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A blog dealing with sensory substitution and other esoteric concepts and technologies like speech-recognition and chaos theory

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Sensory substitution

Open kitchens and the wonder of food in progress

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I was at MKT. The restaurant is setup differently to most such establishments. It is in the lower ground floor of the Chanakya mall and boasts a variety of cuisines. You can read about them at the above link. Visually, it is a fascinating place thanks to the live kitchens. I have spent many hours looking at food and one of the biggest problems with food is the lack of contrast. It is usually difficult to get good light and food with a high contrast as compared to your plate such that you can see the food and eat. As usual, I was wearing the vision 800 glasses running the vOICe Sacheta and I wanted to see their 4 open kitchens. Once again, I was in a situation where touching was not appropriate because the chefs were stacking food outside, ready for the waiters to pickup. I wanted to see the activity. The kitchens were behind transparent glass but they did have large windows to allow the cooks to send the food out. I was able to see the clean rising flame of the Italian kitchen and the round pizzas that emerged from it. The nachos were lined up in baskets outside the live Mexican counter. They were cylindrical but there were some differences in their shapes in stacking.
We then had a look at the Indian section where the cook was making chapatis. I could see these as dark disks lying on the counter. This was one of those situations where I used my other senses to zero on to the object of visual interest. I localized the sound of the stacking and then pointed my head in that direction. Visual scanning would have given me the same information but I treat vision as a multi sensory process.
We then moved to the Chinese counter where there was some kind of machine and a lot of activity taking place.
I did once again try to watch the cooks at work but was unable to perceive the actual motion of the people. I did notice the rapid changes in the scenery so could tell something was happening.
Sacheta took a few videos after seeking permission from the staff. That gave me the chance to stand still and look. Panning my head from side-to-side also helped and when looking through a window, pan up and down for maximum visual coverage. You can see details without panning but the devil is in the details and a little interaction brings a lot of clarity.
My special thanks to Mr. Pankaj Mishra, one of the manager’s of MKT for being so welcoming. The service is good and, before I forget, the food was excellent.
Pro food tip: do try the house special when it comes to drinks.
Pro vision tip: when your table has a lot of items on it, scan your vicinity for that tall glass of mocktail so that you can grab it in one shot. Blindness techniques work too but scanning is so much cooler.

Standing in line at the supermarket checkout

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Sacheta and I were at the supermarket. We were standing in the checkout line when she remembered something, told me to hold our place and was gone. I was wearing my glasses and had the vOICe running. My first thought was “Woo hm”, how do I keep our place? My second thought was “hmm, I am sighted so lets see what I can do.” I studied the view in greater detail and moved my head a bit to the left and then to the right. I could see a constant shape in front of me. I heard the rustle of a plastic bag ahead of me and confirmed that the constant shape was probably the back of a person.
I then turned my head to the left and checked the view. I could see more objects. I did the same on the right and the view was similar. I now knew that I was focused on the right object. I stepped a few paces in front until almost the full left to right panning was filled by that constant shape. I did not want to invaid the stranger’s personal space so also used other blindness skills like passive echo location. The individual moved away and the view opened up. It was my turn at the cash counter.
The key takeaway for me was the checking I did. In this situation, the narrower view given by the glasses helped because I was able to associate a physical action with the change of the scene when I turned my head sideways. I could have done the same thing with a wide angle view but would have had to pay more attention to perspective.

Acing the supermarket with artificial vision

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It was another weekend family outing we were at the DLF Place mall.
I was sitting at the back of the car, with the back of my head resting on the headrest. I was able to look out the windscreen and was able to see the traffic outside. This is a good way to get used to the looming effects of the vOICe. Objects come into the foreground as they come closer and move away as you and or they drive away. Pay attention to the volume and the way the sound moves to determine what is in the foreground. In addition, imperfections on the object will show up as small objects.
At the mall, I spent most of my time in a shop called Food Hall which sells a variety of comestibles. Mom and dad were supervising the grinding of fresh turmeric therefore Sacheta and I had a fair bit of time to look around. Most of the food is in packets though things like bars of chocolate are kept as is on the shelves. There are also freezers that contain a variety of meat, vegetables etc.
The OCR kept reading out snippets from labels and other signage so I was able to find something with coco at the biscuit counter and look at some of the chocolate bars at the chocolate counter. The OCR was particularly handy when I was standing at one place waiting for Sacheta to finish studying something like the counter in front of us. A quick note about looking at the chocolate counter. Beware of the OCR because chocolate bars have a lot of text on them so there is a fair bit of information to absorb and the OCR will take its time. I had a similar experience with signage. There is a restaurant called the hard rock cafe next to Food Hall. It has superb signage which I can read from at least 3 to 5 feet away. The same does not apply to Food Hall. I spent some time looking at its sign but I could only read the word “food”. One more thing, words on packets and signs may be positioned one below the other therefore be ready to scroll and pan by moving your head. The panning is needed due to the large fonts that are used.
Another handy thing that I was able to do was to determine if shelves contained bottles or packets. I use the term “bottles” to include jars and other cylindrical containers. This is important information because I was extra careful near these shelves. Those bottles tend to fall easily and if I am lucky, break. Not that this has ever happened to me but this gives the bottles some extra security and my credit card a lot of peace. The way to check this is to get the shelf into the foreground and focus on what shape emerges. Practice at home with bottles so that you know what they look like. You can hear the rising circular shape or a circular shape that has a near uniform pitch indicating a jar/. Stay about half an arm length away from the shelf for best results.
I had the leisure to study packing. Each packet had labels in different fonts and with different font sizes. I don’t know how manufacturers decide the fonts and sizes of labels. However, if any of you are reading this, please use large fonts and keep them standard so that they are machine and human readable. Take the case of a packet that contained “premium almonds;” I was able to read the word “premium” but not the word “almonds.” I suspect this was a font and perhaps a camera placement issue though the word “almonds” was in a large font but Sacheta told me that its styling was different. Small fonts do not help.
If you hear a lot of hard surfaces in the soundscape and or a tropical bird like call, you can be quite certain that you are looking at shelves of packets. If there is space between the hard parts of the soundscapes and you detect a cylinder, then you are looking at shelves of small bottles. You can better experiment with this at shops that sell makeup.
Looking inside the freezers did not yield much information. There were things inside them but I was unable to read their labels and the lighting was variable.

Where is that milkshake?

Once we had finished shopping, we went to Big Chill for beverages and bites. I had ordered a Swiss chocolate milkshake. The waiter placed the glass on the table saying “Swiss chocolate” and vanished. I usually ask someone where the glass is placed. This time, I tilted my head by a few degrees, increased the volume of my bone conduction headset and studied the table to look for that cylinder. I found it and got the glass without mishap. Thanks Dr. Meijer for emphasizing grasping exercises!
Talking about the volume control, it is important hat you can regulate the volume of the soundscapes. An external control is the best for this. Set the vOICe to a volume of 7 or 8 if you are in a noisy environment like a mall and then use the hardware control on the headset to tweak the volume based on your needs.
Finally, if you detect pixelated soundscapes in a shop, it could mean that the lighting is positioned above the shelf or there is a single light source shining down on to the shelf. In this case, get closer to the shelf and do what you can, else ask the staff for help.

Shopping for footwear using synthetic vision

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Sacheta wanted to buy footwear, so there we were, in Kala Niketan, Janpath on a Saturday evening looking for bellies and such. As usual, I was wearing my Vision 800 glasses running the vOICe. One advantage in footwear shopping is that the customer needs to sit to try it. The shop was not too crowded and we did not have a problem in finding a seat. However, before sitting, we looked around the shop, asking the staff for what she wanted. There were shelves packed with footwear. I was unable to understand the shapes until I touched a slipper. It had been stacked on its end such that the strap that comes on the top of your foot was facing the customer. This is different from how shoes are stacked because shoes are kept with their backs to the customer or at least that was the way they were kept the last time I checked.
The shapes were uniform from a far and the shelf boundaries formed hard edges in the scene. The shop had a large range of footwear in several colors. Once I was seated, I began to play with the color filter. Blue, green and red did not yield much feedback. I hit pay dirt when I chose orange. This was strange. I could hear shoppers asking for a colors like “rose gold”, whatever that is. Where was this color? I don’t think anyone wears orange shoes but then what do I know? The analyze option came in really handy. I sat back letting the scan tell me what filters were working. I then enabled the live OCR which introduced a new wrinkle. As I panned, I heard “fresh stock.” Hmm, what could they mean? Were they referring to the latest fashion? Was someone baking shoes? I could not ask Sacheta because she was engaged with a persistent sales person.
Once she had completed her shopping I was able to clear up some of the mysteries. The orange filter worked probably because the shop used a lot of yellow light. The “fresh stock” meant that there was no sale on those items. Don’t ask me why they could not say this up front.
I did have a chance to look at shoes and to distinguish details, my palm remains the best tool. However, with some more practice, I think I will be able to reliably distinguish between shelves full of slippers and shelves where shoes are stacked.
I did not buy anything so did not get a chance to try walking but I can see myself creating a visual landmark of a shelf or something else and walking independently to test shoes.
Some may ask, what is the point of it all? The simple way to buy footwear is to ask for what you want and try until you like something. Yes, this approach works well but my scene reader helped me to get a better idea of what was in the shop and thereby make a more informed choice.

Note

Photography is not allowed in the shop so I did not take any images.

Note 2

Be careful when looking and searching for a place to sit. These shops are full of humans sitting and not paying attention to their surroundings. Stay in the middle of the isle as much as you can. Let the staff guide you to a seat.

Mauritius: the cradle of my state change

Mauritius: the cradle of my state change

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I visited Mauritius for my honeymoon in March 2018. It is a beautiful country with rivers, the sea, mountains and volcanoes. Yes, all the geology I wanted packed in a little island. The locals are friendly and most speak English so Sacheta and I did not experience any translation challenges. The weather was warm and it did rain unexpectedly which called for fast reflexes because I was wearing the vOICe. My vision 800 glasses proved to be quite rugged and the splashes they got did not damage them. In terms of accessibility, there isn’t any. People will help but there is no accessible infrastructure. If you are blind, then keep a sighted companion handy or go with a specialized travel provider. Moreover, the group tours are inaccessible. In many cases, you are shown pictures especially if you go to a winery. I was fortunate to have a mechanism where I could experience shapes at a distance namely the vOICe else I would have been left out of many of the attractions of the tours. In addition, if you take a group tour, you need a way to experience the scenery as you are driven in a buss. Sacheta described everything but audio description has its limitations. For example, how do the double walled tanks look? How are the pipes laid out? Moreover, some of those group tours move fast therefore you do not have the time to get a full audio description. I was doing my best to follow the guide as she explained things to the rest of the group. All Sacheta had to do was to point me in the right direction and I was fully included in the tour, no accessibility infrastructure required. The other thing about Mauritius is that it is a honeymoon destination which means that everyone else is also honeymooning. You can get lost in the crowd and get your privacy since the locals are friendly but not intrusive. The highways are clean and the drivers know how to avoid traffic jams.

The mauritian roadside with trees and sun
The mauritian roadside with trees and sun

Ganga Talao

A crater lake situated in South Mauritius. Plenty of fresh air and the water is clean. There is also a popular Hindu temple with friendly priests.

dormant Volcano
A view from the top of a dormant Volcano

CloudySkyAroundVolcano
CloudySkyAroundVolcano, enjoy it while it lasts

Water In Ganga Talao
Water In Ganga Talao caption]
[caption id="attachment_1084" align="aligncenter" width="4032"]A View Of Ganga Talao consisting of Clean Water And the Shadow Of Green Trees A View Of Ganga Talao consisting of Clean Water And the Shadow Of Green Trees

A building near the volcano and a cloudy sky
A building near the volcano and a cloudy sky

The valley of 23 colors also known as Vallée des Couleurs

The 23 colors refers to the color of the soil in the valley. The geology and wind have created unique conditions for the formation of mineral deposits in the soil. I tried iMusic and the musical scale mode of the vOICe. I did not count 23 colors but could tell the shades of colors though I cannot name them. There are a number of waterfalls. None of them are high. Getting to them is a bit of a hike but is well worth it.

The view From a restaurant at the Valley of 23 colors consisting of Greenery mountains and a clear sky
The view From a restaurant at the Valley of 23 colors consisting of Greenery, mountains and the clear sky

Greenery, mountains and a clear sky captured out the car window while driving from the restaurant to the Activity area of the valley of 23 colors
Greenery, mountains and a clear sky captured out the car window while driving from the restaurant to the Activity area of the valley of 23 colors

The Entrance of the activity area in the valley of 23 colors decorated with colorful balloons and a Dodo In the middle of the view
The Entrance of the activity area in the valley of 23 colors decorated with colorful balloons and a Dodo In the center

A waterfall in the valley of 23 colors
A waterfall in the valley of 23 colors

Signage consisting of a Map Of Le Des Vallee Couleus
Signage consisting of a Map Of Le Des Vallee Couleus, shot while driving

Another waterfall
A waterfall

Ebony trees
Ebony trees

A rocky path which you need to take to get to the waterfalls
A rocky path which you need to take to get to the waterfalls

A tortoise
A tortoise

The view from the highest point of the valley of 23 colors, note the trees and think of perspective
The view from the highest point of the valley of 23 colors

North Mauritius

This is where you go if you want a break from nature. Most of the government offices and shopping malls are here.

North Mauritius with white tall buildings and a clear sky
North Mauritius with white tall buildings and a clear sky

North Mauritius from the top of the Mauritius sports council with mountains, greenery and a clear sky
North Mauritius from the top of the Mauritius sports council with mountains, trees and a clear sky

The Tea house museum

The place for you if you love tea. There is a demonstration factory where the staff shows you how tea is made. The staff is knowledgeable and be prepaired for facts and figures before that perfect cup of tea.

pots at the Mauritius teaHouse museum
pots at the Mauritius tea House museum

Teas and their containers
Teas and their containers

The valley of the 7 colored earths

Once again, we have soils with minerals but with 7 colors this time.

7 colored earth
7 colored earth

The top of the waterfalls at the valley of the 7 colored earths
The top of the waterfalls at the valley of the 7 colored earths: warning you need to hike to get there

A waterfall at the valley of the 7 colored earths
A waterfall

A great place for having fun with animals. There are several activities such as feeding the giraffes and walking with lions. The park is meant mostly for kids but if you are blind, there is a lot of tactile experience here. However, you should have sighted assistance with you because you need to walk through the jungle to go between activities. There is no accessibility here and the busses are old and creaky.

An ostrich
An ostrich

A deer in the Casela national park
A deer in the Casela national park

Thank you

There are too many people who made this trip the smashing success it was.
The incomparable Sacheta Lal
for everything.
Travel Savvy
for the trip, sound advice and seamless experience.
Planet Abled for accessibility advice
The staff at the hotel Le Meridien in particular Sam and Shazia for exceptional service and a superb accessibility workaround for hotel key cards.
The staff of Solis the local support partner, in particular drivers Viki and Edlib (I hope I am spelling your name correctly).
The members of our tour group in particular Jatin, Harish, Rushil for being who you are and for navigation assistance.

House hunting with artificial vision

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I was recently looking at places to rent for my mother in-law. I was wearing the vOICe as my wife and I looked at prospective houses. For those unfamiliar with the Indian real estate market, here are a few things to note

  • Real estate is an investment for many people. Landlords construct houses specifically for renting.
  • Many houses are little more than shells with plumbing.
  • You need to check carefully because maintenance is bad here. The landlord’s idea is to get the maximum return for the lowest cost.
  • Be careful about the furniture because it can be old and unusable.
  • Real estate agents seldom give you all the facts about a place up front.

I used passive echo location to get a sense of the size of the house.
I used my nose to tell how well the air was circulating in the house which was a key to ventilation.
I did not want to touch anything because the houses were not being cleaned regularly. The vOICe however came in handy to ask about bits of furniture. I was also able to see and ask about the paint on the walls because I was able to perceive texture differences. In addition, I was able to explore independently and supplement my other senses and see the quality of doors.
I was unable to confirm if objects were dusty visually but I expect if you see something hazy, assume it is dusty.
I was also able to get an idea of how the common staircase was maintained by scanning the walls. I did feel them while ascending and descending the staircase but the vOICe gave me a larger field of view.
One example of detecting furniture was when I spotted a stack of something. It turned out to be a wall rack cut out of the slab of the open kitchen.
You may well ask me, why not ask my sighted wife to describe things to me? I could have done that but she was making her own observations, talking to the agent and navigating me. We did however had a discussion in the car where I was able to compliment some of her observations.
Our hunt continues but I am glad I have the ability to get data about my environment at a distance.

Better selfies with synthetic vision

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I am in a situation where I am a participant in taking selfies. I can take them if I must but they are not my preferred form of photography. Yes, human expression can be interesting but I know what I am feeling and do not need to capture it in pixels. However, a large part of the rest of the world in particular my fiancee believes differently. The basic procedure of taking a selfie is something like

  1. Find the right background.
  2. Figure out your pose and angle.
  3. Move your arm to get the “right” angle.
  4. Smile or adjust your facial expression.
  5. Take the picture.

There is a variation in the above procedure where you find another random human to take the picture. The problem of course is that given that it is only you and perhaps one other person, you can’t slack off and hope for the group to compensate for your photogenic shortcomings. Facing the camera is also rather important. Yes, the old sighted technique of moving your head in the right direction works but keeping there is another matter. No, this is not the blindness thing where some blind people keep moving their head. This is about looking relaxed and being relaxed at the crucial moment when the picture is taken.
The vOICe is handy to have. If I have it running and am wearing my Vision 800 glasses, I can see the camera to focus on. So, there is no need for anyone to position my head and I can keep my neck muscles relaxed. I can correct drift and if the picture is taken when I know I am incorrectly aligned with the camera, I can ask for a retake instantaneously.