The 2016 James Dyson Award recently released its list of national winners and runners up, which included a variety of vision-related projects including a smart contact lens, a tactile tablet for the blind, and smart glasses for dyslexic readers.
The Smart Contact Lens Platform from Medella Health is a contact lens capable of monitoring the wearer's glucose levels via the tear film, and then send the data to the wearer's mobile phone. The project was named to the Top 20 for 2016, as well as an international runner up.
Another Top 20 project for the 2016 awards is the BLITAB® — the first-ever Braille tablet for the blind. The tablet reportedly uses a liquid-based technology and accessible intuitive design to create tactile relief outputting braille, graphics and maps for blind and partially sighted users.
Other vision-related projects honored as national runners up included a pair of smart glasses designed to help dyslexic users read words, a tool that lets those with visual impairments distinguish the difference in colors of the object they are touching through the difference in vibrations they feel in their fingertips, a rocking glass that lets visually impaired individuals know when their glass is full, smart glasses that offer technical assistance to the blind, and a cooking device for those who are visually impaired.
Click here for more information on each project.
Photo courtesy James Dyson Foundation
Source: James Dyson Foundation