Title: A new RFID-based and ontological recreation system for blind people

Authors: Jenn Tang

Addresses: National Taipei University of Business, No. 321, Section 1, Jinan Road, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City, Taiwan

Abstract: More than five million people are blind in China. Computer game should be attractive to them for leisure time, especially Mahjong. Ontology theory has been adopted to retrieve its knowledge and the low-cost RFID as the mediation between the blind player and computer. We designed an autonomous computer platform called Blind Mahjong Game (BMG), which includes 144 Mahjong tiles and voice prompt function. BMG comprises a plurality of Mahjong cubes (stuck RFID tag) their location in the Mahjong-selection tray or Mahjong-discard tray, a plurality of Chow-Pong-Kong-Win indicator cubes, a win frame, a tile frame, at least one RFID reader connected to BMG by USB port gateway to transmit an RF signal. As compared to current static or drab game for the blind, BMG has been certified by two patents in Taiwan which have shown that its software and hardware integrated novelty, progress and utilisation in the application of RFID technology for the blind.

Keywords: radio frequency identification; ontology; recreational systems; blind players; mahjong; computer games; RFID tags; object-oriented programming; OOP; China; voice prompt; Taiwan; visual impairment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRFITA.2015.070548

International Journal of Radio Frequency Identification Technology and Applications, 2015 Vol.4 No.4, pp.291 - 308

Accepted: 14 Jul 2014
Published online: 10 Jul 2015 *

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