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Technology is just amazing these days and surprises us all. Sloan Churman was born deaf and for 29 years she has relied on reading lips and hearing aids. About 8 weeks ago she had an implant called The Esteem Implant by Envoy Medical and for the first time Sloan was able to hear her voice. Just wish that the expenses for these things were a bit cheaper, that way more people would be able to get this implant.

This article is about new apps that help disabled people. Many computer science researchers have been looking for an app that would help the disabled, and now they have created a few. One is called VizWiz. This is an app that helps the visually impaired. The user takes a picture of what he/she has a question about, asks a question, and receives an answer by a worker at Mechanical Turk. Mechanical Turk is a service, featuring many people that answer questions. Another app is Scribe. This app helps the deaf and hearing-impaired. Users send an audio stream to many of the Scribe workers who provide real time transcription. Since only highly trained transcribers with special equipment can transcribe all of the words in a live stream, Scribe coordinates a group of six or seven amateurs to transcribe the stream.