It was just in the last issue of the bulletin that we wrote about the Be My Eyes/Clearblue partnership for reading the results of pregnancy tests. In an article last week, The New York Times reported the development, in England, of a prototype tactile pregnancy test – no agent readers, no sighted friends, and the opportunity for women to reveal the results when they wish to do so. ‘Such a Personal, Private Thing’: Rethinking the Home Pregnancy Test, reminds us that privacy was always the primary selling point for the tests, some 20 million of which are sold in the U.S. alone each year. Unveiled by the Royal National Institute for the Blind, the prototype “is larger than the conventional urine-stick test and features bright yellow and pink panels so women with low vision can differentiate the top from the bottom. It works with the same existing technology sensors but relays information through tactile bumps. A small bump on the underside of the stick confirms that the urine has been absorbed by the pad and a separate set of bumps on the stick’s top side raises to indicate a positive result.”
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