Original from: http://www.techpin.com/

It's great that IBM is thinking at people with disabilities like blindness, and that are attracted by Second Life world.

The company is actually developing an innovative audible system that will be integrated with virtual worlds to provide detailed descriptions of the surround and items.

While living in Second Life blind people will know when they encounter a tree for example, by hearing leaves rustling.
They will also hear the chats in the game after the txt-to-speech software will be integrated.

The project is called Accessibility in Virtual Worlds and one of the four researchers in the team is Colm O'Brien who declared that "When the user comes into the world, the items are described as well as their positions." "There is also sound attached - for example, if there's a tree nearby you will hear a rustling of leaves".

To exemplify more, each character will have a specific sound attached and when the blind person approaches someone, he/she will hear that sound as a clue indicating three things: when is the character approaching, from which direction comes, and the distance between the player and the person approaching.

IBM will pass the concepts to the IBM's Human Ability and Accessibility Center in Texas, for further development.

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