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AUTHOR: MAIL.BLINDL
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From: MIT Technology Review - April, 1994 - page 72
As Far as the Ear can See
People who are blind and don't mind wearing a compass on their head may also
benefit from current research in acoustics. A "virtual acoustic display"
designed at the University of California at Santa Barbara could enable the
blind to find their way around a strange city by listening to computer-
generated cues through headphones. Such an audio landscape might take any
number of forms, says Jack M. Loomis, a professor of psychology at UCSB who
has designed a prototype system with colleagues at Santa Barbara and at
Carnegie Mellon University. "In one mode," say Loomis, "the five nearest
landmarks would seemingly call out their names to you." Or the user might
type a destination on a keyboard and follow a tone whose apparent direction
would change when it is time to turn a corner. The trick is getting accurate
environmental input. The prototype - with its electronics carried in a
backpack - tracks the user's whereabouts with signals from navigation
satellites, which in cities are often obscured by buildings. And each
landmark in a given area must be laboriously entered into a database. But
Loomis expects these obstacles to shrink as more companies enter the field
of personal navigation for vehicle and sighted pedestrians.
You can contact:
Jack M. Loomis, Ph.D.
Professor, Psychology
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
805/893-2475
805/893-4303 FAX
loomis@psych.ucsb.edu
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