Monday, September 18, 2006

Blind kid using echolocation - real life "Daredevil"

OK, so there's a 14 year old kid named Ben Underwood who you may already have heard of. Apparently he was recently on the Ellen Degeneres show (in the course of watching this clip, I just multiplied my viewing time for the show by a hundred fold *grin*).

Anyway, he went blind around 3 years old. A few years later at camp, he figured out that things sounded different as the sound bounced off things and he came up with his own form of sonar. He clicks his tongue and based on the resulting sound, he can "see" his surroundings.

The video clip with the interview is pretty interesting. It's very impressive that he was able to do this. My initial thought was of the comic character Daredevil. Obviously this kid isn't out jumping around the city fighting crime or anything like that...or then again, maybe he is and he's just willing to expose a bit of his talent regardless. ;)

Anyway, check it out. It's pretty amazing.

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