Category: Daily Living
With the advent of MMS (that's picture messages to most of you), remote assistance is now possible, enabling us to crowdsource identification. Whether you use Flickr for this, send a message to multiple recipients, or even Facebook to do it is beyond the scope of this article.
I realize some would say this is Geeks 'R' Us, but I'm only going to cover how you take a picture especially if you've never seen. This is, or at least it will, an affectation of our daily life so it belongs on the daily life board I presume.
First, clear out your images or pictures folder by moving them to a sub folder or something on your phone. You don't want to be confused as to which one you're sending. If your reader can read the name on the image, usually when the phone is in list mode or single column mode, pictures usually say 'image000x' where x is the number. You want the highest numbered one as the latest, but let's go squeeze off a shot.
Generally on the back of your phone you will find a miniature lens, looks like, well, a lens; a magnifying lens you used to set a leaf on fire with on a hot day. The size of the thing may scare you, as it's very small, but don't let it. It even startled me the first time I saw one, and I understand megapixels and ratio calculations in a geeky way that would spoil it for most sighted people, but suffice it to say the picture is not the result of a stream or a laser beam. The exposure and the flash actually is radiated out from all points on the lens. As though it had countless invisible spokes all the way around it, plus spires sticking out at all angles, not just straight.
So why all this? Because we're blinks, and if you're like me, a lifer, you've never even thought of how people take pictures except in the classic sense where everyone lines up for thirty minutes while Aunt Lettie plays with the flash and the kids start cutting up.
Those cameras weren't intelligent, but your cell phone camera is. Your end game is as follows:
A second use came up on Twitter the other day. Someone else who's blind needed to know for her emergency people on the phone if she was pale. Now many phones have what's called a self-portrait mode you can use for this. To see if your phone has it, read the manual. No, kidding, of course one of us gearheads would say that. But seriously at the top of your screen you will find what looks like a slit in the shape of a raised letter i or maybe a round lens.
Now the trick to this is to stretch out your arm at arm's length in front of your face, the same rules apply you don't want it right in front of your face because you want all the exposure you can get here. Technically none of this is film exposure so serious geeks can rest, it's an illustration. The button will be the same usually, but the option you selected will have been different, depending on your phone, and you really do need to read the manual for that.
If you don't know how to do the self-portrait, just turn the phone around, at arm's length, and use a finger to press the magic button while balancing it against your thumbs which ar at the base of the phone.
This should do ya for starters.
Oh okay Robo, I'll have to try this and see if I could get a clear picture or see if I could take a good one at least.
Wow! What wonderful explanations from the two of you! I actually want to take some pictures of myself, not just of my face, because I want to show my military-style clothing. I've got a camera in my Macbook. How could I take the picture properly? What about if I wanted to take a picture of something, either for someone sighted or to use in the VOIC so that I can hear what it looks like? How do I know that the whole thing will come out, especially if it's small? My problem has always been how to position the screen so that the camera's not looking at the floor or the ceiling and how close or far I should be from the object. Also, in general, what about a regular camera like a Polaroid or a disposable one like from the drug store? Do they work the same as far as the whole spoke idea or do they need to be more targeted?
I'll try and answer the last questions one at a time if I can:
About your macbook:
I really don't know but it's probably in megapixels. What you do will probably be different, what I've described here is for cell phone users. If it's designed to be a web cam plus a still cam, the idea is still the same. Us blinks feel stuff with the hands, but imagine more how you are locating something by sound, when you're trying to visualize what the pic is like for someone sighted.
What I mean is, it's always panoramic. I wanted this topic to be for people who need to crowd-source vision help, they're stuck and need someone sighted to just take a look at something quick, the situations every blink in the universe gets into. Pictures for identification, or for posting on Facebook, are one thing.
Pictures for your real photo album require someone sighted I would think.
Disposable cameras don't have the autofocus capacity for this. They're designed for real pics you're gonna print and keep around for awhile. But this very thing is what keeps blinks from doing it when they need to: fine for the luxuriant wanting to create a photo album to experiment, but when you're stuck and trying to get someone sighted to help you identify or read a label, whether you're using a web cam on Skype or a cell phone with a picture message, don't hold the object right up next to the camera, and keep yourself / your hands out of the way as much as possible. Feel for and find the lens. Then track back at a reasonably straight angle for a few - five to ten - steps to do this.
Once you understand the principles you can apply them to any megapixel camera on your computer or cell phone. The difference is that if you're in a webcam conference on Skype or something you can make adjustments in real-time if someone sighted is on the other end and is talking to you.
Built-in webcams are so good now that we put the computers in the main room where the grandparents are, one in the room with the grandkids opening presents, and nobody is trying to be all pose-ish, it's just a real-time feed. That's already happening.
But to place this to our advantage, especially the advantage of people living alone or in out-of-the-way places, we need to publicize how blind people can meaningfully do this so it's vision help crowdsourced.
My second post on this thread was no joke, and forced me to an alarmingly realistic awareness of how crucial this could be for somebody's life.
I never thought of using pictures in this way, but it's a great idea. Yes, the ISight camera in the Macbook is for stills and video. I'll try to keep what you said in mind and then see if I can take a few pics. I wouldn't recommend real cameras for emergencies either, since polaroids still take awhile to develop and, of course, you have to go to the film places to develop any other types of film. But webcams are ideal for these situations, particularly if you have someone, say on a messenger, to whom you can quickly get the image.
Most importantly a cell phone can instantly send to someone who will get a ring or a vibrate and can immediately crop, rotate and modify the picture on their end to see it better and at least give you some idea of what's going on. This could tell you how badly your hand was burned, what the bottle is you have that you think is soap but is really cleaning fluid of some other sort, or what the label says.
Your cell phone is the most flexible for this, and once you have the pic, you can send it to multiple recipients and get multiple feedbacks, making the best decision.Perhaps I should go find some other place to post this information, where it won't get all muddled up with talk about outmoded technology which can't help blinks one bit. There are real blinks who have limited options / nobody close, and this sort of crowdsourcing which is used by people for so many other things could quite literally change a situation for someone. I know of two instances where this could have helped alleviate problems for people, and only wish I'd have thought of this sooner / posted it someplace. Anyway carry on and spoil it with discussions of older cameras or photo albums I guess. I just hope this info can get out to people with few options, which are many in number I imagine.
I think I'll be writing to Solona about how to include MMS into their Rave solution, but this will have to be sponsored, as MMS is not free to host. Perhaps there will be already an MMS2email solution available and we can work with them so users can mms a pick to the service and get a response back.
Anyway once I've figured all this out I'd sure welcome a response here from someone who writes better than I do, of which there are plenty on here. someone who's down with this and isn't wanting to just play with 'tech' as they call it. Maybe said writer can help write to Fred's Head and might know of other places in the blinkosphere where this could be put out.
For us blinks it's the instant unpredictable scenarios that are the hardest, what the hell does this thing say right now? How many lights are blinking?
The latter - the lights - you can't get photographed in a blinking state, and I don't even know how an LED looks to someone sighted, but the spectra makes me think the results are probably questionable at best. Anyway if we can solve this by crowdsourcing visual feedback using mms and sms, that's another huge step forward, and anyone who's been a blink for awhile will know this.
I think that's a wonderful idea. Perhaps, we could write out a few vital instances in which this technology could be used as well as a few common but still very helpful ones, like reading labels, and then create an essay about it. I'm sure that at least APH would be willing to listen, since they have all sorts of information how to use technology. The NFB is also known for that, so might be willing to put something up, and of course, there are various pod casts and shows about tech for the blind. Maybe, one of them would be willing to do a show or a segment on this.
great topic roboz.
as someone who use camera (digital camera) alot in lesure time, i totally agree with what roboz said here. the great thing about using a phone camera is that, is instent, and it help even in situation such as if you're lost in an unfamiliar environment or things like that.
what my university trying to do now is using such technology and basicly break it down to such where, a student let say from building A wanting to go to building C, take a photo of his or her surrounding in Building A, send it to the server, and the server will nap a rute from building A to Building C. it is on trail of course, and mainly will be use for whillchair users, it is still on the development, but, yet another way to show how much the morden tech have come, and what they can do if you combine 2 or more product together. this is what call tech.
Hmm, it sounds like if this were expanded and paired with gps technology, it could help us decide which roads to take and which to avoid, say, due to traffic. Suppose, for example, that pictures of the roads were already taken, which many are due to sattelites etc. Then the information could be accessed via a gps, along with an alternative route. Perhaps, this already exists. I'm not sure. It could also be used to add buildings that aren't already on the map and maybe even to help us travel inside buildings, where gps systems aren't always the most helpful. Say that someone has to go to a job interview. The blind person could simply video him/herself and either a person or a computer, using previously taken images, could help map out where the blind person needs to go. Just ideas, but who knows? They might work.
Now I did a bit of research last night and the following may help you:
The site is twitpics.com
What it does is posts a URL and your tweet to Twitter when you upload a photo. Obviously you wouldn't want to do this for something data-sensitive with your identity on it, but you could do so with a box to know if it's the product you were looking for. This means you have a group of followers on Twitter of course, and that you have set your phone up to do sms (text messages) to Twitter, and MMS (pic messages) to Twitpics.
Another way to crowdsource visual help as any number of people will tweet you back.
This past Saturday I was testing the uploads feature on Facebook using my phone so that, once done, I could help my wife set up hers. She'll be needing it for her retailer trade show.
Anyway I just took a pic of my bookshelf, uploaded to Facebook via MMS with a subject like 'Testing this thing out' and got a response telling me it worked: A buddy commented on it saying "Dude, nice bookshelf, what gives?"
That was crowdsourcing visual help because what I needed then was just to ensure that visually the pic was there. Sure I could have gotten on the computer, gone on Facebook, looked at the site, then used the browser's source features to look at the element in particular and guess based on size and the like if it got there. Quicker, and more accurate, just to have gotten a comment back telling me that it worked.
Instead of Twitpics you could even use your Facebook as you only have certain people seeing your albums anyway but Facebook isn't a place for sensitive data either.
Either one of these could be great for when you're lost: even post, "Recognize this place? I don't, can you tell me where I'm at". It's within our grasp we just don't have a one-stop solution.
But though some put down the idea of stitched-together solutions, don't we blinks basically do that all the time? Pretty much, we troubleshoot our way through life where we can't get access to a ton of information, but using this as a tool perhaps we can do considerably better at it.