Software engineers have figured out how to turn charts into music for the blind

https://qz.com/921662/software-engineers-have-figured-out-a-way-to-turn-charts-into-music-for-the-blind/

by wallflower • 9 years ago

49 12 9 years ago

neilcrj• 9 years ago

This is the problem Richard MacDuff was wrestling with at the beginning of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. I love it when sci-fi from my childhood becomes reality.

prefect42• 9 years ago

Oddly enough, that was the first thing that popped into my head, when seeing the title.

fhood• 9 years ago

Thank you for reminding me that that book exists. It's been a few years since I last re-read it.

tcrews• 9 years ago

The title is very clickbaity. Just search for "chart sonification" and see there is a lot of research in this area. Maybe they meant to emphasize that this is a browser extension?

10dpd• 9 years ago

Agreed - this idea has been around since 1914.

owlninja• 9 years ago

This HN thread is the third result already o_O

Mizza• 9 years ago

At Science Hack Day, me and some friends built a version of Super Mario for the Blind that you can play in a similar way:

Play: http://gleitzman.com:1339/

Source: https://github.com/miserlou/jsnes

After a few tries, you can actually get through the first few levels!

gtirloni• 9 years ago

It's an interesting idea! How does one know what each sound represents?

obstbraende• 9 years ago

it doesn't seem to register key presses on chrome 56 (mac os)

Redditshill• 9 years ago

I know it's not exactly the same thing, but reminds me of this video from a while back:

This App Turns Your Photos into Music If You Want to Do That For Some Reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpNgsU9o4ik

ge96• 9 years ago

Didn't this lady do this who is an astrophysicist (also blind)

something about gamma ray burst (heard it on NPR podcast)

andrewclunn• 9 years ago

I'm holding out for the pie charts that are tasty, relationship charts that make it through the tough times, and line charts that get me high as fuck!

Software engineers have figured out how to turn charts into music for the blind

Related Stories