Smart 'vision' for the blind

Futuristic: Young Mozambican inventor gives help beyond a simple cane

- 

When Armando Ernesto Chau straps on the futuristic smart glasses that a young Mozambican robotics student is developing in the family dining room, he has a vision of a life less confined to his modest home.

Chau is the prototype tester for Joao Antonio Rego, a 24-year-old robotics and electronic engineering student driven to provide visually impaired Mozambicans with assistance that goes beyond a simple cane.

Since he lost his sight 20 years ago, the 45-year-old father has not worked and rarely leaves his home in Matola, outside the capital Maputo.

Rego's electronic glasses - battery-powered devices embedded with sensors that scan for obstacles ahead and emit warning vibrations - offer the promise of new possibilities.

"It is vibrating...it is those bushes," Chau said, demonstrating for AFP Rego's Vision Hope 0.2. "Maybe, there is a window here...yes."

"Because of these obstacles, it vibrates. So I go back," he said. "It stopped. See?

"Then it says there is something on this side...When I turn, it is quiet."