EyeMusic: Colors Become Music For The Visually Impaired
The visually impaired can now enjoy a beautiful scenery in an analogous sense to the rest of us thanks to science, technology and creative minds everywhere.
Scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed a system to aid the blind called EyeMusic. It features a series of sensory substitution devices (SSD) that detect images and turns them into music, giving the visually impaired an analogous experience to those who can see.The team programmed EyeMusic using several different instruments for different colors that react to whatever the camera detects. Pretty clever, huh?
The system in programmed in such a way that each predominant color has it’s own specific instrument associated to it: white for vocals, blue for trumpets, red for reggae organ, green for synthesized reed, yellow for violin, and finally Black is represented by silence. As the team explained in an interview: “We demonstrated in this study that the EyeMusic, which employs pleasant musical scales to convey visual information, can be used after a short training period (in some cases, less than half an hour) to guide movements, similar to movements guided visually,”-“The level of accuracy reached in our study indicates that performing daily tasks with an SSD is feasible, and indicates a potential for rehabilitative use.”
Via: Geeky Gadgets
Check out some of our other running stories featuring special gear for the impaired at Virtual Cane Helps Visually Impaired Get Around Using Sonar and Texting-Glove Modified for the Hearing Impaired.