Do it.

Can’t see it? Just do it. Stuff for the blind.

iphone app helps the blind identify color

Today I continue my rave about the iPhone…

Because I used to have vision, I know what colors look like. That is, I know that white is lighter than black, what red or blue or purple look like. But what if I had been born completely blind? Even now as I acquire new clothes in my wardrobe, how do I know where the shirt belongs in the scheme of things? (I organize my clothes in ROY G. BIV order–something I did even before I lost my vision.) How do I know if my new tank top matches better with my silver or gold shoes? First, you need some fashion sense and color coordination skills already ingrained in your brain; For that, you’ll have to look elsewhere. But if you can’t tell what color the new tank top is, if you just can’t see well enough to know if it’s red or green (two colors that my washed out eyesight mixes up often), then Apple has an app just for you.

Kolorami is an app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch that helps the color-blind and vision-impaired identify colors. Making sure there’s ample lighting for the camera to pick up the shade, hold the iPhone/iPad/Touch up to the thing you’re trying to figure out–say, about a couple of inches from it. Then click on the “Determine Color” button, and within a few seconds, the app will break down the color for you: “10% brown, 90% dark brown.” Ah, yes. Gold shoes it is.

I’ve tested the app out on clothes I’ve had since before my vision loss so I knew not only which color it is but exactly the shade, too, just to see how accurate it is. I find that Kolorami usually gets it right in the general ballpark of the color, but it can often be off in identifying percentages of shade. E.g. the thing I tested it on earlier was really beige, so it would’ve been more accurate if it said, “90% light brown, 10% brown.”

I’ve also read that some people use the Color Identifier app (like my aforementioned fellow blind blogger), but I have yet to try this app out. Color Identifier (or Color ID) seems to have more versions (including one that costs $1.99 in addition to the free one) and ratings (compared to Kolorami’s free one with zero ratings). Has anyone tried both? What are your thoughts? Should I switch?

meet a fellow blind user of the iphone

Last week, I wrote about my personal love for the iPhone. This week, I know I’m not the only one. Austin Seraphin, a fellow blind blogger, had posted about his own love for the iPhone quite some time ago. My husband had sent me the link when his post went viral on Twitter, but I only got around to blogging about the iPhone recently. Not convinced by my argument on why the blind would benefit from having an iPhone? Take a look at Austin’s post–he’s much more technologically savvy than me. Thanks, Austin, for a thorough and entertaining read.

why i (and all you blind people should) love the iphone

iPhone

I heart iPhones.

By now, many in the sight-impaired community have discovered the Apple iPhone for its awesome accessibility features to help not only the visually but also the hearing impaired. With this being the Blind Cook’s blog, I will focus on the accessibility features for the blind user.

I’ve mentioned many times before that Apple products (i.e. Macbooks, iMacs, iPads, iPhones, iPods and iPod Touches) all come with VoiceOver, a text-to-speech application that will virtually read aloud everything on the screen for the blind user. A nice feature of VoiceOver is its human-like speech; Alex, the name Apple has given its most realistic sounding screen reader voice, employs tonal shifts and inflections, even pausing to “breathe.” No more robotic, monotonous voices of yesteryear.

My husband recently attended the An Event Apart design conference for web developers, where he met a woman who works at the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine. (A shout-out to any new readers from FSDB; hello from Houston!) John learned that the man at Apple responsible for developing the VoiceOver application is blind himself. This comforted me because who would make for a better tester for technology accessibility than a blind person? I’ve often come this close to emailing Steve Jobs himself asking to become a tester of VoiceOver functionality. As a student, a writer, and a blogger, I depend on my computer and cell phone every day, and I want to see Apple’s products get better and better with their accessibility.

Before my iPhone 3GS, I had a non-data Nokia RIZR which I used for making simple phone calls. I could not even send and receive text messages because I could not see what was on my screen. I did not even know who was calling me unless I had set that person’s ringtone to something unique (which I only did for a few people who called often). I could only dial people on my “favorites” list by scrolling down the memorized number of lines; everyone else in my contacts list I had to use voice recognition commands which were not always accurate. This was frustrating to say the least, but unaware of anything better on the mobile market, I had accepted this as my cellular fate.

One day after my Nokia had broken, John was researching cell phones to find which would be most suitable for me. I was this close to buying a Blackberry but could not commit to the difficult, tiny keyboard. Then by chance, John found an online video that reviewed the iPhone and how it is blind-friendly. How he could’ve missed this being the Apple fanboy that he is is beyond me. But I was just glad he found it–better late than never. What he learned was that a blind user could navigate the touch screen by swipes back and forth; up and down; using one, two, or three fingers. The VoiceOver reads aloud whatever your thumb touches, and if you swipe with one finger to the right, the cursor moves to the next app icon on the screen, or, if you’re inside an app, to the next image or form field or text in the app. Swipe with one finger to the left takes you to the previous item. Applying the same principles of left or up for “previous” and right or down for “next,” swiping with three fingers is like the PageUp and PageDown functions. Swiping with two fingers will read everything on the screen. To select an icon, button or button, or to activate a form field, double-click with your finger. If you take your thumb and forefinger (or any two fingers, for that matter) and swipe in a circular motion on the touch screen as though you were turning a dial, it will select different levels for navigation. E.g. you can select to navigate by the line, by the word, by the character, etc. After selecting the level, one swipe with one finger back and forth will scroll the cursor to the previous and next line, word, or character. Those, my friends, are the basic iPhone (and iPad) VoiceOver commands.

When I first got the iPhone 3GS back in December 2009, the VoiceOver was great but after updates, it, it is even better. For example, now upon scrolling over a letter, after a pause, Alex will say the military alphabetic equivalent of that letter. This aids in lessening the confusion I once had between similar sounding letters like “M” and “N”, or “B” and “V.” Now I will hear “M…Mike” or “N…November,” and “B…Bravo” or “V…Victor.” Another improvement I noticed was now the “back” button to get to a previous screen when inside an app is more intuitive in that it actually says “back” after “hovering” over the button. (In the previous VoiceOver version, it would only read aloud the name of the button, so I wouldn’t know if it actually was a functioning button or not.)

The new iPhone 4GS is set to release in stores this September, and perhaps if you can wait long enough, rumor has it that iPhone 5 will come out next year. If you are sight-impaired and on the market for a phone, I highly recommend the iPhone. It is by far the superior cell phone for the sight-impaired.

Hadley recently aired a seminar about the Apple i- products. Visit the Everything i page to check when they will have an audio recording available of the seminar.

Have an iProduct? Tell me what you think of it. Want an iProduct? Have questions about one? Leave a comment.

why go on an all-inclusive vacation?

Cabo San Lucas

Wish I could see this with my own eyes

Summertime means summer vacations. I recently went on a short vacation with my cousin and two girlfriends to Cabo, a beach town on the tip of the Baja Peninsula of Mexico. I hadn’t been to the Pacific side of Mexico since my teenage days when my family would drive down to San Felipe and camp for days on the beach. I discovered that the west coast of Mexico–like the west coast of the U.S.–has much more temperate evenings and chillier ocean water than the Atlantic side and its Gulf of Mexico where the waters are much warmer and more swimmable. No matter, because the Pacific has us beat in terms of appearance. The water was a bluish-green (or so I was told by my travel companions), and best of all, there are mini mountain formations next to the surf which, I guess, makes for a fantastic postcard picture.

While I admit sightseeing and taking in beautiful views are no longer a priority since I’d lost my vision, I decided to go on this vacation because I’d always wanted to visit Cabo, and there was too good a deal to pass up at the Riu Santa Fe. It was the first all-inclusive vacation package I’d ever been on (not counting cruises), and while ideally, I’d love to explore and immerse myself in the cityscape and culture, it is just no longer feasible without vision. So I (reluctantly at first) came on this trip but soon found that all-inclusive packages relieve a great deal of stress on the vacationer. Sure, you don’t get to really venture out on the town and try street food and come in closer contact with the locals, but what you get instead is minimal headache and less stress. Your meals are already taken care of–just grab a plate in one of the many buffets or make a reservation at a sit-down restaurant and just get up and leave when you’re done without settling the bill. The mini bar in your room is already paid for; drink all the water, soda, beer, and spirits you wish. There is something going on every night at the various on-site venues. You never have to leave the resort to do anything.

Of course, it would be a different matter if I could see, but this all-inclusive thing made vacation a lot easier. Every morning, we ate, went to the pool or the resort beach, ate lunch, then sunbathed some more, then showered before going to dinner. After dinner, we’d have a drink or two while hanging out at one of the bars or in the main courtyard where onstage there’s live music or shows. Then we go to bed, next day: repeat. This may not be my ideal vacation, but all-inclusive resort packages are good when you just need to get away for a weekend to relax. You never have to deal with price haggling, exchanging money, getting ripped off, or finding your way around. And thus, it makes for the perfect sojourn for the NMO patient or sight-impaired person. Less things to deal with means less stress, and that’s always a plus during vacation. We have enough stress as it is; what good would a vacation full of worries be? There are many sites that offer all-inclusive vacation packages for reasonable prices. Try some of the following:

pfeatured, thanks to “masterpiece theatre” and fork for thought

Several months ago, a reader contacted me and asked to do an interview for a short piece she was writing about the cook who is visually impaired. I guess with a URL address as obvious as “theblindcook.com,” it was easy for them to stumble upon my page. The inspiration for the piece is rooted in the recent popularity of a Masterpiece Theatre show called “Downton Abbey” where the household’s cook begins losing her vision and has to deal with kitchen mishaps. I had forgotten about the article and interview until a friend recently brought my attention to it; she had found it while searching for my site. How funny is that?

I was also fortunate to have come across a fellow foodie blogger recently and was captivated by her descriptive and honest takes on local eateries. After contacting Ms. Fork to let her know she had another fan, she was generous enough to also write an entry about me.

read a novel in braille: check.

Overrated

Happy Independence Day, America. (And happy birthday to my dad.) And in celebrating this day of independence, I am going to toot my own independence horn. In my last post about Braille in April, I had talked about how I was finally fully literate in Braille, having finished learning both uncontracted and contracted Braille. Now, I am reporting that I had just finished my first novel in Braille, The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler. While I’m very glad to have accomplished such a feat, I was at the same time disappointed that the novel was not so good. For additional reasons that I will not rant about here as this is not a fiction review blog, all I will say is I am surprised this won the National Book Critics Circle Award and became an award-winning movie. My husband says if I am to scorn a Pulitzer Prize finalist, then I’d better go ahead and win it as soon as I graduate with my M.F.A. in Fiction. Doh!

Regardless, I enjoyed the process of reading by touch, and this was what kept me going despite my sentiments toward the story itself. The novel, with its 352 pages in paperback, came bound in three thick binders. It took me three months to finish the novel, and while that is slow for someone who claims to be a writer, it is still quicker than the majority of people I know who read maybe one novel a year. I timed myself at random points and found that when I started the book, it took me about twelve minutes to read one page. Toward the end, I managed to shave my reading time by half to six minutes a page. Woo hoo! My ultimate goal is to be able to read Braille as quickly as I was able to read print. People have told me it’s possible, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

My next reading project? I’m going to conquer Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. We’ll see how that goes. Stay tuned for updates.

blind driving in our future?

Ever since I lost my vision, one of the things I miss most is driving. I used to love driving alone on a beautiful sunny day with the windows down, the sun roof open, and music blaring from my after-market sound system. Driving gave me a sense of independence, and losing my vision meant losing driving which meant losing independence. So when I heard about this project at Virginia Tech, it was an answer to my most pressing wish.

Using robotics, laser rangefinders, GPS, and smart feedback tools, Dennis Hong is working on designing a car that will allow blind people to “drive” independently. He notes that it is not a self-driving car, but rather one that allows a vision-impaired person to gauge speed, proximity, and route. Hong is the founder and director of RoMeLa, a Virginia Tech-based robotics lab responsible for many developments in the field of robotics. Perhaps we’ll be driving in our lifetime? Watch out, everybody!

Here is the TED Talk where Hong describes the project.

it’s about time the blind get a fashionable watch

Concept tactile wristwatch

Concept tactile wristwatch

I previously blogged about the Haptica Braille watch, but now there’s news of a new concept watch in the making that may give Haptica a run for their money. Jacob Rynkiewicz is designing a sleek watch with a rubber wristband that should be easy to put on and take off. Instead of numbers, there are tactile markers on the face of the watch so that a person could potentially feel with their fingers which way the dial hands are pointing, and thus, telling time. Perhaps the advantage of this watch to the Haptica is that the user doesn’t have to know Braille to know the time. As far as looks go, I obviously don’t know which one is more fashionable. What do you think? Lend me your eyes.

blind mother wins marathon

My cousin, Pauline, recently sent me an online article about Amy McDonaugh, a legally blind woman from South Carolina who won the 13th annual Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati. She ran the 26.2 miles in 2:58:14, and this marks her first marathon win. Amy is a 34-year-old stay-at-home mom who has no peripheral vision, very poor vision in one eye and is blind in the other, but she ran the entire race without a guide. She can see straight-away; perhaps this helped her “focus” on the finish line.

Pauline noted that maybe next year, John and I can do the MS150 together, but with my tendency towards fatigue, I don’t quite see that happening. Instead, I’ll remain happily indoors blogging about all the great things other blind people do.

blind culinary student gets noticed by charlie trotter

This isn’t the newest of news but I recently came across the article for the second time and realized I hadn’t blogged about it the first time because, evidently, my blog hadn’t existed back then. Of course, that just wouldn’t do considering the fact that she is like the cornerstone for the entire reason my blog even exists!

Laura Martinez, a culinary student at Chicago’s Le Cordon Bleu, expressed concern with landing a proper job in a reputable kitchen after graduation because of her visual impairment. Last year, CBS featured her story on the Chicago evening news and arranged for her to meet Charlie Trotter whose same-named restaurant is one of Chicago’s top haute cuisines. The real kicker was when Trotter invited Martinez to work the kitchen in his flagship restaurant. But will she succeed in a kitchen full of sighted cooks? I don’t know but would be interested if anyone had the follow-up story.

  • Read more about and see videos of Laura Martinez, the blind culinary student, meeting Chicago’s Charlie Trotter.
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