[Art_beyond_sight_theory_and_research] change of email address

Tue May 29 13:06:59 CDT 2007

Hello,
Could you please change my email address from this one to the  
following: kouse_8 at hotmail.com
Thank you
Kelsey

On 29 May 2007, at 18:00, art_beyond_sight_theory_and_research- 
request at nfbnet.org wrote:

> Send Art_beyond_sight_theory_and_research mailing list submissions to
> 	art_beyond_sight_theory_and_research at nfbnet.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> 	http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/ 
> art_beyond_sight_theory_and_research
>
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> 	art_beyond_sight_theory_and_research-request at nfbnet.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> 	art_beyond_sight_theory_and_research-owner at nfbnet.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Art_beyond_sight_theory_and_research digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Audio Maps, Enabled, Menus (Lisa Yayla)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 13:05:41 +0200
> From: Lisa Yayla <fnugg at online.no>
> Subject: [Art_beyond_sight_theory_and_research] Audio Maps, Enabled,
> 	Menus
> To: accessibleimage at freelists.org,
> 	art_beyond_sight_learning_tools at nfbnet.org, 	Access to Art Museums
> 	<artbeyondsightmuseums at nfbnet.org>,
> 	art_beyond_sight_advocacy at nfbnet.org,	Art Beyond Sight Educators List
> 	<art_beyond_sight_educators at nfbnet.org>,
> 	art_beyond_sight_theory_and_research at nfbnet.org
> Message-ID: <465C0905.80209 at online.no>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
>
> blog
> http://getaroundguide.blogspot.com/2007/05/study-shows-hotel-web- 
> sites-lacking-in.html
> Talking menus
> Today?s Herald features a creation by one of our very own residents.
> Susan Perry of Miami has created talking menus ? literally, a device
> that tells you what?s on the menu ? which she hopes to sell to
> restaurants that want to offer a service to visually impaired diners.
> Some think Menus That Talk is a good idea, others are not so sure
> restaurants will buy into it.
> http://mangoandlime.net/2007/05/18/bites-this-week-in-food-514-518/
> http://www.menusthattalk.com/
> article includes audio files
> http://www.miamiherald.com/298/story/110593.html
> Entrepreneur's talking menu helps visually impaired
> BY MADELEINE MARR
> The light-bulb moment came over lunch and laughs last summer at the
> Olive Garden in West Miami as Susan Perry struggled to read the  
> menu to
> her visually impaired niece.
>
> Jessica MacWithey, 24, has macular degeneration, Perry, 50, had
> forgotten her reading glasses, and the blind-leading-the-blind  
> scenario
> cracked them up.
>
> ''I joked that we needed a braille menu,'' Perry says. 'But Jessica
> informed me that most legally blind people don't read braille. Then I
> thought, `Wow, what we need is something that speaks.' ''
>
> Less than a year later, Perry is heading to Chicago to launch her
> invention, Menus That Talk, at this weekend's National Restaurant
> Association show.
>
> Perry says she's invested $250,000 into the project and bets she can
> turn a profit before the year is out.
>
> Her aim is to convince some of the nearly one million U.S. restaurants
> -- roughly a third are chains -- to buy talking menus to serve  
> visually 
> impaired Americans.
>
> ''It helps people do easily what we take for granted,'' Perry says in
> her Kendall office, skimming her fingers over the hand-held device,
> which could be mistaken for an oversized Game Boy. Buttons  
> correspond to
> food categories -- burgers, salads, desserts, etc.
>
> She pushes ''Appetizers'' and a pleasant female voice begins, ``Thai
> Phoon Shrimp. Tender, crispy shrimp with a sweet and spicy chile  
> sauce,
> $7.99.''
>
> Press the ''espa?ol'' button, and appetizers become aperitivos,
> expanding the target market to language-limited as well as visually
> impaired diners.
>
> ''Two of my daughters married Cubans,'' Perry says. ``Whenever we went
> out to eat with the whole family, there was always someone who had
> trouble ordering.''
>
> MAKING DEALS
>
> Menus That Talk (www.menusthattalk.com) has no signed contracts,  
> but is
> generating interest. A number of purchasing managers have promised to
> stop by the booth at the show, Perry says.
>
> It would cost a restaurant about $4,000 a year, including menu updates
> and insurance, to purchase five units.
>
> ''I predict this is going to be very hot. It's catering to a huge
> market,'' says Ren?e Rentmeester, president of Miami's Vision World
> Foundation and creator of the public television show Cooking Without
> Looking, noting that an estimated 17 million Americans are visually
> impaired.
>
> Others are not so sure. Richard Lackey, a veteran restaurant  
> consultant
> with offices in Palm Beach Garden and London, questions if there are
> enough visually impaired diners to prompt restaurants to buy the  
> menus.
>
> ''At first blush, I would say the jury is certainly out,'' Lackey  
> says.
> ``But if they are able to sell to a chain like T.G.I. Friday's or
> Chili's then they will automatically create a home run for themselves,
> because other chains won't be one-upped or appear to not be socially
> conscious.''
>
> Perry has models for Outback (with Australian announcer), Hard Rock  
> Cafe
> (Elvis impersonator) and Olive Garden (you guessed it, Italian accent)
> to show off in Chicago.
>
> ''We tried to have some fun with it,'' she says. ``You go to a
> restaurant to be entertained and relax.''
>
> GETTING TECHNICAL
>
> She developed the device with friend Richard Herbst, whose Kansas
> company, Control Vision, manufactures GPS for small airplanes. The
> talking menus will be tailor-made for each restaurant, which can  
> program
> its own voice or leave it to the professionals.
>
> Menu changes won't be a problem.
>
> ''The whole updating process takes about 24 hours,'' says Perry. ''A
> voice actor e-mails an MP3 file of the recording, which we download  
> to a
> data key'' that's sent to the restaurant and slipped into the machine.
>
> Perry's niece, for one, is stoked.
>
> ''You want to eat something new and hear the description, but having
> someone always read to you is embarrassing,'' says MacWithey, who  
> works
> with her aunt. ``I always ended up with something simple that every
> place had -- like grilled cheese, soup or salad.''
>
> Another ingenious feature for the whole dining party is a service  
> light
> that blinks to summon the waiter. About time, no?
>
> ''I'm actually surprised this hadn't been invented yet,'' Perry says.
> 'But it wasn't so long ago that we were dragging around suitcases in
> airports. One day someone said, `Let's put on wheels.' Ideas come to
> you, and you have to run with them.''
>
> article
> http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/05/15/soundmap_tec.html? 
> category=technology
> Auditory Map Orients by Sound
> Discovery News
>
> May 15, 2007 ? Before venturing out into an unfamiliar area, most  
> people
> scope out a map. But for the blind or visually impaired, using a  
> map to
> get oriented is not an option.
>
> An interactive computer program in development could change that. It
> paints a picture of a city, not with images, but with sounds. Not only
> could the technology aide the visually impaired by giving them a sense
> of place before they explore the unknown, it could also offer sighted
> people audio cues when in "blind" situations.
>
> "A firefighter could get a signal through a helmet headset as soon  
> as he
> is losing track inside a dangerous building or if he needs to be
> directed to a doorway or a victim," said professor Susanne Boll of the
> University of Oldenburg in Germany.
>
> The interactive map allows a person to explore a city either from a
> bird's eye perspective or by walking through a virtual,
> three-dimensional environment. The traveler explores the city by  
> moving
> a stylus across a tablet PC. The stylus and the edges of the PC  
> help the
> person feel the extent of the map and develop a mental model of the  
> space.
>
> Geographic features such as buildings, parks, lakes and tourist sites
> are represented by corresponding sounds. For example, a park sounds  
> like
> singing birds, lakes sound like dabbling water and sightseeing spots
> sound like camera shutter clicks.
>
> "There is no other project that really does a transfer from a  
> visual map
> with its geographical relations and distances into a non-speech sound
> environment," said Boll.
> Because hearing all objects at once could cause a lot of confusion,  
> the
> map comes with an auditory torch, which the person can use to
> acoustically illuminate large or small areas one at a time. Only
> features falling under the glow of the torch will make noise as the
> traveler moves the torch around. And nearby objects sound louder than
> those farther away.
>
> Ben Shneiderman of the University of Maryland, College Park, calls the
> interactive map "an inspirational prototype."
>
> "It works fine for small examples and it's a promising direction,"  
> he said.
>
> However, Shneiderman added that while it's important to make the  
> sounds
> unique, that means there is a limit to how many can be incorporated  
> into
> the map.
>
> "If sounds are distinctive enough it helps, but once you start having
> too many different sounds, it takes you a while to figure out what's
> going on," said Shneiderman.
>
> Boll and her team want to eventually pair the interactive map with
> tactile technology that would help the person navigate actual city  
> streets.
>
> Let's say the person has learned the map at home and wants to walk to
> the park. She would download information to a vibrating belt and wear
> the belt on her journey. Different sides of the belt would vibrate to
> cue her to turn left or right, guiding her to the ultimate  
> destination.
>
>
> http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2007/05/could_audio_map.shtml
> Could Audio Maps Help Us Navigate?
> Most of us look at maps to find our way around. But maybe we could  
> also
> locate where we are with our ears. A new interactive computer program
> tries it. "It paints a picture of a city, not with images, but with
> sounds. Not only could the technology aide the visually impaired by
> giving them a sense of place before they explore the unknown, it could
> also offer sighted people audio cues when in 'blind' situations."
>
> link to pdf article Interactive Exploration of City Maps with Auditory
> Torches
> http://mmit.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de/download/ 
> Interactive_Exploration_of_City_Maps_with_Auditory_Torches.pdf
>
> http://mmit.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de/veranstaltungen/
> Auditory Maps at CHI Interactivity 2007
>
> Wilko Heuten presents his research on "Interactive Exploration of City
> Maps with Auditory Torches" at 2007's CHI conference in May. In our
> presentation, we show an an interactive auditory city map, which  
> uses 3D
> non-speech sound to convey the position, shape, and type of geographic
> objects. For the interactive exploration of the auditory map, we
> designed different interaction methods to build a mental model of a
> spatial environment and allow blind and visually impaired people to
> access map information. We had the pleasure of Ben Shneiderman  
> visiting
> our stand and exploring the city maps himself. See more about our demo
> and CHI 2007 under our Auditory Maps at CHI 2007 event.
>
>
>
>
> http://www.enabledweb.org/public_results.htm
>
> Enabled Enhanced Network Accessibility for the Blind and Visually  
> Impaired
> http://www.enabledweb.org/project_desc.htm#description
> Project description
> Top Page <#top>
>
> The continuing growth of broadband multimedia networks in Europe  
> has an
> ever-increasing impact on people?s lives. Information can be accessed
> remotely and in the comfort of people?s own home; people can interact
> with friends and family via email, instant chat or Voice over IP;
> services such as online shopping, paying bills and ?distance learning?
> are now offered to the public. However, people who are visually
> impaired, or who have other forms of disability are, in many cases,  
> not
> able to take full advantage of all these integrated computing and
> telecommunications services (ICT) facilities. This is primarily due to
> the inaccessibility to this user-group of the visual based content  
> being
> offered by ICT products and services.
>
> The ENABLED project is researching the network aspects of this
> particular form of the ?Digital divide? by providing accessible map
> information and using the capability of fixed mobile convergence in
> networks to support the mobility of visually impaired people.
>
> The ENABLED project, has therefore allocated its effort to two  
> specific
> tasks:
>
>     * (1) Developing technologies that create accessible graphical
>       content on broadband multimedia networks, primarily concerning
>       indoor and outdoor maps;
>
>     * (2) Developing ?ubiquitous? tools that enable easy access to the
>       map information, and interfaces that are adaptable and
>       interoperable no matter where the users are and what equipment
>       they are using.
>
> To achieve these objectives, research and development work will be
> focused on three supporting tools:
>
>     * (1) an annotation tool for audio and haptic map representations;
>
>     * (2) adaptable interfaces for exploration of maps and route- 
> planning;
>
>     * (3) a navigation aid provided through wireless networks.
>
> With the aim of providing ubiquitous access to map information and
> network-based services, the project is developing a navigation system
> that provides guidance for visually impaired pedestrians in both  
> indoor
> and outdoor settings. Multimodal representations of indoor and outdoor
> maps are also under investigation in order to complete the whole
> navigation process, from route-planning to actually following the  
> route.
> The research and development work will be supported by training
> activities involving local user organizations and SMEs. These training
> activities will form the basis of a sound foundation for the
> exploitation and dissemination of project results. The outcome of this
> project will directly benefit visually impaired people as the
> technologies developed will be deployed onto a commercial mobile
> navigation aid.
>
>
> Links from Enabled website
> Haptic-Audio Maps video
> video http://scalab.dibe.unige.it/enabled/enabled_maps.html
> Haptic-Audio Graphs video
> http://scalab.dibe.unige.it/enabled/enabled_graphs.html
>
> http://www.enabledweb.org/download/h_a_g_prot92.pdf
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Art_beyond_sight_theory_and_research mailing list
> Art_beyond_sight_theory_and_research at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/ 
> art_beyond_sight_theory_and_research
>
>
> End of Art_beyond_sight_theory_and_research Digest, Vol 13, Issue 3
> *******************************************************************