Jules Jones

Austin Seraphin's blind. His new iPhone has changed his life.

This has been popping up my reading list this weekend, and no wonder. His blog post is a beautifully written description of just what some carefully thought out hardware and software can do to make someone's life better. The place where I started going "Oh, oh my god" was when he talked about being able to hear colour through the medium of the phone's camera and an app that reads out colour names. Just think about what that can do for someone who has just enough residual vision to make out colours in light sources.

For a lot of users, the iPhone is an expensive toy, a status symbol as much as anything. But not for all. Mass market information technology has created affordable "make a difference" devices for the disabled.

I love living in the future.