[nabs-l] [Blindtlk] FW: Blindness in the News

[Chris Nusbaum]

 Hi, everyone.

Here are some blindness-related news stories from the past few 
days you all might be interested in.  Enjoy!

Chris Nusbaum

"A loss of sight, never a loss of vision!" (Camp Abilities motto)

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Subject: [Blindtlk] FW: Blindness in the News
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Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2011 2:07 PM
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Subject: Blindness in the News

Blindness in the News
April 28, 2011




1.   Company paints word pictures of the wedding for the visually 
impaired

The Globe and Mail

April 27, 2011



2.   Lack of funding may spell end of classes for visually 
impaired

Daily News

April 25, 2011



3.   Marine Drive crossings unsafe, say vision impaired

BC Local News

April 27, 2011



4.   New device puts vision impaired in the picture

Physorg

April 28, 2011



1.   Company paints word pictures of the wedding for the visually 
impaired



["Nobody puts on a show like the Royal Family": A member of the 
household cavalry rides down the Mall adorned in Union flags 
ahead of Friday's Royal wedding.  | Reuters]





TORONTO - From Wednesday's Globe and Mail



Feast your ears on this: A Toronto-based media company will 
provide a live described-video broadcast of the royal wedding so 
that blind and low-sighted people across the country can enjoy 
all the pomp and pageantry of the big day.



"An event like the royal wedding is something that we think 
should be accessible to all Canadians," says David Errington, 
president of Accessible Media Inc.



"It's the first time that any event of this magnitude has ever 
been DV'd live," says producer Simone Cupid.



Described video is much different than colour commentary: It's an 
art form unto itself, especially when done live, Cupid says.



"A colour commentator offers interesting facts and details, and 
where we are and some history about that place, whereas we're 
trying to fill in the gaps for somebody who doesn't have the 
advantage of sight," she says.  "It's our job to fill in the 
crowd's expression when [Kate Middleton] comes out of the 
carriage, her mother's expression the first time she sees her in 
her wedding dress, William when he sees her coming down the 
aisle, the frescoes that are painted on the ceiling of the 
abbey."



The two "describers," Sarah Mennell and Ruth Barrett, were chosen 
after an audition in which they described footage of the 1981 
wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.



They are now busy researching everything from who will be in the 
audience to the type of horses that will be pulling Middleton's 
carriage.



"That's where the art comes in, is what's worth describing and 
what isn't," Mennell says.  "It's a question of learning to pick 
out very quickly what you're seeing and what you want to convey 
to an audience."



They are also learning to abide by the cardinal rule of described 
video: "We refrain from using any turn of phrase or word that 
pertains to sight," Cupid says.  "So we would never say something 
like, 'William looks at his bride,' because all you're doing is 
reminding your audience that they can't look and they can't see."



There is a huge amount of hype surrounding the wedding, which is 
guaranteed to be a massive spectacle, and describing it live to a 
visually impaired audience is sure to be a massive challenge, 
Barrett says.  But it's also going to be a fun one.



"Nobody puts on a show like the Royal Family," she says.



The broadcast will be available on The Accessible Channel - 
TACtv.



http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/company-paints-word-pictures-
of-the-wedding-for-the-visually-impaired/article1999475/



2.   Lack of funding may spell end of classes for visually 
impaired



VAN NUYS: Lack of funding may shut down campus for visually 
impaired.



Sarah Greenseid contentedly worked her yarn on a recent morning, 
her perpetual smile not entirely masking the anxiety felt by the 
visually impaired 99-year-old.



"It's really too bad, the possibility of the school not 
continuing," Greenseid said during a textile arts class at the 
Van Nuys School for the Blind, located in a rented classroom 
behind St.  Andrew's Lutheran Church.  "It's a very important 
part of everyone's life to have a place to come to where we can 
share our same problems, interact and still have a class.



"I will be sad if it doesn't continue."



As the Daily News reported in 2010, the school, also known as 
Visually Handicapped Adults of the Valley, is in a month-to-month 
struggle to keep offering the two classes it's managed to sustain 
this year.  If the money isn't raised to cover classroom rental, 
the 39-year-old operation will have to close on May 19.



The main reason for the school's dire financial straits is the 
loss of its annual $75,000 Los Angeles Community Development 
Department grant, due to budget cutbacks and a restructuring of 
the agency's qualification criteria.



 Fundraising campaigns have kept the school going, and there are 
last-ditch efforts to stave off closure.



Ophthalmologists Kerry Assil and Thomas Tooma have each donated 
$6,000 Lasik surgeries to be raffled off for the benefit of 
Retinitis Pigmentosa International, the school's parent 
organization, named for a genetic eye condition that leads to 
incurable blindness.



Each $25 donated will earn an entry in the raffle.  Other details 
are at www.rpinternational.org.



"We hope that the donation from NVision Laser Eye Centers will 
help RPI reach its financial goals to help save the Van Nuys 
School for the Blind because its program provides training for 
the social, emotional and physical implications related to losing 
one's vision," Tooma said in an emailed statement.



"It is their lifeline to the light," Tooma continued.  "Without 
that school, they are in the dark.  That darkness is interrupted 
for at least 48 hours during the week when they go to the school.  
It also provides them lunch and they are even sent home with 
food."



Back at the St.  Andrew's campus, close to a dozen visually 
impaired people were diligently making their rugs, mufflers and 
caps.



"I've been coming here for nine years; I also go to ceramics on 
Monday," said Patricia O'Connor of West Hills, who was creating a 
colorful wall hanging.  "It's almost like a family to us, we've 
been meeting here for so long and we enjoy it so much.



"It gives people who have vision problems something really 
worthwhile to do, and we can see the benefits of our own work."



The school's search for a less-expensive venue has, so far, 
proven fruitless.  The church is not unsympathetic, but has its 
own funding needs and rents out its campus to other 
organizations, including a Montessori preschool, to make ends 
meet.



"Our people are low-vision and many of them completely blind, so 
it's tricky to find another place for them," noted Laura Carlone, 
the school's site coordinator.  "Here we have access to a kitchen 
and the run of the place, along with the preschool."



For Greenseid, who began volunteering at the school 29 years ago 
and became a student when her eyesight started to fail, the 
weekly class has become an important part of her independent 
existence.



"It keeps me busy," the Sherman Oaks nonagenarian said.  "I do my 
own cooking, bookkeeping, banking and some shopping.  My 
lifestyle is dependent on doing as much as I can as often as I 
can.  Coming here is one of my very high priorities.



"Every day that I come here is important," Greenseid added.  "I 
relate to the students and it's very rewarding.  It's a way from 
them to get out of their homes."



http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_17925739





3.   Marine Drive crossings unsafe, say vision impaired



[EyeDeal_4698.jpg]



A group of vision-impaired West Vancouver residents are sounding 
the alarm on the district's pedestrian crossings.



Eye Deal, a four-year-old association with 35 members, is 
concerned about the allotted time for pedestrians at the 
municipality's crossing, particularly the lights along Marine 
Drive.



"Our fear is the vision impaired do not have the time to cross 
before the lights change," said Blair Baillie, the association's 
honorary secretary.



Even with his sight, Baillie said, he sometimes finds it 
difficult to make it to the other side before the flashing hand 
appears.



In addition, not all the crossings have sound indicators to let 
the blind and vision impaired know when it's safe to leave the 
sidewalk, he noted.



These factors make vision impaired people nervous, Baillie said.  
Often they'll rely on sighted pedestrians but it's not always an 
option, he said.



"It just seems to me there are a bunch of things we should and 
could be doing," Baillie said.


The organization has approached the district before with its 
concerns.  This time they're taking them to the engineers.


The district's pedestrian-timed signals are set up to allow 
people one second to cover one to 1.2 metres.  If anything, the 
time allotment is generous compared to other municipalities, said 
Raymond Fung, the district's director of engineering and 
transportation.



There is a general misunderstanding regarding what each signal 
means, he said.  The walk sign indicates when one can safely 
leave the sidewalk, while the hand requires one to stay on the 
curb - it does not indicate a person should already be across the 
street.


Between 11th and 19th along Marine Drive, five of the eight 
traffic lights have audible pedestrian signals.  The district is 
adding the beepers as it upgrades intersections, Fung said.

The municipality has an accessibility and inclusion policy.  
Recommendations from the Advisory Committee for Disability - such 
as fitting audible walk signs, creating accessible transit 
shelters and insuring grades are suitable for people in 
wheelchairs to board busses - have been adopted over the years.


Creating intersections that facilitate pedestrians' requirements 
and traffic follow is always juggling act, Fung said.


"We have to balance the needs," he said.



Eye Deal


Eye Deal aims to spotlight all issues affecting visually impaired 
people in the district.  The association recently extended its 
membership to include all age groups.  It organizes everything 
from transportation to outings downtown to supplying talking 
books to members to information sessions.  "We are looking for 
more volunteers," Baillie said.  "There are more things we would 
like to do."



http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/120808764.html





4.   New device puts vision impaired in the picture



(PhysOrg.com) -- Visually impaired people may soon have greater 
access to graphical information thanks to a new device developed 
by Monash University's Faculty of Information and Technology.



The device, called GraVVITAS, is a standard tablet PC with touch 
screen technology that uses vibration and sounds to guide the 
visually impaired user around a diagram.



It is designed to enable the user to build a picture of the 
entire graphic in their mind.



Currently, visually impaired students are using tactile diagrams 
to understand graphics.  These raised shapes and textures are 
produced on a particular type of paper by special purpose 
printers, known as embossers.  This method can prove to be 
extremely costly and can take months to produce a textbook.



The Faculty of Information and Technology's Professor Kim 
Marriott and PhD student Cagatay Goncu are working with Vision 
Australia to develop the new technology, that will make accessing 
diagrams for visually impaired students easier.



"The idea stemmed from a visually impaired student that I had 
years ago in a unit that was very diagrammatic," Professor 
Marriott said.



"This particular student had major problems understanding the 
diagrams using the methods that were available to them at the 
time.  We wanted to try to increase accessibility to diagrams and 
graphics in educational material, which is a huge issue for the 
visually impaired."



The device, which is currently a prototype, has small external 
vibrating motors that attach to the user's fingers.  These motors 
buzz when an object displayed on the screen is touched.



Cagatay Goncu said voice prompts and sounds also help to guide 
the user to read the diagram.



"The basic idea is to guide the user to find the object by using 
sound.  Touching the object causes the sound to stop and a voice 
explains what that object is and any other information associated 
with it," Mr.  Goncu said.



"If it's something on the left side, you will hear something in 
your left ear and vice-versa."



Developing the technology has involved extensive testing with 
visually impaired volunteers, which has allowed researchers to 
have a better understanding of how they read diagrams.



The next stage of development will involve collaborating with 
haptic feedback specialists from the Faculty of Engineering who 
will further refine the touch technology associated with the 
device.



http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-device-vision-impaired-pictur
e.html




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