It would be truly wild if you could take the skills you have learned through playing audio games, like Swamp or Tactile Battle, and transfer them into real world Orientation and Mobility. Surprisingly enough, J.J. did just that when he spoke to Brandon Biggs, Engineer with the Smith-Kettlewell | Eye Research Institute, during our CSUN 2020 coverage. A lot has happened in two years and Brandon is back to demonstrate the Audiom project. Audiom is a browser based inclusive map system that utilizes Open Street Map data in ways that allow the user to explore the world around them in a manner that provides more information than what can be parsed by a screen reader by itself. Tune in, or read below, to experience demos of this new system of navigation. Also, be sure to check out our previous coverage of the TMaps initiative as it is a great partner technology mentioned in this interview. Be sure to visit the Audiom public beta website to test drive this software for yourself.
Audiom is funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research, and National Institutes of Health.
Blind Bargains Virtual Exhibit Hall coverage is Brought to you by AFB AccessWorld.
For the latest news and accessibility information on mainstream and access technology, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon offerings, access technology book reviews, and mobile apps, and how they can enhance entertainment, education and employment, log on to AccessWorld, the American Foundation for the Blind's free, monthly, online technology magazine. Visit https://www.afb.org/aw
Transcript
We strive to provide an accurate transcription, though errors may occur.
Hide transcriptTranscribed by Grecia Ramirez
Directly, and actually in person, from Anaheim, it’s blindbargains.com coverage of CSUN 2022. Brought to you by AFB AccessWorld.
For the latest news and accessibility information on mainstream and access technology; Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon offerings; access technology book reviews and mobile apps; and how they can enhance entertainment, education, and employment, log onto AccessWorld. The American Foundation for the Blind’s free online technology magazine. Www.afb.org/aw.
Now, here’s J.J. Meddaugh.
J.J. MEDDAUGH: Blind Bargains at CSUN 2022. And remember back two years ago when we just broke into one of these platinum ballrooms, and we spoke to Brandon about audio maps and some other cool stuff? Well, we’ve done it again. Brandon Biggs is back. He is the product manager of Audiom, a really cool audio map experience. It’s a project of the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, and Brandon is back to tell us all about it.
Welcome back to the podcast.
BRANDON BIGGS: Thanks for having me.
JM: Little more activity at this CSUN versus the one from two years ago, at least; right?
BB: Yeah. Definitely. And more exciting things have been happening this year than two years ago.
JM: Absolutely. So good to be in person. And so good to play with Audiom, that’s audio with an M.
This was kind of a proof of concept that we were talking about two years ago, turning maps into audio, but it’s come a long way since then. So why don’t you go ahead and update everyone on what you’re doing.
BB: Yeah. So Audiom is a multimodal, cross-sensory map experience that you can use equally visually, auditorily, and in text. And you can connect your Braille Display to it and get the text experience. So basically, what it is is it’s a map viewer that you can visit on your browser, on any browser. And right now, we got a keyboard interface, so you can attach a keyboard to your phone or to your computer. And we’ve got a couple different maps. So one of them is a map that you can search for any address in the world and get a map of that location, and you can go through and navigate and get kind of an overview of where that address is.
JM: So perhaps that would be explained better by playing a demo, so why don’t we go ahead and do that.
BB: We have built a tool that will allow you to search for any address in the world and view a map of that location. So I’m going to down arrow and enter my address.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Please select location to generate map. Combo box collapsed. Enter location –
BB: All right. And I’m going to type in Taka’s Grill, which is the name of a restaurant in Fort Bragg, California.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Taka – Taka – Taka – enter location. Edit has autocomplete – enter location –
BB: And I’m going to hit down arrow and see if it finds it.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Enter location. Edit has autocomplete spelling error. Taka’s Grill. Taka’s Grill: North Main Street, Fort Bragg, California, USA. List: Taka’s Grill, North Main Street, Fort Bragg, California, USA.
BB: That sounds like the place I want to go, so I’m going to hit enter.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Enter location. Edit has autocomplete – application. Audio map on button.
BB: And now it’s loaded the map, and I am going to go ahead and switch over to my screen reader.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Using your screen reader.
BB: All right. And now, I can explore around this location. I’m going to press the up arrow to move north about 2 meters and left arrow to move left about 2 meters. And as I move around, we’ll here different sounds. So I’m going to press the left arrow.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Building: 381-508.
BB: So we heard building, and then some coordinates that tell us where in the map that we are currently. So basically, a lot of maps actually put points around buildings, and they just call them buildings. And there will be a point somewhere around here. So I’m going to press T to turn on surround sounds. And so we hear a bunch of roads around us, and we also hear to our left that there is the sound of a restaurant. So that’s where I’m presuming Taka’s Grill is is actually to the left. But this is the building where Taka’s Grill is, and so we can explore the shape of this building by moving around.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Building: 300 –
BB: Pressing left arrow key.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Building – building – building – building -- blank space.
BB: And so now I’m going to hit the down arrow key, and we can explore that building some more.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Building: 374. Building -- building – building – building: 300 --
BB: All right. And now, I’m going to go and find that point. Make sure it really is Taka’s Grill.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Blank – blank – blank space: 300 – blank – blank – blank space – Taka’s Japanese Grill: Japanese restaurant at 250 North Main Street: 306 –
BB: Yup. That seems to be Taka’s Grill. All right. So now, I’m going to hit the left arrow key and go to some of these roads that are to our left.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Blank space – blank – park -- parking aisle: 357-510.
BB: So we can hear --
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Park – park – blank space.
BB: -- that we’re in a parking aisle, and we’re going to go – I’m going to press down arrow key, and we’re going to move past this parking aisle. And then I’m going to press the left arrow key to move to where the street is.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Blank – blank – blank space -- North Main Street, main road: 352-507.
BB: Now, we can hear that we’re on North Main Street. Now, I can follow North Main Street down –
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: North -- North – North -- North Main Street, main road. Blank – blank – North -- North –
BB: I’m going to follow that along and explore the town of Fort Bragg.
JM: So a lot going on there. And, of course, I guess you’re able to navigate and do all sorts of stuff and find locations. What were some of the principles that were guiding your development of this?
BB: Yeah. So we took a lot of the conventions that are present in audio games, so games such as, you know, Swamp and Tactical Battle, and put them into what we have for an – a map. And so these games do use maps, but they’ve never been connected to real-world locations, and definitely not in a web browser. So this is what we kind of are doing is using these conventions from audio games in the browser, and getting it to a point where a business can embed this audio map right next to their visual map. Or they can replace their visual map with an Audiom full crossing street experience.
JM: You make a really good point there; right? Because if someone wants to embed a map on their website, they want to be compliant, but, yet, there really isn’t a tool that they could currently use until now to actually embed an accessible map.
BB: Exactly. So what we’ve been trying to do is talk with businesses. And what I’ve been doing is asking them what their techniques are to make their maps accessible, and places that do accessibility audits and places that are trying to make their websites very accessible have no good response to what – how do you make your maps inclusive to nonvisual users. So that’s what Audiom is really trying to solve.
So what we want is for blind users to contact the websites that they’re using that have inaccessible maps and ask them to get in contact with us here at Audiom, and we can work with them to try to get an accessible version of their map on their website.
JM: I’ve had a chance to play with an early version, and it’s really amazing. I’ve put in the Marriott address here at CSUN, and because there is some indoor navigation data that came from somewhere – I’m not sure if it was Goodmaps or somebody else that put it in. For instance, when you go near the Starbucks, there’s, like, sounds of a coffee place as you walk by.
BB: Yeah. So what we tried to do is – we’re constantly improving the sounds that are there, but basically, the idea is that different types of features which are basically locations or types of items on the map have a particular sound represented by either a looping sound – so a coffee shop would have the sound of a coffee maker, maybe somebody preparing the coffee, or it would be a short sound. For example, when you’re going over a building, it will make the sound of wood clinking.
So that’s kind of the idea behind Audiom. And so it really reduces the cognitive load that is required when navigating around a space.
JM: And as you’re navigating around and you’re moving around, the sounds will pan as you’re moving around the map with the arrow keys or other means, and, you know, those – even, you know, the street sounds, you know, as you're coming near a street. There’s so many things like that. And is there going to be an option eventually for people to upload their own custom sounds for, you know, building types that may not be anticipated?
BB: Yeah. That’s definitely on the road map. So what we would like is for people to be able to even create their own maps and up load sounds to have representations of features that might not be on OpenStreetMap, and we’re really experimenting with this. It’s in the very early stages, but it’s definitely something that we’re headed towards. And so we want to make the whole OpenStreetMap experience accessible to blind people from creating maps to viewing maps.
JM: So you mentioned other data, perhaps besides just street level information. Here’s another example that -- which we can share with our listeners, using a COVID heat map.
BB: This cross-sensory COVID-19 choropleth map refreshes every 24 hours and shows case, death, and testing information for each of the 50 U.S. states and territories. There are two modes, a tabular view and a geographic view. We’ll start with the tabular view. But first, I’m going to switch to using my screen reader by pressing backslash.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Backslash. Using your screen reader.
BB: I’m going to press N to open up the table.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: N. Data overview dialogue: Table. Rhode Island: Row two. Name: column one.
BB: Each row in this table is a state, and each column is a statistic about that state. I’m going to press R to hear which row I’m on.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: R: Rhode Island.
BB: I’m going to press the right arrow to hear the first statistic about Rhode Island.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: 259,064: Row 2. Cases: Column 2.
BB: We heard the total – number, we heard the column header, which is total cases, and we heard a pitch relative to the other pitches in this column, so we can tell that Rhode Island actually has fewer relative total cases to the other states. I’m going to hit the up arrow, and we’ll go to the column header.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Total cases: Column header, row one: Total cases –
BB: And I’m going to hit enter twice.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Sorted ascending. Sorted descending.
BB: Now, I’m going to hit the down arrow.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: 9,064,286: Row two. Total cases: Column two.
BB: And I’m going to hit R to hear which state has the highest total cases.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: California. R.
BB: And I’m going to hit the right arrow key to hear the next statistic.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: 229,405: Row two. Cases per one million: Column three.
BB: So we can hear that California has the highest total cases, but relatively fewer cases per one million. I’m going to hit enter on this cell, and what that’s going to do is jump me to the geographic view. And I will be in California. And the geographic map will switch to using cases per one million.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Audio map on button.
BB: In the geographic view, I can use the up arrow, which will move me about 50 kilometers to the north. I’m going to – I can press the right arrow, which will move me about 50 kilometers to the east. Down arrow will move 50 kilometers to the south, and so on and so forth. I’m going to press the up arrow a few times.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: California: 229,405 cases per one million. Nevada: 230,913 cases per one million. Nevada: 200 – Nevada – Oregon: 166,250 cases per one million.
BB: So we can tell that California and Nevada have relatively similar cases per one million, but Oregon has significantly fewer cases per one million. I’m going to press the right arrow a few times.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Oregon: 1 – Nevada: 200 -- Idaho: 247,298 cases –
BB: Using this navigation, we can get the shape of each state, spatial information and relationships between the states, and answer questions such as which state bordering California has the highest number of COVID cases.
JM: So that’s really interesting. You’re getting data from other sources, and you’re kind of combining it with Audiom. How did that process work?
BB: So we have a base layer, which is basically the geographic states that are here on this map. And we are grabbing the COVID case information from an external API and then connecting the information from that external API to the base layer that we have. So it’s a process on our back end that we do. And we take quite a few different data attributes such as case numbers, total cases, cases per one million, total deaths, deaths per one million, testing information. So we’ve got all these different statistics coming from this API, and we refresh it every 24 hours so that you get kind of the latest information. So that’s basically what we have right now. And so this allows people to answer questions like, you know, what state bordering California has the highest number of COVID cases –
JM: Right.
BB: -- or it allows, really, the spatial information to be combined with the variables that are there. And so there’s a lot of work still to do on here, but I wanted to get something that people could use to view COVID case information. And hopefully, we can convince places like the CDC to embed an Audiom map next to their existing COVID maps.
JM: Would you anticipate at some point creating your own API so if people wanted to add their own layers to the map, they could do so?
BB: Yeah. We’re investigating how to do that. Definitely we’re wanting people to be able to create their own custom layers so that they can add points or polygons on top of the map.
JM: Mm-hmm.
BB: And then be able to share those with other people. And then – yeah. That’s definitely something that we’re hopefully going to be adding in the near future.
JM: So currently, Audiom is a virtual experience that you can explore a map. It’s not necessarily, at the moment, meant for realtime while you’re actually walking around. Is that something you’re exploring, or are you going to focus mostly on the virtual map viewing?
BB: Well, it’s definitely an experience that you’re supposed to do, like, while you’re at home and kind of getting an idea of the map because otherwise, you’re going to be – it’s going to be pretty stressful trying to figure out what’s around you. But it’s definitely something we’re looking at. So having a – right now, you can only use your keyboard, and I don’t know very many people that carry around a keyboard that they can use while they’re walking. So technically, you could use it while you’re walking, but it won’t track you and it –
JM: And it won’t refresh.
BB: -- it won’t refresh, so you’d have to kind of follow along virtually as you’re walking, which is a -- unpractical. So definitely, it’s something we’re looking into, and we’d like to integrate eventually with apps that are, you know, navigation apps like BlindSquare or Goodmaps or have – so that they can have a map view just like Google does on their Google Maps or I – Apple Maps has on their Apple Maps.
JM: Yeah. We were talking before we started recording is how interesting it is, the various modalities that you can get information about this hotel. You have Audiom going, there’s the Goodmaps demo that’s live here, Aira has free calls here this week. So there’s a lot of different ways you can get that information and to be able to kind of combine all those or use the best tool is really empowering.
BB: Yeah. And lots of research shows that blind people really want as many tools as possible. And so in my research or – and in other people’s research who have asked blind people what they want, they say they want a highly accurate turn-by-turn navigation system, a way to preview and explore – like, a map, and they want that map in multiple modalities. So that’s really what we’re trying to do is create that ideal navigation experience that people have requested.
JM: Yeah. Another modality that, of course, we’ve been talking about a lot on interviews all week are tactile graphics and tactile maps using these – the Pads and other things like that. Is that an area that you’re exploring as well?
BB: Absolutely. That is something that we are looking into, and we’re actually – I just published a paper and presented a paper on the TMAPs project. So if you’ve never heard of TMAPs, it’s – stands for Tactile Map Automated Production. And you can go onto – just Google “TMAP Lighthouse,” or “TMAP blind,” and it’s the first thing that’ll pop up.
And you can order a tactile map of any location in the – I think it’s in the world, but it works best in the U.S. And you can get a tactile map of that location for very inexpensive compared to what it used to be. You can also, if you have an embosser at home, emboss your own TMAP.
So one thing that we have on a road map is to integrate Audiom with TMAPs, so you can both view a TMAP before you print it out and then – so that you can order a TMAP from Audiom eventually.
JM: That would be amazing.
BB: Yeah.
JM: That really would be cool. So we’re moving from the theoretical to the beta, or at least an early beta. You’re starting to look for some more feedback.
BB: Absolutely. So if you want to test Audiom for yourself, go to audiom.net. And that’s audio with an M dot net. And you can go and sign up and view Audiom for yourself so you can search for any address, and you can view the COVID case map that we’ve got there. And please give us any feedback that you have, and again, recommend Audiom to businesses or places that you would like to have an accessible map for.
JM: If a business wants to embed an accessible map, is that a thing that would be free for them?
BB: We’re not sure how exactly it’s going to work. At this particular moment, no businesses – we haven’t embedded it into their maps yet. But that – working with the businesses is how we plan to make revenue for our business and keep the lights on and keep development going. So it probably won’t be free for businesses that are having a lot of traffic because that also costs us when they have traffic.
JM: Sure. It’s like you have a free level, and then –
BB: Exactly. It’s probably going to be –
JM: -- so many per month.
BB: -- similar to Google Maps.
JM: Yup.
BB: Yeah. Google Maps or Mapbox. That’s, I think, what we’re going to end up doing. Or if a place wants to license the Audiom software, they’ll be able to do that, and, hopefully, that’s what we’re planning.
JM: Is the focus mostly on outdoor data, or are you just as interested and mapping indoor spaces as well as much as OpenStreetMap will allow for that?
BB: Yeah. We are definitely interested in indoor spaces, and we’re trying to work with Goodmaps right now. The hardest part is getting the data. So the data for indoor spaces is extremely hard to get, and it’s not available. So places like Goodmaps are actually scanning buildings, and so they have that data somewhere. And it’s just kind of a matter of let’s get the stars aligned so that we can access that information and integrate with places like Goodmaps. And so that’s what we really want to do, and so we’ve been in talkings for a while, trying to get that working.
JM: Well, like I said, I’ve been playing with this for a little bit, and it’s a lot of fun. I definitely encourage people that are listening to sign up for the beta and start playing with audio maps and Audiom and let Brandon and everyone know what you think about it.
Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
BB: Yeah. Absolutely. And I can’t wait to hear what everybody says about Audiom.
JM: Sounds good. We’ll find another platinum suite next time.
All right, thanks.
For more exclusive coverage, visit blindbargains.com or download the Blind Bargains app for your iOS or Android device.
Blind Bargains audio coverage is presented by the A T Guys, online at atguys.com.
This has been another Blind Bargains audio podcast. Visit blindbargains.com for the latest deals, news, and exclusive content.
This podcast may not be retransmitted, sold, or reproduced without the express written permission of A T Guys.
Copyright 2022.
Listen to the File
File size: 25.1MB
Length: 21:2
- Download the file
- Listen using our Enhanced Accessible Web Player
- Download our Blind Bargains Apps to listen from your phone or tablet
Check out our audio index for more exclusive content
Blind Bargains Audio RSS Feed
This content is the property of Blind Bargains and may not be redistributed without permission. If you wish to link to this content, please do not link to the audio files directly.
Category: ShowsNo one has commented on this post.
You must be logged in to post comments.
Or Forgot username or password?
Register for free
Joe Steinkamp is no stranger to the world of technology, having been a user of video magnification and blindness related electronic devices since 1979. Joe has worked in radio, retail management and Vocational Rehabilitation for blind and low vision individuals in Texas. He has been writing about the A.T. Industry for 15 years and podcasting about it for almost a decade.
