THE HEPHAESTUS PROJECT

"Hephaestus, god of fire and artisans: Son of Zeus and Hera, legend tells that Hephaestus was expelled from Olympus by his mother, who was ashamed of his lameness. From his forges came many marvels..."

The Hephaestus Project endeavors to develop technologies which reinforce and extend the capabilities of persons with impaired faculties. It tries to help foster the sort of world looked forward to in Ray Kurzweil's book "The Age of Intelligent Machines" (MIT Press, 1990)

Software projects

NEW!   COPY2SAY a FREE incremental screenreader easy enough for small children to use

ABsayD, a simple program to help the blind learn typing/keyboarding skills

Ronolog, a program to help the blind chat over the Internet with standard tools

Hardware projects

Alternative media for product information (Internet-database barcode scanner)

CCTV magnifiers, closed-circuit television magnifiers

TTS PDAs, text-to-speech personal digital assistants

TTS ICs, text-to-speech integrated circuits

Low-intensity multimedia entertainment (for nervous distress)

Education

Publications Spoken and written records of our work

Government testimony Remarks by our staff on our charter issues

Blind-related directories/databases Web directories and databases for vision impairment

Blind programmer culture, Web hyperlinks for blind "nerds"

Social Action

Recycle eyeglasses for the needy

Staff

Dr. Ron Feigenblatt

Mr. Dave Csercsics

Mr. Robert Bayles

 

Use this form to search this Web site:

"The next care to be taken, in respect of the Senses, is a supplying of their infirmities with Instruments, and as it were, the adding of artificial Organs to the natural... and as Glasses have highly promoted our seeing, so 'tis not improbable, but that there may be found many mechanical inventions to improve our other senses of hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching."

-Robert Hooke, Micrographia (1665)