This technology sounds interesting. It seems that the goal is to represent
visual data in an aural form. I would like to be in on the development
because I have always represented aural information in visual images and
words.

Sound often borrows the vocabulary of analogy. For instance, pitches are
called high or low, when they are neither. They are faster or slower
frequencies. Tambres are called bright or dark. Tempos are called fast or
slow, when they are not moving at all. Distorted sounds are called fuzzy
and other sounds are smooth or clear. The piano has a soto voce, or soft
voice, pedal to make it quieter, and a damper pedal to make the sound
sustain - and how is that making it wet?

I could go on and on, but my point is that we are very used to
representing the quality of sound in tactile and visual terms, and sheet
music is a graphical or spatial representation of sound, described with
Italian words for "dry," "walking," "stolen," and "cheerful," which
relates a tempo to a mood.

I think it is about time to try the opposite: to find aural
representations of tactile and visual elements. Bats spray their
surroundings with variously pitched tones, and the map that they construct
based on the reflections is so accurate that they pluck insects out of the
pitch black night sky. If we could do one fiftieth as well, it would be
quite useful.

That being said, I prefer my earlier solution: wearing a miniature camera
and speaking to a person at a monitor who seeing the world from a blind
person's lapel.

My brother told me that coverage of baseball games now show the pitch from
the catcher's point of view. He has a very small camera mounted on his
mask, and it obviously doesn't have a wire or heavy transmitter attached
to it.

I would like to walk around my neighborhood with such a camera on my lapel
and an earphone and microphone. The person watching my monitor could
describe the Christmas windows, guide me down the right aisle in the
supermarket and even read the ingredients on a can to me. I could browse
at Barnes and Noble, sit down at a table with my coffee and turn the pages
in front of the lens as my monitor reads to me. The freedom that it would
give to me would be the next best thing to seeing.

I even know a good source of willing and free "televisors."
People in prisons could be required to serve as part of their sentence, or
they could do so to get community service or good behavior credit. They
might also volunteer so that they can vicariously walk around like a free
man.

As with selecting guide dogs, a visually impaired person could be matched
up with a narrator/translator who suits him or her best. The possibilities
of a televisor for describing movies without disturbing my neighbor, to
help me find where I misplaced something, or even to recognize the faces
of people I know at a party are exciting.

I recently went to a party where I knew about a fifth of the people there.
The host wanted to take my cane because I knew her apartment and could get
around without it. But I kept it in order to signal to the strangers that
I can't see them, which could facilitate our encounter. There was a buffet
table that I couldn't handle with grace and, as a vegetarian, I won't grab
whatever is there. A televisor could have given me a fluency in that
setting that would have made me feel like I can see again, and no
technology could ever come close.

Equally important, the necessary technology (miniature cameras,
microphones and earphones, a connection via cell phone technology, and an
interactive monitor with audio) is already here. Further, the training
time to use it would be less than hour.

I don't know how many of you this appeals to, but I'd like to get some
feed-back.

Sorry about the long posting, and have a great Christmas.

 Peter Seymour

On Mon, 21 Dec 1998, John Mattioli wrote:

> Greetings,
>
>         Two interesting things about this posting...
>
> 1. The software is free for download: really, from where?  I'd love to see
> it.
>
> 2. A built in color identifier?  Really?  You mean I can download this
> software, purchase a camera and have a color identifier?  Cool!
>
> John
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: VICUG-L: Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group List
> > [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Kelly Pierce
> > Sent: Saturday, December 19, 1998 6:38 AM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: tech: seeing eye software
> >
> >
> > For those without mail readers that offer clickable url's,
> > such as Pine
> > 4.0 or greater, here's Peter Meijer's article about the
> > software that he
> > talked about in a post a few weeks ago.
> >
> > kelly=20
> >
> > from Wired News
> >
> >   =20
> >    Seeing-Eye Software
> >    by Kristen Philipkoski=20
> >    3:00 a.m.  24.Nov.98.PST
> >    A new software program aims to help people see with their ears.
> >   =20
> >    Peter Meijer, of the Philips Research Laboratories in the
> > Netherlands,
> >    built Voice Learning Edition software to translate video into
> >    high-definition stereo sound in close to real time.
> >   =20
> >    Voice requires the user to learn a whole new language of subtle
> >    sounds. Noises change pitch and resonance if a color is bright or a
> >    building is close, so the user must be able to distinguish between
> >    nuances of sound.
> >   =20
> >    Meijer set up an online program for the blind to help him evaluate
> >    Voice. He also gets feedback from an evaluation project at the
> >    Institute for Innovative Blind Navigation.
> >   =20
> >    "Talking to blind users directly is very valuable [in
> > order] to guide
> >    further technical progress," he said. But the Internet
> > offered Meijer
> >    a whole new approach to testing tools for the blind.
> >   =20
> >    "In the past, we first had to convince institutions for
> > the blind that
> >    the proposed approach could be interesting, which often led only to
> >    discussing opinions about what needs and interests the blind may
> >    have," he said. "Today, we can communicate directly with potential
> >    blind users, and let them decide ... whether they are interested."
> >   =20
> >    Based on the feedback, Meijer said he continuously
> > improves the system
> >    and is now working to help users understand Voice's language.
> >   =20
> >    Nolan Crabb, a spokesman for the American Council of the
> > Blind, said
> >    he believes Voice is well-intended, but he isn't convinced of its
> >    practicality.
> >   =20
> >    "This would be better for people who lose their sight than
> > for people
> >    who were blind always," said Crabb, who was born blind. He
> > added that
> >    walking around with headphones could be dangerous for blind people.
> >   =20
> >    "You still need a lot of your hearing to know what the
> > world is doing
> >    around you, to hear things like traffic, construction," he said.
> >   =20
> >    In 1993, Meijer came out with the prototype for Voice -- a
> >    helmet-like, mono-sound piece of hardware. It never went into
> >    production.
> >   =20
> >    The latest version, released in January, functions on Windows and
> >    requires a PC camera, a Pentium processor, and stereo headphones.
> >    While the accessories may seem prohibitive, the software is free to
> >    download.
> >    In March, Meijer added color identification to the system, which
> >    already featured zoom, inverse video, and slow and fast motion. An
> >    open interface for third-party developers was developed in
> > September.
> >   =20
> >    It remains to be seen how functional Voice is for most people.
> >   =20
> >    "There could be important bottlenecks in hearing, brain processing,
> >    and brain plasticity, but also in motivation during
> > training, Meijer
> >    said. "Results may depend on whether one is congenitally blind or
> >    became blind later in life," he said. "But sometimes simple things
> >    like color detection or finding a bright window may turn out to be
> >    useful. It doesn't have to be full-fledged vision to have
> > some merit."
> >   =20
> >    Crabb said, "The day we can use talking or brailled information and
> >    GPS [Global Positioning Satellite] to give us an idea of
> > where we are,
> >    then we will have achieved some incredible steps
> > forward.... Any kind
> >    of increased mobility can be a good thing."
> >
> >    Copyright =A9 1994-98 Wired Digital Inc. All rights reserved.
> >
> >
> > 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
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> >
> >
>
>
> 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
>
>


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