Hi All,

Similar complementary tactile and auditory display
technology for the blind is also available from
the ifeelpixel and seeingwithsound websites. It
works with regular (affordable!) tactile mice as
also used by the sighted with games. The following
URLs give more information:

(ifeelpixel for the tactile feedback)
http://www.ifeelpixel.com/description/
http://www.ifeelpixel.com/screenshots/#thevoice

and

(The vOICe for the soundscape feedback)
http://www.seeingwithsound.com/winvoice.htm
http://www.seeingwithsound.com/winmath.htm

The ifeelpixel software is currently available
for beta testing, from the web page at the URL

http://www.ifeelpixel.com/download/

The ifeelpixel tactile mouse software and The vOICe
Learning Edition soundscape software are meant to be
used in combination, to give you a soundscape view of
any graphics while you check out the graphical details
with your tactile mouse. For instance, you may import
an image file into The vOICe software via its file
requester (Control o) to hear the corresponding (often
very complex) soundscape, and you can just maximize
The vOICe window to occupy the entire screen area. This
will then give you relevant tactile feedback from the
ifeelpixel software as you move the mouse pointer over
the screen area while you keep hearing the soundscape
overview of the full image. There are many other
possibilities and modes of working, but this hopefully
gives some idea. It may be used to access purely graphical
material such as graphs and function plots, but also
photographs, thus complementing what you can already
do with your screen reader.

Best wishes,

Peter Meijer


Seeing with Sound - The vOICe
http://www.seeingwithsound.com/winvoice.htm

On Fri, 13 Sep 2002 09:20:58 -0400, Kennedy, Bud <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>Scientists Develop Computer Mouse for the Blind
>Mon Sep 9, 9:32 AM ET
>
>LEICESTER, England (Reuters) - Scientists looking for ways to help blind
>people get more out of computers have developed a mouse that goes bump and
>combined
>it with sound representations of graphs that would otherwise be
>inaccessible.
>
>Mike Burton of Glasgow University told reporters at the British Association
>for the Advancement of Science (
>news -
>web sites)
>annual festival the mouse vibrated every time it met a line on a graph,
>giving a blind operator a tactile tip-off.
>
>"The technique is a very good way of presenting information to blind and
>sighted people," he said. "The bottom line is that the cheapest and most
>flexible
>solution works."
>
>Likening the jumping mouse to electronic Braille, Burton said one of the
>most daunting tasks facing visually impaired people was trying to
assimilate
>information
>giving an overview of data or events.
>
>Reinforcing the tactile jolt of the mouse, fellow Glasgow University
>scientist Stephen Brewster said his team had developed sound graphs that
>could be combined
>with the mouse.
>
>Lines on a graph were represented by tones that would vary in pitch
>according to whether the line was rising or falling.
>
>Several such tones could be used to represent different lines of the same
>graph as the user entered a "soundscape."
>
>"You can get across quite complex information just using sound," he said,
>adding that the technique could even be of use to sighted people such as
>share
>traders who could be alerted on their mobile phones by a tone representing
a
>move up or down.
>
>He declined to speculate on the sound of a stock market crash.


VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html