This young engineer presents well. He's smart. He's earnest. BUT he could have learned a bit more about the subject first. The guy's experimenting and having fun, and I won't fault him for that. If he pursued this project--and he didn't suggest he was committed to it--he would end up rethinking a lot of assumptions, redesigning from scratch, etc. That's part of the R&D process to an extent, but much of what he's doing is reinventing the wheel.


He casually tosses around claims that won't hold up well under scrutiny. Near the beginning of the video, he rather breezily says that "Smart phones and tablets . . . know where they are in space, and what's around them."


This is only somewhat true sometimes. Generalizing this capability is very hard. It's a bit like downloading Seeing AI and capturing videos only of the times it identifies someone or something reasonably accurately. For me it identified a pigeon on a sidewalk as a parked car.

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His description of LIDAR leaves out some important points, and he also seems unaware of the numerous other sensors that are out there besides the few he mentions. LIDAR, like deep learning, is a technology that has become so well-known that it seems to have become the go-to solution for any and all problems.


He's repeating work that dates back to the 1970s, which means he's on a path to make the same mistakes that were identified and (to an extent) corrected then.


As a proof of concept this is interesting, but could easily march hard and fast down the wrong path. A few things to note:

1. The tablet takes two hands to hold. He mentions using a phone instead, but then you're still holding something in your hand. Aside from quickly saying that hands are more sensitive than backs, he didn't explain why it's a good idea for someone to have an object in their hands in the first place. Someone who uses a cane isn't going to give up the cane (and/or guide dog) to hold this thing instead, and if they hold this thing both hands are occupied.
2. The tactile feedback display is huge and looks heavy. Making this smaller isn't necessarily better.
3. From what I recall, he didn't mention discussing this project with a blind person or have a blind person test it. One or more sighted people blindfolding themselves is not a good approximation of the experience of blindness.


There is a device on the market that provides a kind of "sight" by relying signals to another very sensitive part of the body: the tongue.
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It's instructive to read about the Brainport, find out its price, check out videos in which it's demonstrated, etc., and then consider why it's not already in widespread use. It's been around for quite some time. Yes, you can find examples of people using it, so why haven't more?


The technique presented here is a kind of sensory substitution, and there are general issues with sensory substitution that have been addressed elsewhere, and at length.

So although it's kinda cool, having quickie projects like this attract a lot of attention may only reinforce problems that have existed in the assistive tech industry for decades, and in the way sighted people have habitually treated blind people. Given the assumptions he made, what he devised was neat, but from my perspective he made some poor assumptions. Basic design flaws can be difficult to overcome if you double down in thinking how to make something smaller or faster when one or more of the basic premises is flawed.

Well, this already seems better than sonar bands. I'm not too sure if this would work, but since I heard about Apple's lidar sensor, I figured it could be of some benefit to us. Better than a stupid fucking buzzer on your wrist, I hope.

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u/Rethunkerr makes some good points that I didn't even consider. Sounds like they have a lot of experience with lidar. Maybe Apple Glass could be used, whenever that comes out, assuming that this project could actually help guide a blind person.

Let's hope it's not like all the other tech for blind people made by sighted people. Send neat at first but not needed. It'll be neat to see where it goes