February 24, 2011
1. Grizzlies’ Sam Young gets personal with visually impaired students
Tri-State Defender Online
February 18, 2011
2. Printed photos the blind can ‘see’
Abc News Technology
February 20, 2011
3. Blind sculptor recreates untouchable masterpiece
Yahoo News
February 21, 2011
4. Visually impaired radio jockey reaches out through his voice
Sify News
February 21, 2011
1. Grizzlies’ Sam Young gets personal with visually impaired students
Second-year Memphis Grizzlies player Sam Young on Monday visited five visually impaired students at Treadwell Elementary School as part of the Read to Achieve Program.
And, he was at ease. “It was great because it was something that I’ve been around all my life,” Young said.
“My brother is blind. He was born when I was around five or six years old. I had to deal with the fact that he can’t see. I’m the oldest child of five. I had the responsibility that I had to take care of my younger siblings. And now that I’m older, and I have the chance to see how well he’s done, I can help other kids and show them that there’s hope.”
Young read the Braille book, “The Black Book of Colors” by Menena Cottin and Rosana Faria. He also celebrated Valentine’s Day with the students, handing out cupcakes along with Grizzlies backpacks and a copies of the book.
Before Young arrived the students practiced their sign language and discussed different aspects of their visual challenges with their teacher Vivian Redmond, who has been an educator for 31 years.
“I have been teaching the visually impaired here at Treadwell Elementary for seven years,” said Redmond. “I make sure I work hard to provide my students with the tools they need to become self sufficient in this society.”
When Young arrived smiles graced the faces of the students. They individually introduced themselves and then began reading the book together.
Young told the students about his younger brother, who is now a college student and has trained a Seeing Eye dog. The students’ showed their interests with free-flowing questions. Young promised a return visit.
Along with Young came a walking-and-talking surprise, Memphis Grizzlies account executive, Jeremy Smith, who was one of Redmond’s former students. Smith told the students that he had an accident as a child, which resulted in him being legally blind.
He offered words of encouragement as he explained that he finished high school, college and now drives.
“One day you’ll be here talking to another class saying what I’m saying today,” Smith said.
2. Printed photos the blind can ‘see’
Software reads online content aloud and printers generate Braille text, but there hasn't been a fast and easy way to create recognizable images for the blind. Now, computer scientists in Arizona are generating social networking profile pictures the blind can "see."
"The face image -- that's very important for people in their social life, emotional life," said Baoxin Li, an associate professor of computer science at Arizona State University who is leading the software work.
Li said the idea was inspired by a blind ASU researcher who wished she could access more graphical information. Making all digital graphics accessible to the blind would have been an overwhelming challenge, so Li and his colleagues focused on profile pictures. They had to find the right balance of information so the person would be recognizable.
"We convert the photo in such a way so the major facial landmarks are nicely kept -- that's very important because we can't render all the features into tactile form," Li said. "That would be too disorienting."
Instead, an algorithm pares down crucial facial information without oversimplifying it. Their software allows a blind user to take a photo of a face, put it into a computer application, and automatically generate a new printable image. The image comes out of a special tactile printer with raised lines along the facial features.
"At the moment it's within one minute or so, but we can further optimize the software to do it faster," Li said.
Tactile printers are usually found at centers that assist the blind, and institutions such as the Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing at ASU. However, Li said that even the least expensive ones cost several thousand dollars. In the future, he expects the software will work with paperless tactile displays that are in development.
Their automated approach was described last year in the journal IEEE Transactions on Multimedia. This week, Li demonstrated the software at the International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces in Palo Alto, Calif.
Other technology exists for creating tactile images, Li said, but it's designed to help sighted professionals with the time-consuming process of making intricate images for the blind. The ASU software is stable to the point where the scientists are talking with software producers about bringing it to market.
Beyond profile images, the scientists would like to create software that can generate tactile images from online mapping sites.
John Gardner is a former Oregon State University physics professor who lost his vision in 1988. Frustrated by a lack of access to information, he founded the assistive technology company ViewPlus Technologies in Corvallis, Ore. ViewPlus developed the tactile printer that Li uses, he said.
"But we never had the software to make a nose feel like a nose and an eye feel like an eye," Gardner said. "It's a tour de force that he can analyze a face and make it feel like a face." He added that he'd like Li's software to render the Mona Lisa.
At the demonstration this week in California, attendees were invited to have their photos taken and receive tactile versions. Some sighted visitors called the printouts works of art, Li said. "They asked me to put my signature on their copies."
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/printed-photos-blind/story?id=12951372&page=1
3. Blind Sculptor recreates untouchable masterpiece
SALA BOLOGNESE, Italy (Reuters) – When blind sculptor Felice Tagliaferri was forbidden to touch one of Italy's most famous statues, he decided revenge was best served not just cold but stone cold.
Tagliaferri, 41, spent much of two years creating his marble interpretation of "Cristo Velato," or "Veiled Christ," a 1753 masterpiece that he has neither seen nor touched.
Giuseppe Sanmartino's exquisitely detailed sculpture of the body of Christ lying wrapped in a fine shroud is one of the prime tourist attractions in Naples.
Busloads of blind and disabled people from throughout Italy came to Tagliaferri's studio near Bologna in northern Italy to take symbolic taps on his chisels. The result is a powerfully rendered life-sized Jesus that Tagliaferri punningly calls "Cristo (ri)Velato," or "Christ Revealed."
"There are so many messages. One is that a block of marble isn't ruined when it is lightly touched by expert hands," he said.
"Second, the disabled are sick and tired of waiting for others to decide and tell them what they can and cannot do."
In May 2008, Tagliaferri visited the Sansevero Chapel, eager to experience its famous "Veiled Christ" in the only way a blind person can: by touching it. He was blocked, he said, first by a guard and then by the administration, despite his protests that he was a professional sculptor who would do no damage.
Now, he is savoring a triumphal return to Naples when "Christ Revealed" begins a national tour at the Royal Palace from February 26 to March 13. The pope is expected to see it in Ancona on September 11. The statue will also travel to Messina, Rimini and Siena.
BLIND
Blind since the age of 14, Tagliaferri was studying furniture restoration and working at a switchboard when he joined an experiment to test whether sight is necessary for sculpturing. The answer changed his life.
Since then, he has worked with master sculptors in Bologna, Carrara, Spain, France and Germany and his works have been shown widely, including in Prague, and appear in collections throughout Italy. The Omero State Tactile Museum in Ancona has a section devoted to his art.
"I see myself as very fortunate." he said. "I do what I want to do in life, I receive recognition, and I'm able to learn what pleases me."
"Christ Revealed" started as a small clay model; sighted artists advised Tagliaferri how to position the body. He raised 16,000 euros ($21,910) through dinner-in-the-dark events and bought a 4,000-kg. (8,800-pound) block of Carrara marble that measured 1.9 meters long by 50 cm high and 1 meter wide (6.2 feet by 1.7 feet by 3.3 feet). He asked a friend to stretch out on top then measured the body.
"Forty normal sculptors could have tried it and none would have succeeded," he said. "I was so motivated by the idea of doing this for everyone else."
The result, like the 258-year-old sculpture that inspired it, is shockingly realistic. He eagerly runs a visitor's hands over the eerily lifelike marble kneecaps, feet and spiky thorns.
His Christ is more athletic than the original, the veil smooth instead of textured to convey a sense of transparency to the blind.
"It's forbidden not to touch," Tagliaferri said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110221/stage_nm/us_italy_blind
4. Visually impaired radio jockey reaches out through his voice
Chandigarh, Feb 21 (IANS) He cannot see but has always wanted to reach out to people through his voice. Now Rishi, 21, is doing just that, thanks to Panjab University's community radio Jyotirgamaya that gave him a chance to host a radio show.
Enthusiastic and determined, Rishi, who goes by only one name, does not want his visual disability to come in the way of his dreams. 'I always listened to radio and fantasised to explore the world with the help of my voice,' a visibly excited Rishi told IANS here as his programme went on the air recently.
Rishi received support from various quarters to realise his dream.
'We are grooming him as the first ever blind RJ and he is already on the track with two of his shows aired till now,' said Jyotirgamaya's station manger Kanwaljit Singh.
Rishi, currently a student of B.A. first year in Government College, Sector 11, here, loves music. 'Mohit Chauhan is my favourite singer and I wish to become like him some day,' he added.
Studying at the National Institute of Visually Handicapped (NIVH) in Dehradun in Uttarakhand till last year, he participated in workshops related to anchoring and announcements to make his quiet entry into the radio world.
Rishi hails from a village near Shimla in Himachal Pradesh, some 150 km from here. His family's financial position is weak, but that has never stopped him from pursuing his dreams.
'We had a difficult time educating him and we hope he reaches where he wants. We don't know how to help him in achieving his dreams but we do whatever we can. He has been a bright student, we will stand by him always,' his proud father Amar Dutt Sharma, a farmer by occupation, told IANS.
After his first show 'Music and Masti' went on air last week, Rishi has plans to base his coming shows on stress management, social awareness, drug abuse and other topics of contemporary interest.
'I want that my voice should not just be entertaining but also be informative and interactive,' he said.
Senior faculty member of Government College Rajesh Kumar Jaiswal said that Rishi was always a disciplined student and regular with his studies.
'Rishi is a good student and is better than many others despite the difficulty he faces. I have always seen him smiling and it is a matter of immense pleasure that he is getting a platform for showcasing his talent,' Jaiswal said.
When asked about the difficulty of managing his studies along with radio jockeying, Rishi said: 'It is not difficult if you want to. Even if I devote eight hours for studying, 16 hours are left to do whatever I want to.'
Rishi, who wants to do his master's degree in English, said that he would be happy if he gets a chance of taking up radio jockeying as a profession in the long run.
