said it was the ultimate goal.
“Fans have told us from the start that it is not only something that is useful in a stadium, (saying)” I look at the sports at home all the time, and I want to listen to my friends and my family “or` I want to look at the bar ”, said Mace. “So we do our best to stay focused and reach the initial scale on the stadium markets, but we will arrive at this home model.”
Mace said that when they develop, an element on which they concentrate is the price of the device.
“We are well aware that accessibility also concerns the cost, so we do our best to maintain the cost around the range of a mobile phone or a game console.”
Hank Vogel managed to try the Onecourt device in a Blazers match against the Charlotte Hornets in February. After a blazers draws from the three-point line at the beginning of the first quarter, the crowd exploded with a roar and above the cheers, Hank explained the experience: “He said in my headphones,` `score, Blazers three points ” and it was really cool because I could feel it.”
Vogel said it was a very different experience from that of the Blazer Games to which he was before.
“It was just boring. I sat right there, then I also felt like I missed a lot because everyone (would be) standing and applauded, and I said to myself: “I would really like to know what was going on”. »»
Now, with this new technology, he does.
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