CNET reports that only 2% of the Smithsonian’s 137 million items is available to the public at any one time. That is why it is planning a digital archive of 3D models, which could then be printed and displayed to expand their reach.

As part of the project, RedEye On Demand recently created a 3D printed “museum-quality historical replica” of a Thomas Jefferson statue they had scanned, which was then installed for the “Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello: Paradox of Liberty” exhibit at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The initiative has an ambitious goal but 3D digitization coordinators Adam Metallo and Vince Rossi are slowly building out the Smithsonian digital archive. Currently, only a few dozen objects can be scanned each year, some of which will be 3D printed while others will be digital 3D models. They hope that in the future there will be lots of 3D printed exhibits and models on display for everyone to enjoy.

Source: PSFK

The Project is financed by the Orange Foundation and supported by the essential contribution of the CNSE Foundation for Removal of Communication Barriers, a key entity for standardising Spanish sign language. This foundation has carried out the translation of the contents for the guides to this language, as well as the subtitling tasks.

This service adds to the normal audioguides, allowing the entire access of deaf persons to the collection on show at the museum.

The sign language guide starts with a welcome message, after which the visitor can discover how the device works. The content of the visit is structured on several core topics about life in Roman Spain. The main menu offers other options, such as a glossary of art terms, Roman history and mythology, a section dedicated to the history of the building which was designed by the Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, and finally a section with information on the schedules, services and activities of the museum.

Source: Solidaridad Digital / El Periódico de Extremadura 

Image: EFE

The growing number of visitors at the Parisian museum, which ranks among the most visited in the world, has caused obstructions not only around the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, but also in other locations of the building. Thus, the Louvre Museum has commissioned a group of researchers to study the movements of the tourists. They think that changing the position of some paintings could relieve overcrowding in certain locations. The first results of this study, carried out in 2010, were presented in one of the leading tourism and technology conferences in Sweden.

The team uses a technological trick: the researches have installed several sensors that are able to detect mobile phones with the Bluetooth function turned on. According to the statistics, at least one in twenty visitors does not turn off this data transmission system, found in the vast majority of modern mobile phones. These sensors can record the device’s path during the visit. Thanks to this trick, the researchers were able to record 13.000 paths over 10 days in 2010, the peak period during four months of recording.

El método respeta la privacidad en la transmisión de datos 

For privacy purpuses, the sensors automatically hide the phone number with an encrypted code, so that the owner of the detected devices cannot be identified. “This project is framed within a field of research that uses the high amount of data generated by mobile phones, GPS and other devices to understand the movements of the masses”, he explains. For example, Girardin analyzed the movement of bicycles and tourists in Barcelona or New York. “It is the first time this technique is applied in a museum”, says Blat. Now, the group wants the weekly and seasonal patterns to suggest more effective tours or possible locations for information offices.

Source: Diario Córdoba

Currently “there are no common models of accessibility in the EU in tourist services. Thus, the EU can play a major role in the drawing up of tourist sector standards and minimal accessibility indicators to be met by hotels and other services in the European Community”, the MEP said. Throughout the different reports and debates, the speakers presented the Balearic Islands, Spain and Europe as an international point of reference in the field of accessible tourist destinations.

The vice-president of the Europen Commision and Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship, Antonio Tajani,

was commissioned for the opening of the event. Also present at this event was the Italian MEP and member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport and Tourism, Carlos Fidanza, and the President of the Disabilty Intergroup for Ádám Kósa. The Balearic Islands were widely represented by the Tourism Director of the Balearic government, Luisa Hernández, the president of the Chamber of Commerce in Mallorca, Juan Gual, the managing director of Diamond Resorts International, Helen Smith, and the founder of Handisport Mallorca, Rafael Winckelmann. Estaràs thanked Tajini for the interest he showed, pointing out the need to promote actions in the European Union to improve the accessibility of tourist destinations.

According to Estaràs, possible policy measures that could be applied in the member countries include the possibility of limiting European funding to the more accessible projects presented by member countries. By the same token, it would be necessary to introduce codes of good practice for member countries that contribute to the professionalization of the tourist sector. The main concerns include accessibility as a business strategy, the improvement of information about accessible tourism for disabled persons, or the development of the Calypso Project of social tourism, which seeks the promotion of tourism in the low season, the fight against seasonality and the stimulation of European citizens through tourist exchanges.

Other measures to be carried out in the member countries include the Prize to the more accessible city, awarded yearly by the EU to reward the efforts in this field. “If the country does not include accessibility in its policies and tourism strategies, it will become less attractive and competitive as a destination for everyone, especially for disabled persons and their families” the MEP warned.

Economic advantages of barrier-free tourism

From the economic point of view, Spain ranks highest in tourist destinations. Nevertheless, the traditional tourist pattern of summer tourism has been disrupted. Thus the development of new patterns of potential clients could improve financial profits.

One of the advantages of so-called “barrier-free tourism” is high competitiveness based on distinction. It is to be expected that in the coming years the sociodemographic and lifestyle changes, such as the ageing of the population, lead to an increase in the number of people with some sort of impairment.

Source: Discapnet / Mallorca Diario

MuseumApp consists of three parts:

- Tours: photos, videos, sounds, texts, tasks and opinions are linked with several locations in the city and the different exhibition rooms of the museum.

- Tourmaker, an online edition enviroment intended to create and publish different tours easily.

- One application: for the iPhone and coming soon for Android-based smartphones.  The application allows the users direct contact with the monuments. It is a helpful tool to deepen the knowledge on locations and new forms of interacting.

Source: MuseumApp

Kirstin Broussard, a guide at the Museum of Modern Art, gathered a dozen senior citizens in front of Joan Mitchell’s exuberant 1957 painting Ladybug one recent afternoon to discuss the luscious blue, green, and orange slashes animating the large expanse of white canvas. “It’s chaotic,” observed one visitor. “But it’s beautiful chaos.” When Broussard wondered aloud why Mitchell had titled the picture Ladybug, another member of the group suggested that it captured the spirit of spring. “No! It’s set in winter,” protested another. “Look at all that white.” And a fourth participant offered up the ditty: “Ladybug, ladybug, fly away”….

Continue reading at: ARTnews

Ibáñez announced this during her speech at the Second National CENTAC Congress on Accessibility Technologies which took place on 18 October in La Cartuja Monastery, Seville.

 “Internet has changed our lives”, Ibáñez pointed out. She also announced that in a recent survey carried out by Cisco, “32% of young people said that the internet is as essential as the air we breathe”.  She said that there are currently 325 million websites and that the internet contributes 234 billion euros to Spanish national GDP and that its “economic impact continues to grow”.

Since its early days, as Ibáñez highlighted, the main aim of Google “has been to order information and make it accessible, because all users matter”. However, she stresses that, “we often make the mistake of thinking that persons with disabilities are only a small percentage”. As a matter of fact, in 2009 the number of internet users with a disability in Spain was greater than the total number of internet users in Bolivia.

In addition to this, she also presented some of the accessible products developed by Google, such as “Chrome Vox”, the web browser for those with a visual disability, the ‘Android’ open-source system for mobile devices or the application which allows users to subtitle YouTube videos.

Previously, a roundtable was celebrated under the title, “How can an idea become reality?”. The Head of Projects at CENTAC, Diego Soriano pointed out during this gathering that, “innovation is a motor for growth”, and he explained that because of this, “many companies solely focus on innovation and accessibility technologies”.

Source:  Servimedia

]]> http://gvam.es/blog/en/2317/feed 2 http://gvam.es/blog/en/2314?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=writing-braille-on-a-touchscreen-is-now-possible http://gvam.es/blog/en/2314#comments Fri, 11 Nov 2011 14:15:21 +0000 GVAM http://gvam.es/blog/?p=2314 Despite the fact that screens of the well-known tablets are flat and have nothing that can create sensations in the fingers, they will no longer represent a handicap for those with a visual disability. Engineers from the United States have managed to take a step forward towards electronic accessibility. What is a Braille word processor like for touchscreen devices?  It is a system similar to the virtual joysticks located under the user’s thumb which are used for tablet videogames.

Adam Duran is a student from the University of New Mexico who last year visited the University of Stanford to participate in a two-month summer course organised by the Army High Performance Computing Research Center (AHPCRC). The aim of the course was to develop great ideas that are new and Duran can feel proud of having reached this objective. Together with professionals like Adrian Lew, a professor of mechanical engineering and Sohan Dharmaraja, a mathematician, he thought up a simple system for improving interaction between people who are blind or partially sighted and the touchscreen devices they use.

The first idea was to create a Braille text recognition system for tablets which makes use of the cameras that these devices normally have. But, what if blind people could write in Braille straight onto the touchscreen?  There are already computers which have been adapted to writing in Braille, but as Duran himself says, a standard tablet has many more functions for a tenth of the price. In essence, this would be a cheaper and more comfortable way of bringing those with a visual disability closer to the latest technology.

The solution chosen in the end was that the Braille keyboard of a conventional word processor, which consists of eight keys, would be adapted to touchscreen devices. The key to this solution is that it does not consist of a solid set of keys – instead the keys are created wherever the user wants them to be. This means that the user does not have to search around for a key that they cannot feel with their fingertips. The team from Stanford has thought up a keyboard design which adapts itself to each individual. The application can be fully customised and it even adapts to different finger shapes and sizes.

“Smart, isn’t it?”, Professor Lew proudly says. Charbel Farhat, member of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the University of Stanford and Executive Director of the summer program, said, “no Braille writing machine can do this.  This is a real step forward for the blind and partially sighted.”

Source: Europa Press /  Gizmag

The main goal of this program is to promote the national industry of digital content. It pretends the creation of production centers, the training of students and professionals in that comercial sector and the collaboration between universities and companies whose speciality is multimedia creation.

In this call could participate all the Spanish public universities associated with the CRUE and located in the following Spanish Autonomous Communities: Aragón, Baleares, Cantabria, Catalonia, Madrid, Navarra, La Rioja and Basque Country. The deadline for present the applications is November 15, 2011.

From here, you can download all information about the latest edition of  ‘Programa Profesionales Digitales’ (the next documents are only in spanish):

• Presentación del programa - (PDF)
• Tercera Convocatoria Pública - (PDF)
• Recomendaciones Técnicas – (PDF)

Source: Profesionales Digitales

In the XXI century, in Spain still claiming the right of deaf people who communicate in spoken language, and are users of hearing aids and cochlear implants to live independently and to be included and participate in society.

It is necessary to move from intention to action. In the political and social to the incumbency and sufficient resources, a rational and coherent investment, adjusting the measures to the real needs of people with hearing loss may occur from the moment it is diagnosed hearing loss.

Has recently been approved by Royal Decree of normative adaptation to the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), to begin to adapt the existing statutory regulation on disability with the guidelines set by the Convention. This is the first of a series of measures that must be put in place to ensure the full inclusion of persons with disabilities in all spheres of public and social life.

Undoubtedly, the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, legally binding on countries that have ratified, a breakthrough in the recognition of the rights of persons with disabilities. However, we can not overlook the fact that in Spain we have a legal frame of reference and medical resources, technological and social well advanced compared to the average of countries affected by this rule must incorporate more universal than all realities.

Thus, taking as reference the provisions contained in the Convention, we must continue working from our concrete experience in order to advance progress and not retreat in the conquests achieved.

• EQUAL RIGHTS

People with disabilities, and in our case, deaf people have the right to live independently and be included and participate in society to which they belong (Article 19, CRPD). It is a right that any person wants any family. Nobody questions it when you’re not a disability.However, families who have deaf children we are forced to its permanent claim.

While there are many advances in terms of equal rights from the associations of families of Deaf-FIAPAS can not settle, because the achievements for deaf people in Spain and more specifically for to communicate in spoken and are users of hearing aids, are still scarce and are far from their everyday reality. Therefore are limited in their ability to participate at various levels of their life course on equal terms and with the same opportunities as other citizens, especially in areas such as education and transcendent employment or access to culture and leisure.

• EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES AND CONDITIONS

We consider it absolutely necessary to move from intention to action, the political and social will to the incumbency and sufficient resources, a rational and coherent investment, adjusting the measures to the real needs of people with hearing loss may occur from its diversity and in any case, overcoming the old stereotypes that are built from the ignorance and lack of information.

Among others, we refer to the false belief that deaf people who communicate using spoken language and hearing aids, do not depend on third parties to communicate, have solved all the problems and barriers are not, what it conceals, conditions and clearly damaging real choices to achieve a life of active and independent finding no response to their specific needs because it is very subtle barriers, yet of deep rooting. Accordingly, and as paradoxical as it may seem, the most effort and penalize them their resignations and rendered invisible even to those who need to anticipate and plan the resources to respond to those.

You can not ignore the great potential that current medical advances in science and technology provide these people with hearing loss through the means of support for hearing and oral communication: hearing aids, speech therapy and subtitles, along with magnetic loops FM systems, the latter as a resource to support the hearing.

From the conviction and the certainty of experience we can say that the only way our children with deafness be overcome in their daily or barriers that limit their autonomy and their active and independent.

Source: Fiapas