it started as a lark krispian lawrence and anirudh sharma mit graduates who run a company called ducere technologies out of secunderabad which makes wearable technologies thought it would be fun to hook shoes up to the google maps app that way you could programme a destination into your smartphone slip the phone into your pocket and let the shoes guide you on your way when the left shoe vibrates turn left and vice versa it was only later that it struck the two that the shoes might help the visually impaired le chal take me there as the shoes are called were formally launched in mumbai early last month ducere started taking orders on march 7 and so far says lawrence they have got orders for 2000 pairs from around the world alongside a number of other very exciting technologies for the visually impaired are being birthed right here in india last monday iit delhis assistech lab launched its smart cane a device that clasps on to the top end of the traditional white cane unlike the old cane this one also alerts you to obstacles that lie above the knee the old cane only told you what lay along the ground says rohan paul an iit alumnus himself and a key contributor to the development of the smart cane this is why the visually impaired were always bumping into protruding acs parked trucks desert coolers placed on stands and lowhanging tree branches using a public toilet was tough too the only way to check if a urinal was free was to use your cane as a probe and that usually caused serious offence the smart cane begins to vibrate at a distance of three metres from an obstacle with the vibrations getting more persistent as the user gets closer to the object the vibrations peter out as the user moves away an inhouse study conducted by iit found that the collision rate on an obstacle course with chestheight obstacles railings suspended plastic pipes came down from 952 to 67 when users moved from the old white cane to the smart cane which has been developed in conjunction with the ngo saksham which offers technologybased solutions to the visually impaired and phoenix medical systems in may this year nid bangalore graduate and human machine interface designer sumit dagar plans to launch his smartphone app for the visually impaired simpleye will be available on android and will allow the visually impaired to use almost all of a smartphones functions today a user gets little help dialling a number or typing out a message the keypad phones are on their way out says dagar and even the visually impaired will have to move to smartphones dagar is working on such a device for the visually impaired the screen area of the smartphone will be covered with braille cells or little groupings of pins that move up and down to form letters and numbers but for the