"The vOICe" helps the blind see through sound

After all those drugs in the 60's, we're big fans of synaesthesia. As it turns out, there are some pretty practical applications for it beyond having something to chat over with Timothy Leary when you make it on to the next life. Pat Fletcher, who has been blind for 25 years, is able to see again by translating visual images into soundscapes with the help of a tiny video camera and a software program called "The vOICe." She stashes the camera in her shades and gets a "sound picture" generated from her visual landscape. It's an approach not terribly dissimilar from the idea of using echolocation to translate spatial data into auditory feedback, but this method frees up your hands as you don't have to carry any sort of cane device.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

I think this is very neat. Being visually handicapped myself and I only have a visual for about 17%, I think this rox for blind people !!

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

wow.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

Bout time someone built something like this. I've heard of blind people using echo location to ride bicycles. So the neural hardware to intemperate this sort of thing is all ready in place. This takes it to the next level and I'm glad someone managed to pull it off. I'm sure it was difficult to write the software.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

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[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

This has been around for a while, their site has a free Java implementation if you're interested. Cool stuff.