Coming soon: high-tech devices for blind and deaf people.

Japan's Ministry of Health just launched a major collaborative effort with 10+ companies and research institutes to create highly exportable, high-tech devices for people with hearing and vision disabilities, including one that will instantly translate spoken words into cell phone text messages for the hearing impaired. Hitachi and IBM already have gadgets that will read web sites, but nothing that reads printed text from magazines. Once these awesome devices are created, the Ministry will start by promoting them to local and regional governments, which are created by law to assist the hearing and vision impared. A total of 270,000 Japanese fit this category. The robotic chick in the picture is Hitachi's animated sign language woman. Full story here.