March 20, 2015 
According to a new research by a team of psychologists and computing experts at the British University of Bath, the sound can be more useful for the blind to create images in the brain than various invasive surgical procedures…
This team examined a technology called The vOICe (where the OIC stands for “Oh I See” ) which was developed by the Dutch scientist Dr. Peter Meijer from Philips Research Laboratories. The vOICe software converts images from a camera built into the visor (similar to that from the Star Trek) into the complex “sonic landscapes” – a series of different sounds that are played through headphones.
The visual information from the left and right half of the visual field are in that way converted into sounds that are played into the corresponding handset. Closer objects are louder, and the frequency indicates the vertical positioning – items placed lower in the visual field are represented by lower frequency than those objects placed more in the visual field. With a little bit of practice, users can learn how certain forms sound and move in space.
There are 40 million blind in the world – the development of this technology is of enormous importance
One of the users – a sixty-year-old who was born blind – tested this technology and after a one-hour training managed to avoid obstacles on his way and to take various items from the table. In contrast, with the surgical prosthetic implants or stem cell used to restore vision, users even after prolonged training often do not see much more than abstract forms, especially if they are born blind: the vision, like hearing and language, is a skill that we learn from an early age. Who does not overcome some of these skills in childhood; later it will be very difficult to adopt it – and usually to a very limited extent.
Therefore, after surgery, most patients during the first few months will possibly see the outlines of objects which are located directly in front of them, while users of this technology – which relies on the sense with which they are already very skilled – will achieve much better results in a much shorter time.
The basis of this technology has been around for more than ten years; early devices of this kind provided the blind with the information on buildings in the environment and their size, and on the larger obstacles in the way. In this iteration, the same technology allows even reading of printed text, approximately at the level of very short-sighted person without glasses or lenses.
The development of such technologies is very important for approximately 40 million blind in the world, and many others which suffer glaucoma or diabetes and also threatened by blindness. Given the aging population and consumption, that will number in the foreseeable future can only grow, reported The Guardian.
Taken from: www.index.hr