hi all,

Those of you who have looked at the vOICe for synthetic vision would know that we need a pair of glasses with a netbook for the best immersive user experience. If you are like me however, you will find that the weekends are probably the only days when you can walk out and about with your glasses and netbook. The rest of the week you are stuck in a boring old office or perhaps you are travelling between customers. The question then arises of how to continue your visual learning? I was recently introduced to photo blogs where people post photographs and write something about them. These blogs especially those that are hosted on WordPress are quite accessible. The advantage of a blog as opposed to a dedicated photo sharing website is that by convention, people do write something about the images they are posting. This way, there is some context to what you’re looking at. In addition, the images that you see are random which is exactly how sight is. You don’t know what you are going to encounter from one moment to the next. Finally, you can always comment on the image and ask the author for clarifications.

My introduction to photo blogging occurred after my trip to Iceland with Traveleyes. Helen Cherry, one of the members of the tour group has started an extremely accessible pair of blogs. She is a prolific photographer and posts at least one image per Day on her photomania blog. The 1500 Saturdays blog is updated weekly. She goes out of her way to make images accessible by adding alternative text tags or at the very least, giving descriptive names to the files that she uploads.

Her blog is hosted on WordPress, so you can use the Internet sonyfication feature of the vOICe to import images directly from her blog and look at them. She is also very willing to answer any questions you may have about the images she posts.

So, get out there and find more photoblogs!!

Sample accessible images

pennyroyal-editions-of-alices-adventures-in-wonderland-and-through-the-looking-glass

hyacinth-stamens

santas-in-venice

I was wearing the vOICe so I had my video glasses and netbook. I eventually reached the security check barrier. This was like a doorway. I was frisked and then asked to take off my backpack.

I could not do this since I was all wired up. I was lead to a table where an inspector of police heard my story. I explained the vOICe as an artificial eye.

We were then directed to an officer of the Archeological Survey of India. I had to wait near the security desk while my cousin went to meet with the official.

No argument worked. I had to remove the vOICe and leave it in the tender care of the security staff. The reasoning of the ASI officer was that there was an order by the Supreme Court forbidding laptops. There was no countering that but I am puzzled that the learned judges would allow mobile phones and not laptops? A mobile phone is a computer and can do much more than a laptop.

I did get some photographs with the camera and did use the mobile phone version of the vOICe for a bit but as of this writing, there is nothing that can give me the eye level perspective and the broad field of view like the video glasses with the fish-eye lens.

The high point of my visit came in the souvenir shop outside the Taj Mahal. The staff was welcoming and were happy to show me their tools and products. There is much use of colors so keep a color detector handy or use the color spectrum feature of the vOICe. The staff is very good about adjusting the lighting conditions in the shop to best show off things like stones that are supposed to glow at the time of the full moon. I was able to detect the bright point of light which were the glowing stones under a flashlight.

Tips for any visitors specially those wearing electronic aides.

1. Leave the aide at home or in the vehicle unless it resembles a mobile phone.

2. Do not visit on the weekend since it is very crowded.

3. Keep at least 3 hours for the entire exercise.

4. Hire a guide. Ours was invaluable since besides telling us interesting stories, he was able to minimize the time we spent in the visitor’s line. He knew the shortest routes to get from one point to another. Mind you, you do not have much scope for getting lost since given the crowd, you are almost boxed in.

5. Eat before entering the Taj Mahal since food is not permitted inside the complex.

I naturally began to compare it with the vOICe. Yes, I am comparing apples and oranges since sensory substitution is different from sonar but I took the perspective of both being used for navigation. I found the vOICe to be significantly richer in giving me information about what is around me. Obstacle detection though is something you have to get used too. There is no looming effect and the shape of the obstacle just fills the view. I wish the vOICe could have the looming feature since I would get the best of both worlds. It is nice to know that I am going to collide with something but when using sonar, I don’t know what that thing is.

Other than that my familiarity with soundscapes came in handy since I was able to use the K-Sonar without any training. The researchers were amazed. Other users had not liked the device at all and found it useless.

The form factor is nice in terms of size but it is a bit fat for my palm. I wish the attachment to slide it on to the cane was detachable.

Users using the vOICe may want to tun out the sky in the top part of the view. Try the zoom feature. Note the bolders at the bottom and the ripples that you may be able to see.

Thanks to Pedro Alvarez and Helen Cherry for photography tips, image classification and editing.

Those of you who can perceive color will enjoy the blue sky in image 1.

Thanks to Pedro Alvarez and Helen Cherry for photography tips, image classification and editing.

The first thing you need to do is to determine the name of the script you want to call. You can see the name of the script from the Jaws scripting manager or by looking at the Jaws keyboard manager. Once you have that information, you can begin writing your command. We will use the example of initiating a jaws tandem session. This is a globally defined jaws script and is not in the set of current J-Say commands. A jaws tandem session is initiated by calling the StartOrEndTandemSession script.
I am going to assume that the StartOrEndTandemSession script is installed and working.

1. Go to the desktop.
2. From the tools menu of dragon, invoke the “add new command” dialog. If you have dragon running, say “add command”.
3. Dictate or type a name and a description.
4. Make the command a global command as well as an advanced scripting command.
Note:
On my computer, the combo box to select the type of the command is not spoken automatically. You may have to use the Jaws read current line command to read the value that has been selected in the combo box.
5. Keep tabbing until you reach an edit area where you can type your script. 6. A set of begin and end statements will already be inserted for you. 7. Between them, enter the following line.
DllCall “MSGW1004″,”JFWRunScript”,”StartOrEndTandemSession”
Note:
I do not know what MSGW1004 stands for but I suspect, after reading the help it is a dll name.

8. Now, activate the jaws cursor and click the save button. This is found at the bottom of the scripting edit area.

9. Assuming there are no errors, you will be back at the desktop or perhaps in the command browser.
10. In any case, your command is ready now so all you now need do is to speak the name of the command and it should work.

You can have as many dllCall statements as you want in a script. The key thing to remember is that the Jaws and Dragon scripts should be synchronized that is they should be loaded at the same time otherwise, if the Dragon commands are loaded and the Jaws script files are absent, you will get an “unknown script call” to the script if you speak the relevant Dragon command.

Let us look at another example. I have created a macro in Outlook that deletes messages that have the same thread. I need to invoke this macro when I say “delete thread”. The Dragon command is below. I have added comments to each statement.

Sub Main
DllCall “MSGW1004″,”JFWRunScript”,” SpeechOff” ‘turn jaws speech off SendDragonKeys “{alt+f8}” ‘invoke the macro ecxecution dialog SendDragonKeys “{alt+r}” ‘only 1 macro in outlook so run it
DllCall “MSGW1004″,”JFWRunScript”,” SpeechOn” ‘enable jaws speech End Sub

For anyone trying any synthetic vision device while whale watching, whales mostly appear as blobs in the sea. You may have a better chance of seeing dolphins but that is still very difficult. I had the vOICe at 2-fold speed and no luck. I did try 4-fold speed but I lost too much detail so reduced speed.

However, I was not disappointed. Looking at the sea from a moving boat is a fascinating exercise especially when you can see the arc like ripples the boat makes. The sea and clouds also provide much visual information. Another diverting exercise is to try and see landmarks like small islands as you cruise past them.

My compliments to Captain Gunnar of the Andrea for the wonderful tour of his bridge and engine room and for answering all my questions. May your Volvo Penta TMD engines always run trouble free and roar like they did during our trip!

Thanks to Pedro Alvarez and Helen Cherry for photography tips, image classification and editing.

Users of the vOICe should Pay attention to the descriptions before interpreting the images. They may also want to slow down to quarter speed and zoom to see objects of interest.

Thanks to Wendy and Charlie for bringing the garden to life. Thanks also to Pedro Alvarez > and Helen Cherry for photography tips, image classification and editing.

The images that show water are also good at giving a sense of space.

The red plant in the (see image number 7) rock is particularly interesting especially since it seems to be so insubstantial when viewed by using the color filter feature of the vOICe.

Note the rope lava and the effect of light on the images. Finally, this set of images is superb for getting a sense of texture in the image. Rock has a rougher texture while water has a softer and well, watery texture.

Note:

Sometimes, we photographers got carried away and took pictures of one another taking pictures as demonstrated in image number 2.