For seventy years the blind have benefited from the Braille system, named after its inventor Louis Braille, a French teacher of the blind. Nearly unmodified since its inception, it is a printing or writing system for the blind in which letters and characters are represented by raised dots or points which are identifiable to the touch. Books, newspapers and magazines are available in Braille.
However in 1929 computers did not exist and Russian scientists versed in mathematics were not living in Israel and concerning themselves with the improvement of the quality of life of the blind. A chance discussion by two Russian immigrants, both looking for productive involvement led to the development of an important innovation to assist the blind to see the "previously unseen"
Roman Gouzman, an immigrant from Russia with many years of experience in the fields of visual perception understood that the blind are limited to a "vision" of a flat world, one without spatial dimensions and therefore devoid of spatial awareness. He explained his ideas and the technical obstacles to a fellow immigrant friend, Igor Karasin. The latter countered that if given time and based on his many years of experience in mathematics and system analysis Gouzman's concept could be converted to a working virtual prototype. The result of the collaboration is what its innovators have called the Virtual Touch System VTS which allows for "seeing the previously unseen". The working prototype, for which American and global patents are pending, according to the company will receive patent protection is a system which integrates hardware, software and a specialized methodology for teaching and independent study. The hardware part of VTS is a stand-alone VirTouch Device connectable to the computer via a serial port. VTD is portable, small and weighs less than 850 gms. It serves both as a mouse and as a tactile display. The display employs three sub-displays for three fingertips. Each display has a set of 8 x 4mm x 1mm in diameter plastic pins. The distance between centers of neighboring pins is 1.5mm. This provides a tactile resolution close to the maximum limit of a fingertip's tactile perception. VTS thus allows the display of both fine graphic detail and printed letters in a font style that can be specially created for easy recognition. Each pin can move up and down on any one of sixteen height levels. These levels are used for: presenting four colors in graphic mode, referred to as White, Light Gray, Dark Gray and Black.
In graphic mode the user moves the VTD along a table as a sighted user moves a regular mouse. Exactly in the same way the VTS cursor, which consists of three rectangles, is moved along the computer display. The image from each of these rectangles is transformed into one of four color images and sent to a corresponding tactile sub-display. In this way, the blind user progressively "feels" small parts of the computer display with his/her fingers and integrates a full picture from those small parts of the whole image exactly the way he/she does in real life.
A running line is used for text mode. Three display letters are presented at one time one letter per tactile sub-display. The unique feature of the VTD is the display of text not only in Braille code, but, due to high pin density, also in regular printed letters. The screen reading process can be complemented with highly professional live voice. The user can select one of several audio modes: saying any one of the three displayed letters, all three letters or none.
The software part of VTS is a set of Windows 95/98/NT applications, which provide a normal "user - computer" interface. There are applications for: presenting graphic objects text reading and transformation of a text to Braille code or to printed letter tactile games specially developed for the blind.
Each of these applications is provided with special tools, adapted for the blind, for adjustment of preset values for the specific user. Some of the applications also contain exercises and/or materials for study with sound accompaniment. All these allow the user to work independently or through interaction with a sighted assistant, teacher or friend who uses mouse and display in a regular way.
The strategy of the young company is to promote its technology to a population of the blind or visually impaired, in the Western world. This population is approximately 70 million people of whom half a million in America alone are active computer-users today. Management projects that its products will find a market of up to 5.5 million consumers in the west. Market acceptance should be highest in places where government funding is allocated to support the blind and the visually impaired.The company is now preparing their plans for production, finance and marketing to capitalize on the good response of testing of its technology on a limited sample of blind persons.