A news item which I found very interesting recently concerns the extension of online virtual worlds to blind people thanks to research by students at IBM in Ireland. Estimates predict that 80% of active internet users will be using a virtual world in four years' time (a figure that based on the popularity of Second Life can't easily be disputed). The company is keen to ensure that blind people are not excluded from an environment that sighted people will take for granted and has thus designed an audio equivalent of the virtual world using 3D sound to create a sense of space.
The initial project - called Accessibility In Virtual Worlds - is what the company describes as "a proof of concept" at this stage but will be passed on to IBM's Human Ability and Accessibility Centre in Texas for further development. The Irish team decided to use the Active Worlds online environment rather than the more popular Second Life for flexibility reasons. Active Worlds is a collection of user-made virtual worlds that people can visit via a web browser plug-in.
To offer a better insight on how this all works; "When the user comes into the world, the items are described as well as their positions," explained Colm O'Brien, one of the team of four researchers who worked on the project. "There is also sound attached - for example, if there's a tree nearby you will hear a rustling of leaves," said Mr O'Brien. The work also developed tools which uses text to speech software that reads out any chat from fellow avatars in the virtual world that appears in a text box. Characters in the virtual world can have a "sonar" attached to them so that the user gets audible cues to alert them to when they are approaching, from which direction and how near they are.
A number of blind mentors have given advice and feedback to the team - one in IBM's Dublin lab and two based at IBM's research centre in Texas. The team also liaised with the National Council for the Blind of Ireland on their work. As well as proving that the idea is feasible, the team has made a number of recommendations about accessibility standards for virtual worlds which should help the developers of the future.
All in all this is an extremely interesting and innovative piece of research work in the general area of virtual urban modelling, for more information check the links below, the first one for the original BBC story and the second for the IBM site in question...
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