Facial expressions play an important role in every day social interaction. To enhance the daily life experience for the visually impaired, we present the Facial Expression Appearance vibroTactile System (FEATS), which uses a vibrotactile chair as the social interface for the visually impaired. An array of vibrating motors are mounted spatially on the back of an office chair. The Locally Linear ...

In recent years, smartphones (e.g., Apple iPhone) are getting more and more widespread among visually impaired people. Indeed, thanks to natively available screen readers (e.g., VoiceOver) visually impaired persons can access most of the smartphone functionalities and applications. Nonetheless, there are still some operations that require long time or high mental workload to be completed by a v...

The current chairman, Dr Van Joffrion, treated the author in the seventies when he was in Ethiopia. Dr Mekonnen now serves with Dr Van Joffrion to organise help for the blind and facilitate the 'Vision 2020' global effort. Dr Mekonnen lost his sight due to a domestic accident in which boiling water spilled over his face at the age of eighteen months. A rguably, help is essential in the human ex...

BACKGROUND Sustaining a visual impairment may have a substantial impact on various life domains such as work, interpersonal relations, mobility and social and mental well-being. How to adjust to the loss of vision and its consequences might be a challenge for the visually impaired person. The purpose of the current study was to explore how younger male ex-Service personnel cope with becoming vi...