Skip links

techesoterica.com

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

Main navigation

read letters

I read letters using a CCTV and the vOICe

by ·

I was at the NTPC training center at Delhi University this morning. I had a chance to try an old Prisma closed-circuit television camera (CCTV). My host drew some letters on a sheet of paper and placed them on the CCTV. I had my mobile phone with me and used the vOICe to gauge the shapes of the letters by pointing the phone camera at the CCTV monitor. I was successfully able to identify the shapes in most cases.

I was unable to name the letters except for the letter a which I remembered having a triangle. But that was due to my lack of practice more than anything else. Interestingly, this is the same way that I read braille. My usage of braille is not very frequent so I have to run my finger along the braille line one character at a time.

One way to read letters using the vOICe

by ·

There have been several attempts to read printed letters using the vOICe. I have one way to do this. This is not the only way and I am still learning what letters look like. My reading has been limited to recognizing the shapes of letters using the vOICe. I had planned to use the windows magnifier to enlarge the size of the letters. I have used notepad as my wordprocessor of choice.

1. Set the font size to 72 or, if you want to try the magnifier, set the magnification level to 6.

2. Set the vOICe to follow the mouse pointer and activate negative video. Also, set the speed to quarter.

3. Hit windows+m to minimize everything.

4. Navigate to notepad.

5. If you are not using the magnifier, then set the font size to 72. If you are using the magnifier, do not bother doing this.

6. If using a screen reader, then get your mouse cursor to follow the insertion pointer.

7. Write the word CAT.

8. Navigate to the letter “C”.

9. Sit back and enjoy the soundscape.

10. You can activate the edge detection feature but there is no real need to do so.

Also, be careful with the letters “A” and “L”. They seem to run together. Other letters may also do this. It is possible to slowdown the vOICe even further. The settings like half speed and quarter speed are relative to the normal speed of sounding the soundscape. You change this normal speed and then slow things down. You change the speed via the Edit | Visual Sound Preferences | Visual sound
duration (s) per video frame dialogue box.
It will make reading words easier. Of course, with practice, you can increase your reading speed. To navigate from word to word, use the arrow keys.