• 
• 

Wouldn't it be useful if these people could have a special cane embedded with sensors to tell them in advance of obstacles in front of them through vibration?

Wouldn't it be more cost effective for retail stores when technology was developed to manage price tags on the product shelves, allowing them to change the price digitally and wirelessly.

These technologies are being developed from efforts of three groups of university students who are finalists in the Embedded Systems on New Industrial Design Camp and Contest 2007 held by the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec) in cooperation with the Thai Embedded Systems Association (Tesa), the Industrial Designer Society and Thailand Science Park.

Having spent several months in development, the three groups have come out with product mock-ups and they have been selected as finalists to receive funding support to turn their mock-ups into a prototypes for the final competition in the next two months. The contest focus is not only on technology development but also product design and marketing to make local technology products that match market requirements.

AmBraille notebook computer for the blind  

 Prince of Songkla University



They hope to open a new chance for those who are visually impaired to use computers and the Internet. As conventional notebook computers are not designed for the blind, a group of students from the engineering and marketing faculty from Prince of Songkla University has developed a new kind of notebook computer, called AmBraille, designed especially for the blind.

Unlike other notebook computers, which are equipped with dozens of buttons, AmBraille comes with only eight buttons with a space bar to facilitate easy typing by the blind, allowing them to use the notebook to key in information in Braille. Documents can be printed either in Braille or normal text format.

"We designed the new notebook to allow people with visual impairment to get connected to a new digital world, and importantly, the Internet. Not only can they use the device as a conventional notebook computer with Word, Excel or other general applications, they could also connect to the Internet, send and receive electronic mail and play MP3 music," said the team leader Thanathip Limna.

As it is designed for the blind, no display screen is attached. The team made the notebook with just a keyboard with Braille cells included to help the blind read all text from the Internet or other normal text documents in their Braille language.

To bridge the world of darkness and the normal world, the team also developed translation software, which converts Braille into normal text and then normal text into Braille.

Thanathip said all text input in Braille would be able to be converted into normal text, so other people could understand each document. In contrast, all normal text can also be translated back into Braille so the blind can read all text documents on Braille cells built into their computer.

The team said they planned to complete a prototype in the next two months and hoped to work with related organisations and associations for the blind to develop the device for real use.

To make the device most effective for the blind, the team also plans to include text-to-speech software in the notebook so the blind can get access to all information just by listening.

Walk Buddy smart cane  

King Mongkut Institute of Technology Lad Krabang

From the idea to give a much safer life to the blind, the smart cane was developed to be a new walking companion for them.

Realising that the conventional cane for the blind cannot yet detect objects at higher levels, an engineering and industrial design team from King Mongkut Institute of Techhnology at Lad Krabang developed a new cane equipped with ultrasonic sensors to detect objects at levels from waist to head.

"As we found the cane for the blind mostly helps them detect objects on the ground, many times they hit obstacles which are higher. To make the walking stick a real buddy for the blind, we made it able to detect all things - even a mirror set at 30 degrees," said Apichet Mongkolpornudom, one of the development team.

He said that by equipping ultrasonic sensors in the upper part of the cane, the cane is able to detect objects 10 to 80 centimetres ahead. Once the object is detected, a signal is sent to the cane with a vibration to allow the user to take more care of obstacles in front.

The team designed the new smart cane to act as eyes for the blind. Even though the blind have lost their sight, the team said they could use the cane with sensors embedded to help lead the way.

The smart cane is designed to use batteries and the team said with its energy-saving design, the cane could be used for the whole day.

"We designed the system to save energy so if there is no activity for 15 seconds, the system switches to standby mode for energy saving," the developer said.

To make the cane more practical, the team will adjust the design and tune the sensors' position for more accurate detection.

They also hope to work with related associations for the blind to bring the technology into mass production in the future.

Wireless electronic labelling system 

Kasetsart University

It wastes time and costs money to change the price labels on all product shelves in a superstore.

To make the process more cost effective for retailers, a team from Kasetsart University had the idea to develop a new wireless electronic-labelling system to allow retailers to automatically change product prices from a central point.

Rather than allocating many staff to change the paper-based price labels on all product shelves, the new system uses electronic labels.

It allows the store staff to change the price displayed on the tags remotely.

The system uses wireless technology to send information to each electronic label receiver so once the price is changed at the server, all changes are sent wirelessly to each receiver within a few minutes.

Normally a superstore, which has 15,000 product items, takes two to three hours to change the price tags on all the shelves.

With this new technology, the entire process can be done in only three minutes, said the developer Warutt Thongnumpen.

The team has developed electronic labels to display prices in a digital format. The labels, Warutt said, work with a wireless access point signal broadcaster to send and receive data in a range of 200 metres.

The team also developed software to work with the point-of-sale system so when the product price has been changed at that point, it will automatically update the price on each electronic label wirelessly.

The team designed each electronic label to have its own identification and with this, they said retail stores could make sure that when the price of a particular product had changed, the system would send updated information to only the target label.

Warutt said the system not only improved efficiency for the store but also reduced the cost of operation.

He estimated the investment cost for the new system would be Bt3 million for a store with 15,000 product items.  With this investment, the store can save Bt900,000 a year on paper labels and staff so it would break even within about three years.

Pongpen Sutharoj

The Nation