Irina's Blog

Tactile is text-to-braille device currently undergoing development at MIT. Tactile is a portable real time text-to-braille converter and it is aimed at helping visually impaired or blind people. It is not computer specific and it can be used with computers as well as with reading any other text. Current braille translators: Current solutions can only work with electronic text, however they are not adapted for reading and translating text in electronic images, as well as text on any physical media for example papers. Additionally these devices cost up to 3000 us dollars and is not accessible for everyone in need. Tactile solution: Tactile technology will enable reading the text from electronic as well as from any other media. Tactile device has integrated camera that can capture any text. After capturing text is translated and displayed on the refreshable display as a braille. Final version of device will be able to display 36 characters at a time and will be a size of a choco

There used to be time, when webpages were not very usable, overloaded with small size text, heavy colours and without logical pathways for use. Now situation has improved heavily with web designers and UX professionals taking care of spacious designs, readable contents and pleasant user experiences on the web. There are obviously still dinosaurs out there, who have not yet discovered the magic of correctly done webpages. As examples let's take two webpages with similar contents: vivilondra.it vivilondra.com When finding yourself on vivilondra.it , you are welcomed with pleasant colours, there is a menu bar on the top with available pages and scrolling down the page you can encounter latest news and applicable advertising . You can easily find your way around for general information and top contents. Some optimization can still be done, with organizing large amounts of information, aligning sections and giving a bit more white space for clearer views, however overall experien

There are different software development models with its advantages and disadvantages, but all of them give project teams a framework and a structure for planning and executing the project. Choosing the development model will depend on the project, on the amount of flexibility you expect, on the amount of unknown requirements at the start line, resource available, project size and complexity and the vision clarity. One of the development model examples is the spiral model . This model is the most flexible and as the name says, software is developed in cycles. Development undergoes same set of cycles again and again until final refinement is done and product is ready. This model incorporates the following steps: Identification (understanding the requirements and setting up the baseline)  → Design (architectural, logical and physical) → Building phase → Evaluation and Risk analysis → Collecting feedback and going to the next cycle. This model is particularly good for customized pr

Steven Raymond article "How to become a hacker?" is an interesting read on the topic of hacker's culture and attitude, basic skills needed for becoming a hacker and status and reputation in the hacker community. Below I will outline some of those ideas that I found either new or most interesting to myself. 1. Hacker is not a cracker and hacker is not always a programmer  First of all, hacker is not someone who breaks security of programs or breaks into somebody else's Facebook account. Those who do not respect security and privacy and do illegal stuff are crackers and there is no respect towards them from hackers. Crackers and Hackers are two different breeds and two different directions. The article describes the hacker culture of programmers, however by the definition you can be a hacker and not be a programmer.  You can apply hacker culture and work principles in any other industry. As long as you like solving problems, share your work with others and you a

Like any person generally, leaders bring different qualities, character and styles into their leadership, their companies and work they do. There are different leadership styles that stand out and these include: - Leader - someone who sees a direction and is capable of taking the team there. - Communicator - collects and spreads information according to roles in the organization - Coach - chooses the right people and develops them to achieve the targets - Mentor - someone who is capable of mentoring and this is especially important in long term projects with small teams - Change agent - brings innovative solution - Power broker - uses power in relevant situations and sees whether new risks appear In essence all great leaders have to have a combination of these qualities for the effective leadership. I think that any leader should be capable of leading the team towards the vision and goal, be innovative, be able to coach and to mentor, and be capable of effective communication