Preliminary research shows encouraging results with transplantation of retinal cells in patients with blindness caused by retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to a report in the August issue of American Journal of Ophthalmology (http://www.AJO.com).

It's an annual event the visually challenged look forward to in Chennai - a volleyball tournament exclusively for them. This year, it was a fight between fifteen teams from all over south India.

In this form of the game, the ball is thrown under the net and the players 'hear' the ball advancing towards them. The rules are strict. Those with partial vision are blind folded.

''It's a team effort. Since we are all in the same school we used to practice for a week and we get good understanding,'' says one of the participant girls.

For blind students, surfing the Web or taking detailed notes in physics and calculus classes can require cumbersome and expensive learning aids. Two new technologies, however, promise to greatly expand access to text and graphics for the blind community without breaking the bank.

The Pulse Smartpen, which debuts in retail stores this month, records and synchronizes  nearly everything a student hears and writes. And WebAnywhere, a free Internet-based service released last month, works as a screen reader by converting Web site text to electronic speech.

The Hindi speaking Blind ofIndia have now got reason to rejoice as they too will be able to operatecomputers independently and that too in Hindi. The JAWS Talking Software fromFreedom Scientific Inc., USA,which converts a PC into a talking computer enabling the visually impaired tolearn and operate computers independently is now being released in Hindilanguage also along with English.

The Punjab Government has decided to immediatelyclear the backlog of the posts reserved for the blind and partiallyblind persons in the state. 

An assurance to this effect was given by PunjabChief Minister  Parkash Singh Badal to a delegation of NaterheenJagarities Sangh Punjab (visually challenged persons) led by GeneralSecretary Prof. Rajnish Mahal which called on  Badal and submitted acharter of demands to him here at his official residence thisafternoon. 

We've seen initiatives all over the globe created in an attempt to beat blindness, but researchers based at MIT are feeling fairly confident that their development is within a few years of being able to "restore partial sight to people who have slowly gone blind because of degenerative diseases of the retina." The bio-electronic implant, which is about the size of a pencil eraser, would actually sit behind the retina at the back of the eyeball, and images would be transmitted to the brain "via a connector the width of a human hair." As it stands, an FDA g

THE STATE Government on Saturday announced to establish a universityfor the handicapped in the name of Dr Shakuntala Mishra, mother of BSPgeneral secretary SC Mishra, who is also an MP.  The university willcome up in Lucknow.A state cabinet meeting presided over by ChiefMinister Mayawati gave the go-ahead to the project.

Mayawati toldnewspersons that initially the university was proposed underpublic-private partnership (PPP) and SC Mishra had offered to take upthe project through the Dr Shakuntala Mishra Smriti Sewa Trust.

IBM launched on Tuesday an application that seeks to harness the power and time of Internet users around the globe to make the Web more accessible to the visually impaired.

Many blind or partially sighted users run screen reading software that describes the content of a Web page but often encounter problems. The screen readers rely on text or descriptive tags to explain the items on a page but these are often added as an after thought or are incomplete.

If you were blind, couldyou navigate your way around a busy city street or distinguish betweena 1 bill and a 50 bill if you were trying to buy a beer at a bar?

These are some of the challenges visitors will face at a20,000-square-foot interactive exhibition coming to Atlantic Stationthis summer.