We have been told not to mix sight with touch since sight is like another language. However, new research states that cross modal integration is possible.
Read more here
Visual-Haptic Mapping and the Origin of Cross-Modal Identity
concepts
Tactile Temporal Processing in the Auditory Cortex
Our perception of the outside world results from integration of information
simultaneously derived via multiple senses. This happens at the early stages of processing sensory input. Therefore, even for a sense like touch,
the auditory cortex is required to process it successfully.
This was tested by knocking out the respective brain area using TMS.
Blind People Hear Better: Truth or Myth?
They do but only if they are blind from the beginning. Read more in this article from MSN Health And Fitness.
Again, this is to do with neuron plasticity. The neurons seem to be more plastic at birth and in the aearly years of a person’s life so they reorganize faster and better.
What Can Magicians Teach Us about the Brain?
An article discussing what scientists can learn from studying magicians. I enjoyed the spoon example in the article. However, it seems that this kind of magic is very visual. Ouch! Any audio magicians around?
You can read the article here.
This kind of research is useful for the vOICe since the research sheds light on neuron plasticity and on how to get the braiin to perceive vision.
G66+ AGPS database installation
The below tutorial was posted to the Wayfinder Access mailing list. It is written by Ibrahim Gucukoglu and is being posted with his permission.
For those of you who are interested or own a G66+ gps receiver, here is a brief tutorial on how to install the AGPS database to the unit. Despite the popular notion that this process is inaccessible or at least very difficult will be dispelled shortly:
You will need to have the following to hand. The gps receiver, USB cable and software disk all of which should have come in the packaging.
Firstly, we need to install the driver for the USB device. Insert the cd in to an XP or Vista computer. The instructions given here are for XP as that is what I use. The CD should automatically start, if it doesn’t, find the drive in which the cd is located in my computer and press enter. You will be asked whether you want to enable active content, you should answer Yes to any prompts that appear. A web interface will appear and from this you should choose “software” then “driver”. Select run in both dialog boxes, you’ll be guided through the installation of the driver by the driver installation wizard which may or may not depending on your hardware settings require you to click “continue anyway” when the hardware wizard interface appears.
Installation of the driver now complete, connect the gps receiver to the USB port and follow the found new hardware wizard to complete installation. Make sure you here that the found new hardware balloon appears indicating successful installation. Now we can proceed to installing the software AGPS tool.
Returning to the web interface, enter on “AGPS Application” and follow the instructions. You will be prompted where to install the program and if necessary, the ULA for the framework will appear, you must install this by clicking “accept” and following through the installation to completion.
Finally, the AGPS application itself which is extremely simple to use. An icon on your desktop (unless you chose not to create one) will launch the program. There are three tabs similar to those in a windows multiple page dialog box. The one we concern ourselves with is the AGPS tab. Firstly, tab round to the combo box for selecting baud rate and select 38400 which is the baud rate of this receiver. Click scan and if you use your reviewing cursor, you’ll find a status line indicating that the gps was found on com X and the download button should enable. Click download, you’ll be asked if you are connected to the internet, if you are click OK and the downloading of the AGPS database will begin. When downloading is complete, you’ll be told that writing will commence, click OK and wait for writing operation to be complete.
Congratulations you have just written the AGPS database to the receiver, I trust this tutorial will help those either planning on buying or who already bought one of these Excellent little receivers and I’m happy to take questions.
Getting Lone Wolf from GMA Games to run on my Creative SB Live sound card
I finally got Lone Wolf from GMA Games to run on my Creative SB Live sound card. The trick was to edit sounds.ini in the game’s directory and set the sound buffers parameter to the maximum of 100 since my computer has 2GB of ram.
Dragon Naturally Speaking professional version 10: Service pack 1
Nuance released service Pack 1 for Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 10. I apply updates blindly so this update was no exception. The first hitch that I encountered was that the service packs installer was unable to completely closed Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I suspect this is an issue with my current Windows XP installation as opposed to the service pack’s installer. Therefore, the installation could not complete. Before you install the service Pack, you must close Dragon NaturallySpeaking completely. Once this has been done, the installation will go very smoothly.
It is besed to download the service pack rather than to run it from the Internet.
Dictation in Outlook 2007 as well as Microsoft Word works as expected. Even the correction system is working as it should. Outlook 2007 Microsoft Word and Internet explorer can all be started using speech commands. Beyond that, I have not really noticed any other side-effects.
Note:
One thing that seems to have happened a few hours after I wrote the above is that my user profile has got corrupted. I cannot tell whether this is the result of the service pack’s attempt to upgrade it or something I did. I have deleted the user and I will create a new user. I have my commands and vocabulary backed up.
You can read more about the service pack at
this knowledge base article.