The vOICe for Android
Is it an augmented reality game or a serious tool? It can be both, depending on what you want it to be! The ultimate goal is to provide a form of synthetic vision to the blind, but sighted users can simply have fun playing the game of sight-without-eyesight. Visually impaired users with severe tunnel vision can try if the auditory feedback helps them notice changes in the visual periphery. The vOICe for Android runs on smartphones and tablets, but is also compatible with most smart glasses, using the tiny camera in these glasses and a special user interface to generate a live sonic augmented reality overlay, hands-free! You may want to use an external battery connected via USB cable to keep the smart glasses battery from draining too quickly. You can help us by blogging and tweeting about your experiences, your use cases, and about how *you
* learn to see with sound.
How does it work? The vOICe uses pitch for height and loudness for brightness in one-second left to right scans of any view: a rising bright line sounds as a rising tone, a bright spot as a beep, a bright filled rectangle as a noise burst, a vertical grid as a rhythm. Best used with stereo headphones for the most immersive experience and most detailed auditory resolution.
Just experiment with simple visual patterns first, because real-life imagery is extremely complex. Randomly drop a bright item such as a DUPLO brick on a dark table top, and learn to reach for it through sound alone (close your eyes if you have eyesight). Next try and explore your own safe home environment, and learn to associate the complex sound patterns with what you already know is there. Sighted users can also use the app with Google Cardboard compatible devices through a swipe-down on the main screen to toggle the binocular view.
For serious users: learning to see with sound is like learning a foreign language or learning to play a musical instrument, really challenging your perseverance and brain plasticity. It may well be the ultimate brain training system, bridging the senses through artificial synesthesia. A general training manual for The vOICe (not specific to the Android version) is available online at
http://www.seeingwithsound.com/manual/The_vOICe_Training_Manual.htm
Why is The vOICe free? Because our foremost goal is to make a real change by lowering barriers to use as much as we can. You will find that competing technologies cost upwards of $10,000 and yet have lower specs. The perceptual resolution offered by The vOICe is unmatched even by $100,000 "bionic eye" retinal implants (PLoS ONE 7(3): e33136).
The vOICe for Android supports English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Estonian, Hungarian, Polish, Slovak, Russian, Chinese, Korean and Arabic (menu Options | Language).
Please report bugs to [email protected], and visit the web page http://www.seeingwithsound.com/android.htm for detailed description and disclaimers. We are on Twitter at @seeingwithsound.
Thank you!
Category : Health & Fitness
Reviews (27)
Easiest to use text reader ever.....The reader on this is the best i have found for food cans and real world text...the other functions are pretty amazing but beyond the scooe of my know how... I THINK that a person could change their mobility and independance if they learn how to use it. The only issue i have is that when doing a cold boot the app refuses to activate camera unless wifi is availible EVEN ThOugh it runs PERFECTLY in airplane mode as long as it was started with wifi.
This app allows visually impaired users to explore the world in a very different way from what you would expect. While it may seem daunting for novices, the app challenges some of the basic assumptions about the perceptive abilities of people who are blind or have low vision. Additionally, vOICe offers other interesting tools that may serve as helpful navigation aids for blind users. Last but not least, vOICe is a great research project that has a very committed team behind it and this in itself deserves 5 stars!
Simply amazing software with so many features and use cases, thanks to all involved for making this software free to the public instead of selling it for some sick amount of money.
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Needs user interface refinement, but very interesting as a source as weird sound effects.
The app was good at first but now its not. There are ads! So plz fix this 😫 😩 I don't want ads
Great color finder, but busy interface & irritating noises make it difficult to use
Seems like a nice app but we're looking for a voice over to navigate the phone
The best app ever made for the blind n hearing impaired
Omg kept going landscape and going crazy...app is too weird to use it
I hated it it keeps crashing and this app is stupid
this app has uncomfortable sound
Hi, I don't know how use the app. Is there a place where I can read the instructions?
very nice app thank you for such nice app
This app is a potential candidate for becoming an Angel in a blind's life!
I m new in this app trying to use it
This is an applicant any colors if you I what color from what color
It is so cool
Thanks a lot.
Love U ALL THE BEST LOVE ALL
Can you please tell what algorithm you used for this , bcoz right now we are working on stereo vision to get exact data.
Simply amazing. I'm not blind, but I can negotiate a bit with it on and my eyes closed. Just a great example of where technology is taking us.
This app needs a better, more easily understandable user interface. And also optimization, lots of it, because now it's a huge battery drainer.
I had some problem with using an external wifi camera from D-link with this app. I reported the same and I got it solved in a single day!! Nice app and nice people.
I need ar to have schedules on my bionic eye identical to terminator style glasses
Hi, I like the app very much !! ..... I have an idea developed this App , so I really would like to get the source code from you if possible!
It's good but I feel there is scope for improvement. Can the image to sound conversion be made more accurate. The sample rate could be slowed down. As accuracy is more important than speed.can more tones and pitch variations be produced so that a blind person create a more detailed picture of the visual information. I really like this idea it is awesome, But I hope that you could make a better more accurate version of this. It can be real blessing and game changer for the blind.