Daniel Kish: How I use sonar to navigate the world

Daniel Kish has been blind since he was 13 months old, but has learned to “see” using a form of echolocation. He clicks his tongue and sends out flashes of sound that bounce off surfaces in the environment and return to him, helping him to construct an understanding of the space around him. In a rousing talk, Kish demonstrates how this works and asks us to let go of our fear of the “dark unknown.”

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.
Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages athttp://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kish_...

Follow TED news on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tednews
Like TED on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TED

Subscribe to our channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDtalksD...

Jeff Healey was a blind jazz, and blues-rock vocalist and guitarist

Jeff Healey Canadian folk singer (born Norman Jeffrey Healey, March 25, 1966 - March 2, 2008) was a blind jazz, and blues-rock vocalist and guitarist who attained musical and personal popularity, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. On March 2, 2008, Healey died of cancer. He was 41 years old.  Born in Toronto, Ontario, Healey was raised in the city's west end. He was adopted as an infant his adoptive father was a firefighter. When he was almost one year old, Healey lost his sight to retinoblastoma, a rare cancer of the eyes. His eyes had to be surgically removed, and he was given ocular prostheses.

Healey began playing guitar when he was three, developing his unique style of playing the instrument flat on his lap. When he was 15, Jeff Healey formed the band Blue Direction, a four-piece which primarily played bar-band cover tunes and featured bassist Jeremy Littler, drummer Graydon Chapman, and a schoolmate, Rob Quail on second guitar. This band played various local clubs in Toronto, including the Colonial Tavern.

Healey began hosting a jazz and blues show on radio station CIUT-FM where he became known for playing from his massive collection of vintage 78 rpm gramophone records. Shortly thereafter he was introduced to two musicians, bassist Joe Rockman and drummer Tom Stephen, with whom he formed a trio, The Jeff Healey Band. This band made their first public appearance at the Birds Nest, located upstairs at Chicago's Diner on Queen Street West in Toronto. They received a write-up in Toronto's NOW magazine, and soon were playing almost nightly in local clubs, such as Grossman's Tavern and the famed blues club Albert's Hall (where Jeff Healey was discovered by guitarists Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert Collins).

After being signed to Arista Records in 1988, the band released the album See the Light, featuring the hit single "Angel Eyes" and the song "Hideaway", which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. While the band was recording See the Light, they were also filming (and recording for the soundtrack of) the Patrick Swayze film Road House.^[4] Healey had numerous acting scenes in the movie with Swayze, as his band was the house cover band for the bar featured in the movie. In 1990, the band won the Juno Award for Canadian Entertainer of the Year. The albums Hell to Pay and Feel This gave Healey 10 charting singles in Canada between 1990 and 1994, including a cover of The Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" which featured George Harrison and Jeff Lynne on backing vocals and acoustic guitar.

By the release of the 2000 album Get Me Some, Healey began to concentrate his talent in a different musical direction closer to his heart, the appreciation for another original American music form, jazz. He went on to release three CDs of music of traditional American jazz from the 1920s and 1930s. He had been sitting in with these types of bands around Toronto since the beginning of his music career. Though known primarily as a guitarist, Healey also played trumpet during live performances. His main jazz group for touring and recording being Jeff Healey's Jazz Wizards.

Healey was an avid record collector and amassed a collection of well over 30,000 78 rpm records. He had, from time to time, hosted a CBC Radio program entitled My Kind of Jazz, in which he played records from his vast vintage jazz collection. He hosted a program with a similar name on Toronto jazz station CJRT-FM; as of 2010, the latter program continued to air in repeats.

For many years, Healey toured throughout North America and Europe and performed at his club, "Healey's" on Bathurst Street in Toronto, where he played with his blues band on Thursday nights and also with his jazz group on Saturday afternoons. The club moved to a bigger location at 56 Blue Jays Way and was rechristened "Jeff Healey's Roadhouse." Though he had lent his name to the club and often played there, Jeff Healey did not own or manage the bar. (The name came from the 1989 film, Road House, in which Healey appeared.)

At the time of his death, he had been planning to perform a series of shows in the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands with his other band, the 'Jeff Healey Blues Band' (aka the 'Healey's House Band') in April 2008.Over the years, Healey toured and sat in with many legendary performers, including The Allman Brothers, Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy, BB King, ZZ Top, Steve Lukather, Eric Clapton and many more. In 2006, Healey appeared on Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan's CD/DVD Gillan's Inn.

Healey discovered and helped develop the careers of other musical artists, including Terra Hazelton and Amanda Marshall. In early 2009, Healey's album Mess of Blues won in The 8th Annual Independent Music Awards for Best Blues Album.

Allan Pineda Lindo, Jr. better known as apl.de.ap (pronounced "Apple D Ap"), is a Filipino-American rapper, record producer, and occasional drummer who is best known as a member of The Black Eyed Peas.

Allan Pineda Lindo, Jr. (born November 28, 1974) better known as apl.de.ap (pronounced "Apple D Ap"), is a Filipino-American rapper, record producer, and occasional drummer who is best known as a member of The Black Eyed Peas. EARLY LIFEApl.de.ap was born in Pampanga, Philippines, to a Filipino mother and an African American father. His father, an Airman stationed at Clark Air Base, ditched the family shortly after his birth; his mother, Cristina Pineda, raised him and his six younger siblings as a single mother. As a child, apl.de.ap would make an hour-long jeepney trip to and from school, and helped his family subsist by farming sweet potatoes, corn, sugar cane and rice. Citation needed The Pearl S. Buck Foundation, an organization that finds healthier living environments for young abandoned or orphaned American children, matched him with a sponsor named Joe Ben Hudgens through a dollar-a-day program. He initially came to the United States at the age of 11 to treat nystagmus, an involuntary movement of the eyes. During a trip to Disneyland, Apl expressed his interest in staying in the United States. 

It would take another three years for Hudgens to officially adopt him, but at fourteen he moved permanently to the United States to live with Hudgens.In Los Angeles, he attended John Marshall High School where he befriended William Adams (stage name will.i.am), the nephew of Hudgens' roommate. He went to college at Holy Angel University. Apl.de.ap's early musical influences were Stevie Wonder, The Eagles, The Beatles, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Leaders of the New School and the popular Filipino rock/folk group, Asin. Apl was introduced to hip-hop by break dancing. "I would take the jeepney all the way to Angeles City, and that's how I got introduced to break dancing," he said. "I would see kids at the corner break-dancing and I'm like, 'I wanna do that.'" apl.de.ap revealed to People Magazine in 2011 that he is legally blind in both of his eyes, suffering from nystagmus and has this condition his entire career. "I'm good at shapes. If I'm not close, even if it's big, I can't read it. I doubted myself for a long time," apl.de.ap said. "I'm comfortable not using my vision.

 I weave around my problems." He went on to say in the same article that "Until I discovered hip-hop, I felt I wasn't going to accomplish anything." Two of his siblings are dead: his younger brother Arnel committed suicide (this is referenced in The Apl Song in the lines "I guess sometimes life's stresses get you down/Oh brother, wish I could have helped you out"). His youngest brother, Joven Pineda Deala, was murdered at the age of 22 in February 2009 in Porac, Pampanga
I would like to thank kapampanganheroes.blogspot.com for the information for this posting.

What a Week Part 3 – A Scare BY Rebekah Cross

What a Week Part 3 – A Scare

MARCH 28, 2015 ~ REBEKAH CROSS

(This entry was written on Monday…just now posting it).

Sunday…oh Sunday. Adam and I took Jingles for her annual vet visit. I’ve mentioned before that sometimes I go sighted guide with Adam when I have the dog, but not today. I wanted to make sure of the route so that Jingles and I could find it alone easily next time. We did great on the way there. Found all the right exits and staircases, and made our way down the street, enjoying Sunday as a family. The vet appointment went fine. Jingles won over the Dr. with her cuteness, and all tests came back great. Her weight is also perfect, which is great, after such a sedentary winter. After the exam, we made our way back to the subway, stopping first at Chipotle for some lunch, and then Starbucks for a coffee to sip on the train ride home. As soon as we got to our right platform, a train came. To catch it, I heeled Jingles beside me and held Adam’s hand. Somehow in all the commotion of catching the train, weaving with dog and coffee in hand, I lost track of where exactly I was in relation to the train. Next thing I know, SPLAT. I screamed as the world fell out from under me, then realized I was on my knees in the train… What the??? Turns out, I had caught the edge of the train car with my foot and tripped. Adrenaline much? After getting over my initial shock and residual embarrassment, I composed myself and calmed down with my caffeinated stimulant.

Once we got home, Jingles seemed sleepy, but after the trip to the vet, weren’t we all? After sleeping a while, thinking she was twitching, I realized she was not twitching, but shaking. My poor pup was shaking like crazy, and wouldn’t stop. Then we noticed she was limping. What was wrong with her??? I was so afraid. I immediately called the vet, who couldn’t be reached at the time because of other appointments. In the meantime, I searched the internet, and found it was probably a reaction to the vaccine she had just gotten. She was still shaking and completely lethargic, but I had basically ruled out analeptic shock. Thank goodness. Even so, I was in a state of freak out. Adam was trying to keep me calm, but it wasn’t working too well. I wasn’t flying off the handle or anything, just super concerned and pensive.

Eventually, the shaking lessened, and Jingles fell into a deep sleep. I still would not leave her, constantly checking on my little Belle. A little while later, the Vet called me back and assured me that Jingles should be fine, as long as she didn’t have facial swelling, hives, or pale gums. She didn’t. I still asked about the reaction. The Vet said it was a common reaction, though usually only seen in smaller dogs. The limp was from pain at the injection site, which happened to be her hind leg. Next time, I can get the vaccines broken up into single doses so that the risk of side effects is reduced. I will do anything to not have my pup go through that again: /.

Jingles slept the rest of the night. She wouldn’t move for anything. It was really sad. She still shook a bit in her sleep. I was restless all night, waking up every couple hours to check on her and make sure she was okay. I didn’t know what I was going to do about work today. I couldn’t take Jingles out in that condition, but I also couldn’t leave her alone all day. What’s worse, I had a meeting at City Hall I needed to attend. I decided to wait and see how she felt in the AM before deciding what to do about work.

This morning, Jingles was happy and semi-bouncy, but spent her energy quickly on a trip to the bathroom, and was shaking by the time I fed her. Then, she wouldn’t even put pressure on her hind leg. Poor thing. I put her back to bed and contemplated work.

I decided to go to my morning meeting, then take the rest of the day off and come home to take care of Jingles. Since she was improving, I figured she just needed some real rest to get her strength back and reduce the soreness.

Unfortunately, this meant that Bob the Stick would have to show his ugly face once again. I know he is laughing at me now, as I write this. I hadn’t used the ol’ Bobberoni in nearly seven months, so I was a bit nervous about my cane technique, but was determined to make it. Thankfully, Adam was home this morning (he worked a little later than me), and gave me a “lift” to the subway, which is awesome because I would’ve definitely been late if he hadn’t. I got off at the right stop, and found the stairs. My coworker, who was attending the meeting with me, was amazingly perched at the exact exit I took, so that was completely seamless.

The meeting (which was a public budget hearing) was long and less than exciting. Literally, one of the public officials was falling asleep in front of everyone in attendance. Yeah…After four hours of that, my coworker and I left to head back to the office and home, respectively.

She helped me to the subway, and I got on the right train. Then it was back to Brooklyn. All I could think of was Jingles, if she was all right, how she felt. I couldn’t wait to get home. I hated being without her. It just didn’t feel…right. Sometimes I let Jingles have a break and go for a walk or meal with Adam or a friend, but this was different. It was miserable being without my Jingle-Pup.

I got off the train at my stop and started on the ½ mile walk back home with Bob. Amazingly, we weren’t terrible. I made it home fairly quickly and smoothly, considering the more than half a year I had not used the stick. It still sucked, and I still hated it, but I noticed my orientation and confidence had improved even with the stick, thanks to Jingles. Of course, this could also have something to do with the fact that the only thing on my mind was getting back to Jingles to see how she was feeling. Boy, I hated having to concentrate on not being the human pinball, finding the curb, and crossing the street in a straight path again.

I made it to the building, burst through my door, and found my Jingle-Pup running to greet me! She was 10x more like herself than when I had left her this morning. Now she was her usual squirmy ball of love and wet nose. I can’t believe how much I missed my sweet girl.

She’s still a bit tired, and sleeping a lot to regain her full stamina, but as the day has gone on, she is more and more 100% my spunky girl. I took her for a quick walk a few minutes ago, and she was back to wagging her tail, and bouncing with excitement. You can imagine my relief. I think she’ll be ready for work tomorrow. In your face, Bob!!!

So ends the saga of my “adventurous” week. Here’s to another week of adventure…though hopefully only the good kind this time around.

**As I post this Saturday, Jingles is completely, 100% fine, and she has been since Tuesday. We also had a much calmer week, with only good adventures, thankfully.**

If you enjoy this story or want to read more from Rebekah Cross is the link to her blog http://blindgirlinthebigcity.com

The story of Nicole C. Kear By Nicole Kwan -FoxNews.com

“The vision I have left”: One woman’s story of living with degenerative eye disease“

By Nicole Kwan Published July 02, 2014

FoxNews.com

• Writer Nicole C. Kear (image: Justine Cooper)

Next

Nicole C. Kear

Nicole C. Kear always thought it was normal when she’d bump into things – but when she turned 19, she soon realized it wasn’t just clumsiness.  She was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease that would eventually leave her blind.

In her newly published memoir, “Now I See You,” Kear details the story of how the diagnosis taught her to embrace life.

Just after her sophomore year of college, Kear went to her ophthalmologist for a routine check-up. She offhandedly mentioned an incident at the beach a few months prior, when she realized she couldn’t see any of the stars.

“[My boyfriend at the time] was really shocked, because they were very bright,” Kear told FoxNews.com. “I never suspected it was an actual problem; we joked about it.”

Her ophthalmologist referred Kear to a specialist, who then used an electroretinogram to measure the electrical activity in her retinas in response to light. The device utilizes electrodes in the form of contact lenses, which measure the electrical responses of the eyes’ cells.

“Once he whipped that out, I had a suspicion things weren’t going very well,” Kear said.

The New York City native was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, and she was told that she had 10 to 15 years of vision left.  Her doctor advised Kear to ultimately start preparing for going blind.

“That’s when it really soaked in: ‘This is bad; this is like old-school incurable,’” she said.

Retinitis pigmentosa is an inherited degenerative eye disease that causes the death of the eyes’ photoreceptor cells – known as the rods and the cones. The “rods,” are responsible for night vision and peripheral vision, while the day-seeing cells, or “cones,” deal with center vision. Symptoms of the disease include clumsiness, difficulty seeing at night and loss of side vision (having “tunnel vision”), because the rods begin to die first. Eventually, a patient will lose all vision from the sides and, when the cones die, from the center of the eye.

There are currently no treatments for the disease, though progress is being made with gene and stem cell therapy research. A National Institutes of Health (NIH) study found that 15,000 international units of vitamin A a day can reduce cell loss from 10 percent to 8 percent.

Retinitis pigmentosa is difficult to diagnose because symptoms are often unnoticed or confused with other disorders.

“The challenge of this is that it’s not so common – about 1.5 million people worldwide – but then most of my patients have seen four or five doctors before me,” Dr. Stephen Tsang, attending ophthalmologist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center who has not treated Kear, told FoxNews.com. “Because of clumsiness and side vision problems, a lot have seen neurologists for brain scans.”

Although Kear’s doctor warned her that she should start preparing for blindness, she resisted and instead embarked on completing a bucket list. She traveled with her sister throughout Europe, threw herself into college life at Yale, joined a circus school in San Francisco for a summer, and became an actress.

But the most important priority was becoming a mother.

“The first thing that struck me, even though I was so far from having them: Does that mean I can’t have children?” she said. “I wanted to see my children when they were born.”

Kear married her husband, David, in 2003, and they now have three children, ages 2,7 and 9. The kids know their mom is losing her vision, and Kear is glad she’s been forthright with them, as they understand it and take it very matter-of-factly.

Fortunately, Kear’s vision and her management of the disease have held up well. She is legally blind, with only 10 degrees of vision, and she has developed cataracts, a common side effect of retinitis pigmentosa, which has worsened any acuity she had in the center of her vision.

However, she credits technological developments – such as being able to zoom in on her iPhone, or enlarging text on her Kindle – for helping her manage without giving up too much of her life.  

Kear hasn’t learned Braille yet, but she has trained with a cane and expects she’ll have to use it more in the near future – especially at night and in crowded places.

“I’m glad I lived life the way I did, but the doctor was right: At a certain point, you have to prepare,” she said.
Kear’s biggest struggles have been telling people about her vision loss, which she’s been able to confront with the publishing of her book, but also the uncertainty of the future.

“It is hard; you can get dejected about it, but everybody has obstacles. We all have our challenges and hurdles,” Kear said. “This is mine, and it’s not the worst. There are ways through it.

Blind Business Owner

Ryan Smith owner of Order in the Court is serving good food and busting stereotypes with each customer. Smith is blind and not only does he run the register, he runs the business.

The story behind visor - a low vision aid for iPhone, iPad & iPod touch

I found this story on Apple vis. I know it doesn't fit our standard theme but I thought it was worth sharing.

Submitted by André on 19 February, 2015 - 16:49

This story starts with my dad. He is a retired electrical engineer, a great craftsman and a dedicated family man.

Shortly after he retired, over the course of two weeks, he experienced a 90% loss of vision in his right eye. Two years later, the same thing happened to his left eye. After a battery of tests, doctors insisted that the only explanation was that my dad had suffered a stroke, (he hadn’t) and said there was very little they could do to help him regain his vision.

Just like that, my dad’s life changed drastically. Prior to his vision loss, he could be found in his workshop, tinkering with electronic gadgets or reading the newspaper the way every dad does. Now even simple tasks like making toast take a very long time. Seeing people’s faces has become nearly impossible—he has to resort to identifying people by their silhouette, their voice or their mannerisms. It troubled me to see him so sad after his vision loss, unable to do all the things he was known for. I felt helpless, but as a designer, I started to think of ways to artificially improve his vision.

We went to our local optometrist, who presented a few electronic low vision aids. Trying out the options, we found them to be bulky, difficult to use and completely overpriced, with some options costing as much as €5000. My dad, who always has his trusty iPad with him, leaned over and mumbled “Why can’t it be as easy as my iPad?” That’s when I thought: Could I design and build an iOS vision-aid app? Excited, I enlisted the help of my friend and engineer Sebastian Marr. After hearing about the existing vision-aids, he vowed to help me build a better solution.

The project had begun.

Over the next year, working in our free time, we consulted local low-vision organizations to get more information about the diversity of visual impairments and built our first prototype to test with a number of visually impaired people, including my dad. Now we had proven our theory: that it was possible to provide a highly portable, easy to use and affordable vision aid by building an app native to iOS, one of the best operating systems for the visually impaired.

12 prototypes and 6 months later, we’re proud to present visor — a low-vision aid for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Available now in the app store.

https://appsto.re/de/vC5r4.i

Forum: 

• iOS & iOS App Discussion

User Options