Trinetra: Assistive Technologies for the Blind

Trinetra aims to develop cost-effective assistive technologies to provide blind people with a greater degree of independence in their daily activities. The overall objective of the Trinetra system is to improve the quality of life for the blind by harnessing the collective capability of diverse networked embedded devices to support navigation, grocery shopping, transportation, etc. This paper describes our research and development of the original Trinetra prototype, a barcode-based solution comprising a combination of off-the-shelf components, such as an Internet- and Bluetooth-enabled cell phone, text-tospeech software and a portable barcode reader. We also describe our experiences with the first deployment and evaluation of Trinetra to aid grocery shopping for the blind at the Carnegie Mellon University’s campus convenience store, Entropy.