Here is a uniquely 21st-century problem that blind people face: They hear someone say, “Hello” and retort with a “hello.” Then the first speaker trails off into what seems like a non sequitur, and the blind pedestrian awkwardly realizes he or she was answering a cell phone. “It’s a very real scenario,” says Chieko Asakawa, a researcher at IBM, who has been blind since age 14. “Often a person says ‘hi’ and I say ‘hi’ back and colleague tells me he was talking on the phone. Socialization is a very big challenge.”