Fascinating. These guys rigged a Kinect to a vibration belt. As you walk, Kinect detects approaching obstacles and triggers the correct portion of the vibration belt’s arc, so you know the obstacle is the middle left and so on.

Indian engineers modify Microsoft's Kinect to help the blind walk with confidence

viSparsh, a belt-based sensor system (sparsh means touch in Hindi) created by a young team of engineers, could herald a revolutionary change for 25-year-old Wasim, and millions of others who are blind.