April 7, 2011
1. Blind children on hunt for Easter tradition in Alabama; bomb technicians make beeping eggs
Wlsam
April 4, 2011
2. Attorney raises bar, blindness no barrier
Fredricksburg
April 4, 2011
3. Students’ device helps visually impaired take notes
Statepress
April 3, 2011
4. Visually impaired students get unique art experience
NECN
April 6, 2011
5. Nintendo 3DS isolates visually impaired
Statepress
April 3, 2011
1. Blind children on hunt for Easter tradition in Alabama; bomb technicians make beeping eggs
A completed beeping Easter egg. ATF, and officers from Hoover,Gadsden, Birmingham,Homewood, Shelby County Sheriff's Office and Birmingham Fire Department construct 80 electronic beeping eggs for several Easter Egg Hunts for blind children.
The first of three Alabama events that allow blind children to hunt for Easter eggs using their ears will be held today.
The hunts feature plastic eggs that contain a battery, connector, electronic beeper and holes drilled to allow the sound to escape. The eggs were constructed by members of the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators at their annual training conference in Huntsville.
The eggs, which cost about $11.50 each to build, are placed in a field, and volunteers activate the beepers once they are hidden. As the children find the eggs, volunteers disconnect the beepers and replace the beeping eggs with candy-filled eggs.
David Hyche, whose daughter is blind, heard of such events in other states and launched the same program here. He is a supervisor with the Birmingham division of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and ATF agents volunteer with the program.
The Alabama Association for Parents of Children with Visual Impairment co-sponsor the hunts with Hyche's church -- North Shelby Baptist and its Ministry for the Visually Impaired. There will also be a puppet show written and performed for visually impaired children.
Saturday's event will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 242 Sarah Dean Road in Harpersville and is open to any visually impaired child. Their siblings can participate with a blindfold.
2. Attorney raises bar, blindness no barrier
Angie Matney had always excelled at math, but she took a break in high school when a teacher discouraged her from taking calculus.
He worried that Matney, blind since infancy, couldn't handle the graphing.
Then, the summer after her senior year of high school, she attended a National Federation of the Blind conference in Texas, where one of the speakers was a blind math teacher.
Matney doesn't recall the woman's name or much of her speech, though she remembers some mention of Venn diagrams.
What she does recall is the sense of empowerment she felt after listening to the woman, who obviously hadn't let a disability get in the way of her professional goals.
"I thought if this lady could do it, then I can probably do it," said Matney, who went on to earn bachelor's and master's degrees in math. "I'm really glad she was there that day. I never forgot that math teacher giving her speech. It changed my life."
Matney, 35, didn't stop with just one master's degree. She earned a second one in rehabilitation counseling before moving on to law school at the University of Virginia.
Now an attorney at Hirschler Fleischer in Fredericksburg, she takes her problem-solving skills to a whole new level, walking clients through the often complex process of estate planning and corporate transactions.
ALWAYS A HIGH ACHIEVER
Matney blazed trails in her hometown of Iaeger, W.Va., a tiny community in the southwestern part of the state close to West Virginia's border with Virginia and Kentucky.
The third of five children, Matney was born with sight but suffered a high fever and infection at 3 months of age that left her blind.
Her parents, Fred and Edith Matney, took her to Duke University Medical Center in the hope of restoring her sight. But in the operating room, surgeons discovered their daughter had too much scar tissue on her eyes, Edith Matney recalled.
Up until then, most blind children from Iaeger and the surrounding communities went to the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and the Blind in Romney, more than 300 miles away.
The school board in Iaeger suggested it would be best for Matney to do the same.
"What I thought was best for her was to be around her family," said her mother.
At first, Matney's teachers relied on books with big block letters. But Matney had no vision, so her mother approached the school board and insisted the elementary school teach Matney Braille.
"They said, 'Well, she doesn't need it until the sixth grade.' I said, 'I tell you what we'll do. Put away all those books in the classroom and don't teach any children print until the sixth grade and we'll do it like that,'" Edith Matney said.
Not surprisingly, the board agreed to provide the Braille materials her daughter needed.
Angie excelled in academics and learned to play the piano, forming a gospel singing group with her mother and some of her siblings.
As a graduating senior she was accepted into the elite Presidential Scholars Program, traveling to Washington to participate in leadership seminars and meet President Clinton. As an undergraduate at Washington & Lee University, Matney joined the chamber choir and traveled to Spain to sing in cathedrals.
Edith Matney said her daughter's fierce independent streak helped her resist the urge to be overprotective. Even so, she said, she could not have predicted her daughter would hold a law degree one day.
"I was just trying to get her through, one step at a time," she said. "But I knew she was a very smart child."
'A REALLY GOOD FIT'
At Washington & Lee, Matney discovered that graphing was no problem after all.
"If you understand the mathematics behind it, you can visualize the curve," she said. "Instead of drawing graphs, I would just describe them."
Her math professors prepared her assignments using a word processor that transcribed them into Braille. She went on to earn a master's in math at U.Va., where she also tutored athletes, before earning her second master's, in rehabilitation counseling, at Virginia Commonwealth University.
While at VCU, she worked as a disability rights advocate at the Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy and as an employment counselor at the Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired.
She thought she might like to pursue a career in disability law, but ultimately chose the business-law path.
While a law student, she interned at Hirschler Fleischer's offices in both Richmond and Fredericksburg. She joined the firm full time in January of last year. She and her guide dog, Yani, walk to work each morning from her downtown Fredericksburg home.
"It was just a really good fit from the very first moment," she said.
Her stellar academic reputation preceded her, said fellow attorney Paul Simpson. But her co-workers wondered if there was something they needed to do to make the office well more blind-friendly.
"We wanted to do it right, for lack of a better term. We didn't want to be impediments," Simpson said.
Matney, who has occasionally been grabbed by nervous strangers as she and Yani approach stairs, was frank about what she needed, which wasn't much, said Simpson.
"Angie was really good about helping us understand what we really don't need to be concerned about at all even though maybe we thought we should be," he said.
HELPING OTHERS
The office has also enjoyed her sense of humor, Simpson said. One day the group was chatting about speed traps and traffic tickets when Matney casually mentioned she'd gotten a parking ticket.
"As you might imagine, that stopped the conversation and we said, 'What?'" Simpson recalled.
Turns out that when Matney was a graduate student at U.Va., she received a parking ticket in the mail.
"She called the office and assured them that had not been her car that had received a ticket, and apparently they started in with, 'How can you be so sure?' She said, 'I can be so sure because I don't own a car because I'm blind,'" said Simpson.
"We said, 'Angie, you should've gone to court. It would've been worth the price of admission to see you walk up with your guide dog to contest a parking ticket,'" he said. "She chuckled and said, 'You're probably right.'"
In her free time, Matney, a longtime "Star Trek" fan, reads a lot of science fiction and nonfiction books. She also serves on the board of the nonprofit disAbility Resource Center, which supports disabled Fredericksburg-area residents and also educates the public.
"The biggest challenge can be dealing with other people's assumptions about what you can and can't do," she said. "I have people panic when they see me approach stairs. You find a lot of places where it's assumed because you're blind, you can't do basic tasks."
At Hirschler Fleischer, Matney said, she often consults with clients over the phone or via email first. By the time they meet her, they're so familiar with her work that discovering she's blind doesn't faze them, she said.
Instead, they're thankful she's shepherding them through difficult legal proceedings.
"I like feeling like I'm helping people solve problems," she said. "Somebody comes and says, 'This is what I want to accomplish. How do I get there?' I like being able to help people reach their goals.
"
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2011/042011/04042011/615247/index_html?page=1
3. Students’ device helps visually impaired take notes
A team of ASU students and alumni has developed a device to help low-vision students who have trouble seeing the board in class.
The team developed a device — the Note-Taker — to assist low-vision people with what they said was a delay between the blackboard and a person’s own hand-written notes.
The device is made up of a tablet PC and a camera that can zoom in on a blackboard so a user can see images up close.
The team won $8000 through Microsoft’s Imagine Cup competition last July and plans to re-enter a new model of their device in the 2011 competition in New York.
The Imagine Cup is a technology competition held annually in different locations around the world that allows both high school and college students to compete. Microsoft challenges the competitors to solve real world problems like achieving primary education for everyone, and ending hunger or poverty.
The idea for the Note-Taker came from the experiences of David Hayden, a legally blind ASU graduate and member of the team.
In 2007, Hayden was a math major and had difficulty taking notes in class. He said he would use a monocular to see the board, but had trouble cycling between his notes and finding his place on the board during math classes.
“During the process of note-taking, students rapidly switch between a near-sight task such as viewing and writing notes, and a far-sight task such as viewing a distant board or PowerPoint slide,” said John Black, a member of Team Note-Taker.
Black said that the frequent switching from a near- to a far- sighted task and vice versa causes a delay.
“We call the time spent switching between viewing the board, viewing the notes, and then viewing the board again the Board-Note-Board (BNB) delay,” Black said.
Black said existing technologies like a monocular device, which was used for far-sighted tasks, was not sufficient in assisting with taking notes and that is why the team began working on the Note-Taker.
Black said the development of the Note-Taker allowed Hayden to retake two math classes he previously struggled in and to pass them with A averages.
“Once we developed the prototype, David was able to get his double major,” Black said.
The team’s technology works by having a camera mounted on two adjustable motors that allow it to swivel up and down as well as left and right.
The camera can also focus and zoom in or out if necessary, which allows a person with low vision to view the images on a tablet PC, and write notes with a tablet pen.
It also features other abilities, like if a teacher moves in front of the board blocking notes, a person could simply slide the page a few slides and will be able to see the same notes they were looking at before the teacher blocked them from view.
The team is now working with a third generation model they call the Note-Taker 3
http://www.statepress.com/2011/04/03/students%E2%80%99-device-helps-visually-impaired-take-notes/
4. Visually impaired students get unique art experience
(NECN - Scot Yount - Boston) - "It really grabs you and with so much color", says glass artist Dale Chihuly.
He is renown for his unique take on blown glass. Dale Chihuly's hot shop Seattle studio team churns out some of the most whimsical and inspiring glass shapes in the world.
"If you feel the surface you will feel it is like a pineapple," Chihuly tells a groups of students.
On this day, the artist is in Boston helping a group of blind and very low vision students see his work.
"Well I have never done anything like that before," says Chihuly.
It isn't very often that anyone might be offered the chance to feel what a piece of fine art looks like.
"Incredible, incredible. Like nothing you ever felt before? Nothing no nothing," says student Renzo Rios-Nino.
Chihuly's through the looking glass is now open at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He himself has a vision problem, having lost an eye in car accident several years ago. It has not slowed him, an inspiration to the kids.
"I have a certain handicap and maybe they related to me more because of that," said Chihuly.
Little doubt of that.
"I think he is amazing", said Renzo Rios-Nino.
Chihuly is inspiring to the students. Most of them believe that people who are blind can, if they try, achieve the same thing.
"They can do just about anything that they put their minds too," said Garrett Knight a student.
Most of the students come here often and always with a guide. It is a first however to have guide who actually created the art.
"Made me think of what he was saying imagine in my head seemed really nice," said Eliza Edmunds
And they, the students taught Dale Chihuly something too.
"I enjoyed touching the art myself."
5. Nintendo 3DS isolated visually impaired
March 27, the Nintendo 3DS launched nationwide, and with it the next generation of hand-held video game consoles. Although it’s bound to sell incredibly well, the system ups the ante on isolating a particular customer base.
The Nintendo 3DS utilizes stereoscopic imaging technology to capture and project three-dimensional images, but the slightest ocular imperfection could render the three-dimensional images invisible for many video game players.
For the three-dimensional technology to properly render a person’s vision must be perfectly aligned, said Optometrist Dr. Aleta Gong.
Gong said that even something simple as poor-vision quality — or if the brain can’t focus the eyes in synchronicity — can impede the user from comprehending the stereoscopic three-dimensional images used in the Nintendo 3DS. For visually challenged gamers, Nintendo’s new product ushers in a forecast of future negligence. Because of Nintendo’s innovative products, the company’s newly launched systems are habitually well received by consumers and the company has a long-standing reputation for setting the newest gaming trends.
In consequence of Nintendo’s generational popularity, the new console will open the floodgates for the next age bracket of consumers who will become accustomed to three-dimensional video games.
With consumers demanding three-dimensional video games, upcoming blockbuster titles will also be developed to be presented in 3D. This change is already noticeable with the upcoming “Uncharted 3” or the recently released “Crysis 2.”
Although these games, and the ones designed for the 3DS, are certainly playable without being able to visualize three-dimensional images, a particular design element will be lost on visually impaired gamers.
However, vision loss isn’t the only form of ocular impairment facing many gamers worldwide.
A largely discarded problem many developers fail to address is the colorblind population.
While most colorblind individuals are able to see three-dimensional projections, Gong said, video games that rely heavily upon team colors place these consumers at a direct disadvantage.
Gong said the most common colors that are associated with color blindness are brown, red and green.
Coincidently, these are frequently used colors during in-game puzzles and combative multiplayer.
Developers will most likely always cater to the majority consumer base for the video game industry is a multi-billion-dollar business. Hopefully, the three-dimensional phenomenon is a fad and will soon phase out, allowing all gamers to enjoy the experience. Alas, since Nintendo has officially thrown its hat into the ring, the wait may be quite long.
http://www.statepress.com/2011/04/03/nintendo-3ds-isolates-visually-impaired/
