Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind the source for blindness news and information since 1907

I recently read two articles about two independent studies that got me thinking about the brain and vision loss. Could a blind person learn to use the visual cortex with another sense like taste or sound? There is scientific evidence in both of these studies that strongly points to this neural adaptation.

One system, called vOICE (pronounced voice but spelled with only the ‘v’ in lower case letters and the ‘oice’ in upper case letters), is very intriguing. The system uses sound images taken from digital images via a camera or scanner which the person learns to interpret as visual images. Studies prove that in time, the part of the brain that processes visual stimuli learns to use the sounds like visual images. You can learn more about vOICE at: www.seeingwithsound.com.

If you would like to read another article on this, including how the Harvard Brain Study is progressing with the vOICE system’s development and promotion, go to the Braille Forum page on the American Council of the Blind’s website: http://www.acb.org/node/140

The other breakthrough alternative to seeing is the Brain Port Vision Device. According to the website, “The BrainPort vision device is an investigational non-surgical assistive visual prosthetic device that translates information from a digital video camera to your tongue, through gentle electrical stimulation” (http://vision.wicab.com/technology/). The prototype unit, called a TDU, is now being tested in the United States. To learn more, go to the Brain Port’s page above.

These new technologies mean great things for the visually impaired. By harnessing our other senses in order to reprogram the parts of the brain used for visual stimuli, they have figured out a way to trick the brain into interpreting non-visual information as visual. What is possibly even more encouraging is that they are able to do this without the need for pharmaceutical intervention, and rely only on the brain’s ability to learn and adapt. It’s really quite remarkable.

Let us know what you think of these new technologies in the Reader’s Forum

By July 2011, I faced the inevitability that a newer, more efficient computer was necessary and I needed to exchange my loyal eight-year-old unit. Since 2010, tech support from the Worcester Commission had come to my apartment to fix email or other computer troubles, but things were becoming too problematic.

By October, I had taken definitive steps to find help with this purchase. My kind rehab teacher had emailed the letter I had written to the Memorial Foundation for the Blind located in Worcester, Massachusetts (Phone number: 1-508-753-8097). I had received my first computer from them in 2003 and she felt confident that I might receive another one.

In November, I was thrilled when I got a phone call from the agency saying I would receive money towards the purchase. I was new to buying a computer, and the wise and patient man from tech support advised me to buy a Dell Inspiron computer that was on sale at Staples. Following that advice, I ordered the computer and the afternoon of January 9, it was delivered to my apartment. I felt like a kid curious about a Christmas gift they must wait to open.

Early Wednesday afternoon, January 18, the man from tech support arrived at my apartment to install the new computer He anticipated that this job would take a while. I hoped that by late afternoon I would be learning how to use it and that all documents would be arranged the way they had on my first machine. I was wrong.

As is wont to happen with these things, there were unexpected complications. At first, Office 2003 and Jaws weren’t playing nice. My internet provider also did not accept the office or email program right away, but everything was quickly resolved. I had the serial number for Jaws and the authorization numbers written in Braille. Mr. Tech Support verified that everything was correct by calling Freedom Scientific. With these little hang-ups out of the way, it was time to install programs and start to become acquainted with this new machine.

One difference I noticed right away was that the keyboard is flat, not tilted like a typewriter keyboard. The windows key also has a tiny circle on it now, making it easy to find. The process of shutting off the computer is also pretty thorough. Unlike my old machine, it tells you if a program is still running and then shuts off quickly

These past few days I have been surfing the internet, writing word documents, and trying to figure out email on this machine., There are some glitches, like not being about to download all my word documents and opening new messages in email. But for the most part, things have run smoothly.

I also welcome the peace of mind I’ll have with this new quiet machine. With my old computer, I was worried each time I turned it on that it might be my last day using it because it rattled incessantly every time.

I glimpse promising possibilities in the months and years ahead as I rejoin email groups, learn to download books, favorite TV and radio shows, and find new writing opportunities.

How have other Ziegler readers dealt with the transition from an old to a new computer?

Hello Everyone,

I hope you all had a nice weekend. For those of you in the Southeastern United States who are in the midst of these damaging tornados, I hope you are all safe.

As for where we are, we finally got some white fluffy stuff, though it will be short-lived with spring-like temperatures today and tomorrow. This really has been an odd winter so far.

Moving on to the magazine, it seems that the majority of you appreciated the link to the Special Notices and Pen Pals Supplement webpage at the end of the magazine, so we’re going to continue utilizing that until a better solution presents itself. If you have any questions about the web link, please email me at editor@matildaziegler.com.

That should cover everything for now. I hope you all have a great week. Take care, and as always, thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Ross Hammond, Editor

Submitted by Dave Hutchins

Cheesy tortellini, fresh spinach, and chicken chunks make this soup memorable.
Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients

1-1.3-ounces envelope white sauce mix
1 can chicken broth, (14-oz. )
3boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
1/2 teaspoon Dried basil
1/2 teaspoon Oregano
1/2 teaspoon Cayenne pepper
1 package Cheese tortellini, (8-ounces)
1-1/2 Cups half-and-half cream
6 Cups Fresh baby spinach

Directions

Spray a 5- to 6-quart crockpot with vegetable cooking spray and place white sauce mix in cooker.

Stir in 4 cups water and stir gradually until mixture is smooth.

Cut chicken into 1-inch pieces.

Add broth, chicken, garlic, salt, basil, oregano, and red pepper to mixture.

Cover and cook on low for 6 to 7 hours or on high for 3 hours.

Stir in tortellini, cover, and cook for 1 more hour on high.

Stir in cream and fresh spinach, and cook just enough for soup to get hot.

Enjoy!

For your convenience, all Reader’s Forum submissions are separated by the ## symbol.

In response to Feature Writer Lynne Tatum – Learning Braille–A Touching Process, and Feature Writer Alena Roberts – The Quest to Create a Low Cost Braille Display, Tim wrote:

I read with interest Lynne Tatum’s article about learning Braille as an adult, and Alena Roberts’ article about the cost of producing Braille material and Braille displays. I will comment on both articles.

Congratulations, Lynne, for the effort you are putting into this! It will pay off later! Though I learned Braille in Kindergarten, at the New York State School for the Blind, and use it every day, myself, I taught Braille to adults for many years. During my work and travels, I used English, Spanish, and Afrikaans in my teaching. One interesting thing I found was that, for people who speak a second language, no matter how well they spoke it, it was always best to start them off in their native language. The intuition which helps you guess and understand what you are reading works much better in your first language.

As stated, I use Braille every day. Yet I do not borrow books from the NLS libraries. This may mean that, according to the statistics, I am not a Braille reader, even though I use slate and stylus, Perkins brailler, and I used to have a Braille printer for my computer.

Is it only the cost of Braille books and Braille equipment that causes the numbers of children learning Braille to be so low? I strongly say that this is not the only reason. In our current main-streaming educational system, I believe that there is a definite bias against Braille on the part of teachers who teach our blind and visually impaired children. Most of these teachers are sighted, their knowledge of Braille is weak, at best, and they just don’t want to be bothered, or those funding this education don’t think Braille is valuable. Ask these same teachers if we should eliminate hand writing instruction for their sighted children. Imagine the loud choruses of “no way!” that you would get. Ask any adult blind person who is a fluent Braille reader, no matter how often or rarely that person uses Braille, and he/she will be more than likely to say, “I wouldn’t give up my Braille knowledge for the world.”

I strongly and assertively promote Braille whenever I am asked about it.

Tim Hendel
Huntsville, Alabama
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In response to Feature Writer Lynne Tatum – Learning Braille–A Touching Process, Duane wrote:

Braille is an awesome medium of communication that must never disappear! I was delighted to read Lynne Tatum’s article about learning Braille. As both pastor and musician, I have read Braille all my life. Louis Braille’s birthday should be commemorated annually everywhere. Keep up the good work of learning, whoever you are, and wherever you are!
##
In response to Feature Writer Lynne Tatum – Learning Braille–A Touching Process, Andrew wrote:

I am teaching myself Braille using flash cards and a deck of Braille playing cards. I find that in today’s cyber society it is hard to find motivation when you can have smart phones, screen readers, and books on tape.
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In response to Feature Writer Lynne Tatum – Learning Braille–A Touching Process, Andrew wrote:

It is encouraging in this age of declining Braille literacy to read about someone going back to reading Braille. As a lifelong Braille reader, I agree that it is a very peaceful way to read, but I still remember how frustrating it was to learn even as a child. I especially remember how I used to get e and i mixed up and how my teacher, who was also fun, would pretend I hurt the feelings of letter e when I called it an i! I also had tracking problems for quite a few years, but the good news is, if you are going to work mostly with Braille notetakers, the Braille display only shows one line at a time, so that might make tracking easier for you. Good luck!
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In response to Karen Crowder – Will 2012 Bring in a New Age of Civility and Politeness? Danni wrote:

I went through this a couple years ago when I was dropped off at Target rather than Toys R Us where I was supposed to be going! Turned out scheduler messed up, but anyway, I figured I’m here I’ll do some shopping since by the time paratransit could get back to get me it would be too late to shop elsewhere and got a shocking response from the manager: “We don’t offer a service like that.” Oh well, okay I got back on the phone and called paratransit back and told them to please find a driver to take me home, they don’t want my money at Target! I have spread the word much since!

Walmart, though, at times has been interesting help. But they have always been willing to help!
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In response to Karen Crowder – Will 2012 Bring in a New Age of Civility and Politeness? David wrote:

Hello,

I dread shopping alone, not because I can’t do it, I have and will again. I dread it because I never know who I’ll end up getting to help me. Will they be in a hurry and sort of rush me along? Will they get me what they think I have asked for, but maybe it’s the Vanilla Coke not the Cherry Coke or the chunky peanut butter, not the natural smooth? Will my groceries be bagged such that my bread is smashed? Will the para-transit driver help me load or just sit in the van near where I am standing with my basket, motor running, and not roll the window down to let me know it’s my ride, not who knows who out there? Will I have too many bags for the para-transit driver not to tell me not to have more than 3? Will I miss new and interesting items because the shopper helper has no idea what I might like to try?

As to the couple at the mall, I think the security was rude. But I think that if you are going at a very busy time, you take a chance they are busy. I always try to avoid extremely busy times at malls where I rarely go anyway–overpriced often and the noise from echoes and inside fountains makes a sound-fog that gives me a headache. I don’t expect people to be helpful anymore. It seems everyone is in a hurry, expects technology to help us, or people just think we should be more independent or they get tired of helping when you don’t ever improve. I sometimes think the advances in technology will continue to make an ever-more independent group of blind people but the group risks becoming smaller and smaller unless older blind people can keep up with the technology changes and afford the new things. There are so many things out now, iPads, iPhones, iTouches, iMacks, Windows 7, several notetakers, Victor Streams, NLS downloadable books, NFB Newsline items, Audio.com books, Bookshare.org and Learningally.org items, commercial audio, and other resources. I feel a bit lost at times and definitely old now.

Monday, January 17, 2011–Martin Luther King Day–was cold and windy as I arrived at the Red House in Cambridge at ten-thirty. I met my friend, Tom, outside; we were let in and served hot coffee–a welcomed drink on this bitterly cold morning. We were both looking forward to the annual party for blind guests held at that restaurant.

After eleven, people started arriving and I listened for Donna’s gentle, happy voice inquiring where I was seated. I heard the tap of her cane as she was assisted toward our table. This party, as it is every year, was organized by a blind woman and there was no charge for our well-prepared dinner. As we were served our first course, hot tomato soup, we announced who we were and where we were from. Following the soup, we had fluffy rolls and a prime rib dinner.

Donna and I sat chatting about mutual friends, how we had spent the holidays, and her disappointment in the Patriots losing their recent football game. As she talked, I noticed she still had a cold and a persistent cough. I suggested she see the doctor soon and she agreed with me. Over coffee and apple pie we kept chatting, anticipating being roommates with another friend at the annual ACB state convention. We had been roommates there for four years and this year would be no different. As she left our table to visit with other friends, she did something very sweet–squeezing my hand, saying “It was so nice to sit with you.” I answered in kind, smiling, and said, “Yes it was. See you at the convention.” I admired her sunny disposition, always having a kind word towards everyone. I could not have known how our lives would change in just three weeks.

She was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia, but we all hoped she would recover and resume her active life and we would continue our conversations about cooking tips and other topics. In early February, I was shocked to learn via email and phone that while in the hospital, she had left us. The date was February 6.

Despite her almost eight-year battle with cancer, she always continued to lead an active life, working at the commission for the blind as a receptionist and constantly visiting her dad, who lived in a nursing home. She was unfailingly attentive towards his needs.

Donna will be remembered for the courage she had battling cancer, her enthusiasm about local sports, and her gentle kind spirit.

A South African burger chain, Wimpy’s, recently introduced a new way to present their burgers. As part of their campaign to introduce menus for the visually impaired at their restaurants, they joined forced with the Metropolitan Republic ad agency to create Braille messages with sesame seeds on the top of the burger buns.

While most of us are used to the notion of a mass assembly line operation, in this instance, every sesame seed was placed by hand on the top of the buns with a message that read, “100 percent pure beef burger made for you.” A video of this process shows the bun makers carefully placing each seed with long tweezers to ensure that the message appears correctly.

The campaign was overwhelmingly successful–not just due to its originality, but because of the amount of people they reached. The special burgers were delivered to three of the country’s largest institutions for the visually impaired and ended up reaching over eight hundred thousand people who were either already blind, or were beginning to lose their sight.

I’m a sucker for an original ad campaign, but this really goes above and beyond what you hear about every day. The company not only made a pledge to accommodate the visually impaired population, but really put forth a lot of effort to make those people feel special by painstakingly creating something that was just for them.

As more companies begin to cater to the visually impaired community, they should all look to this South African burger chain as an example to follow.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5876108/sesame-seed-braille-buns-promote-menus-for-the-visually-impaired

It’s been one year since I began using Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system. There has been much customization performed to wrangle Windows 7 into running and looking the way I like. But as it is on our newest NetBooks, I’ve thrown myself into working with them rather than throwing them out of the window. I admit to absolutely adoring one feature in Windows 7–the incredible search edit box at the bottom of the Start Menu. Typing an artist’s name or title of a song happily results in a correct match. Well, it does when I use my down arrow to navigate the search results. This feature is also available in such Windows as Documents, My Computer, and My Music. You can press Control-E to move to the search edit field, type in your search terms and press Enter. I’ve been pressing the Tab key to navigate to the results as it seems to be the most efficient way to get to them. This marvelous tool is also liberally used to find color and connection options, as well.

I’ve set up several computer systems in the past two months and it’s gone fairly smoothly with the exception of my newest NetBook, which decided to revert to Spanish. There was nothing to do but take it to my favorite computer repair establishment. Once I got it home, I set to work on changing the folder options in order to navigate and play the material in my beloved DropBox folder. Thumbnails are not my friend, and I went through the entire feature set in order to turn the little devils off.

The first time I heard the “not responding” message, I thought, “Oh, what an interesting little quirk.” Uncertain what I did to get past it, I thought nothing of it until I unsuccessfully attempted to open other Explorer Windows. Sadly, a tool recommended to fix the problem was not accessible with my screen reader and the problem worsened. You’ve rightly guessed that I’ll be schlepping my unresponsive laptop to my fix-it guys.

This is an anomaly I never experienced in Windows XP or Vista. Perhaps it’s the equivalent of those aggravating error messages in earlier operating systems. The good news is that I haven’t received the “not responding” error on my newest NetBook in any folders, but I have on Internet Explorer. A bright spot is that I am able to restart the browser rather than being forced to restart the entire computer. I can only imagine the screeching I’ll be doing when I must deal with Windows 8. I fervently hope it is not another Windows Phone 7 nightmare where there is no accessibility. Twitter pundits are sounding some eyebrow-raising alerts, though.

I am always very excited when assistive technology makes a step into the mainstream. This is because I like to be able to share in what everyone else is doing in the world as much as possible without appearing or being perceived as different. We should all have the same rights and means to be who we want to be without anything getting in the way.

Very recently, GW Micro, the makers of Window-Eyes, released GW Skype. Skype is a program that allows you to make phone calls, or conduct chat sessions from your computer, with the use of a microphone or headset. Skype has been around since 2003, and its user interface has always been difficult to use by those of us who use screen readers. Scripts had to be written for the screen readers to make them work with Skype and if the screen reader had a version change, the scripts had to be changed as well.

GW Skype will work with the Windows platform and will also work with whichever screen reader you choose. It is a separate program, which you can download and run, so it doesn’t matter if the Skype interface changes over time. GW Micro plans to keep this platform updated as necessary. After you download the program, you can install it to your computer. The installation is easy and asks the normal questions. Once the install is complete, you can have GW Skype run after the install, or you can decide to start it on your own when you’re ready to use it. The first time it runs, you are presented with the manual and a welcome message. If you are already a Skype user, when prompted, you can log in with your user name and password and you can have GW Skype remember your username and password, if you desire.

The user interface is very simply laid out. When you start GW Skype, you are brought to the list view of your contacts. You can use your up and down arrows to navigate this list, or you can move yourself to the menu bar of the user interface to choose a menu item. Every item in the menu bar has shortcut keys assigned to its function, so over time, you will get familiar with the shortcuts you use most frequently. There are no other areas of the user interface to deal with, making it straight-forward and simple. From the looks of things, the keyboard shortcuts for the menu items are standard shortcuts, which is why it is possible to run this program with any screen reader.

So far, the limitation of GW Skype is that you can’t use it for video chat but, they expect to get that feature added in the next several months. I commend GW Micro for putting this program out there for the low vision and blindness community. I hope that more companies begin to embrace the practice of taking standard programs that currently are unusable and make them accessible and usable to us.

To learn more about GW Skype you can visit http://www.gwmicro.com/App_Central/Apps/App_Details/?scriptid=1353

The next part of this short series will concentrate on items specific to screen reading programs outside of standard windows commands. For the most part, this is where I feel JAWS has the advantage, especially with mouse routing commands via the number pad, insert key commands, and navigation commands with the Function (F) keys. Without going into detail, JAWS has the big guns and SA falls a bit short. For instance, SA uses the caps lock key as the modifier for navigating in addition to the Windows, alt, and control keys. I much prefer the insert key and F key commands performed with JAWS Function keys and I like the Research tool, application list menu (Insert + F10) and haven’t yet found the equivalents with SA without increasing the amount of keystrokes to get the same result, if any.

As expected, the basic Windows keyboard commands are the same and the main difficulty for me is navigating the new ribbon style menus, always part of any Windows improvements, thanks to Bill Gates and his team. Microsoft reconfigures selections in the Windows 7 menu/ribbon bars adding to the adjustment for blind end users. Both programs handle these changes well.

SA and JAWS both use similar navigation keys for inputting information on the web but the audible signals are different. For example, JAWS makes a popping sound when the virtual cursor enters an edit field but SA doesn’t. SA will announce it verbally instead. Unfortunately, SA hasn’t updated the recorded tutorials for Windows 7, as far as I know, and I can’t wait to listen when it’s released. The other audio tutorials have been very helpful.

Finally, it’s my opinion that the technical support of Serotek far exceeds the support for technical assistance from Freedom Scientific; under normal circumstances, SA gets back to you within an hour of a trouble call and you don’t feel like they are watching the clock. SA is also a less complex program and I prefer the ease in which the support tools are accessed. SA boots up quickly, has no lags and the updates don’t crash my pc. If I knew about it beforehand, I wouldn’t have even purchased the JAWS upgrade and would have saved myself a lot of money, time and aggravation.

But then, I wouldn’t have written this article, either.

Happy computing.