BenVision: Navigating with Music
On Tech & Vision With Dr. Cal Roberts
This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss. When it comes to navigation technology for people who are blind or visually impaired, many apps utilize voice commands, loud tones or beeps, or haptic feedback. In an effort to create a more natural, seamless experience, the team at BenVision has created a different type of system that allows users to navigate using musical cues instead! For this episode, Dr. Cal spoke with BenVision’s CEO and co-founder, Patrick Burton, along with its Technology Leadd, Aaditya Vaze. They shared about the...
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People’s Choice Podcast Awards
On Tech & Vision With Dr. Cal Roberts
We appreciate your support for our show — and now, we need your help nominating the On Tech & Vision podcast for the People’s Choice Podcast Awards! We are participating in these awards so we can showcase On Tech & Vision to a broader audience, gain recognition within the industry, and, most importantly, help spread the message about Lighthouse Guild and the role that technology is playing in tearing down barriers for people who are blind or visually impaired. To help us nominate On Tech & Vision, please go online to , where you can register to vote for...
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The Possibilities of Vision Restoration
On Tech & Vision With Dr. Cal Roberts
This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss. For hundreds of years, health professionals have dreamed of restoring vision for people who are blind or visually impaired. However, doing so, either through transplanting a functioning eye or using technological aids, is an incredibly complex challenge. In fact, many considered it impossible. But thanks to cutting-edge research and programs, the ability to restore vision is getting closer than ever. As a first for this podcast, this episode features an interview with Dr. Cal Roberts himself!...
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Biosensors: The Future of Diagnostic Medicine
On Tech & Vision With Dr. Cal Roberts
This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss. This episode is about how biosensor technology is revolutionizing the field of diagnostic and preventive medicine. Biosensors can take many forms — wearable, implantable, and even ingestible. And they can serve many different functions as well, most notably when it comes to detecting the various pressure levels in our bodies. This episode features interviews with several luminaries working with biosensors. One of them is Doug Adams, a revolutionary entrepreneur who became inspired to create a...
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The World in Your Hand: The Power of Generative AI
On Tech & Vision With Dr. Cal Roberts
When it comes to emerging technology, there’s no hotter topic than artificial intelligence. Programs like ChatGPT and Midjourney are becoming more popular and are inspiring people to explore the possibilities of what AI can achieve — including when it comes to accessible technology for people who are blind or visually impaired. One of those people is Saqib Shaikh, an engineering manager at Microsoft. Saqib leads the team that developed an app called Seeing AI, which utilizes the latest generation of artificial intelligence, known as generative AI Dr. Cal spoke with Saqib about how...
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Reimagining the Visual Arts
On Tech & Vision With Dr. Cal Roberts
This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss. When it comes to art, a common phrase is “look, don’t touch.” Many think of art as a purely visual medium, and that can make it difficult for people who are blind or visually impaired to engage with it. But in recent years, people have begun to reimagine what it means to experience and express art. For this episode, Dr. Cal spoke to El-Deane Naude from Sony Electronics. El-Deane discussed the Retissa NeoViewer, a project developed with QD Laser that projects images taken on a camera...
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Developing Big Ideas: Product Testing and Iteration
On Tech & Vision With Dr. Cal Roberts
This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss. When we buy a product off the shelf, we rarely think about how much work went into getting it there. Between initial conception and going to market, life-changing technology requires a rigorous testing and development process. That is especially true when it comes to accessible technology for people who are blind or visually impaired. For this episode, Dr. Cal spoke to Jay Cormier, the President and CEO of Eyedaptic, a company that specializes in vision-enhancement technology. Their flagship...
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Robotic Guidance Technology
On Tech & Vision With Dr. Cal Roberts
This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss. The white cane and guide dogs are long-established foundational tools used by people with vision impairment to navigate. Although it would be difficult to replace the 35,000 years of bonding between humans and dogs, researchers are working on robotic technologies that can replicate many of the same functions of a guide dog. One such project, called LYSA, is being developed by Vix Labs in Brazil. LYSA sits on two wheels and is pushed by the user. It’s capable of identifying obstacles and...
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Smart Cities and Autonomous Driving: How Technology is Providing Greater Freedom of Movement for People with Vision Loss
On Tech & Vision With Dr. Cal Roberts
This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss. Navigating the world can be difficult for anyone, whether or not they have vision loss. Tasks like driving safely through a city, navigating a busy airport, or finding the right bus stop all provide unique challenges. Thankfully, advances in technology are giving people more freedom of movement than ever before, allowing them to get where they want, when they want, safely. Smart Cities are putting data collection to work in a healthy way by providing information to make busy intersections more...
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Leveling Up Accessible Video Game Features: How New Technology is Making Gaming More Immersive and Inclusive for People with Vision Loss
On Tech & Vision With Dr. Cal Roberts
This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss. For decades, people with vision loss had limited options when it came to accessing video games. Aside from screen magnification and text-to-voice tools, gamers who are blind or visually impaired didn’t have many ways to play their favorite titles. But in recent years, the same cutting-edge technology used to create games has been used to also make them more accessible for people with vision impairment. These advances include more visibility options, the implementation of 3D audio, haptic...
info_outlineThis podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss.
When it comes to navigation technology for people who are blind or visually impaired, many apps utilize voice commands, loud tones or beeps, or haptic feedback. In an effort to create a more natural, seamless experience, the team at BenVision has created a different type of system that allows users to navigate using musical cues instead!
For this episode, Dr. Cal spoke with BenVision’s CEO and co-founder, Patrick Burton, along with its Technology Leadd, Aaditya Vaze. They shared about the inspiration behind BenVision, how they’re able to create immersive soundscapes that double as navigation aids, and the exciting future applications this technology could offer.
The episode also features BenVision’s other co-founder and Audio Director, Soobin Ha. Soobin described her creative process for designing BenVision’s soundscapes, how she harnesses the power of AI, and her bold vision of what’s to come.
Lighthouse Guild volunteer Shanell Matos tested BenVision herself and shares her thoughts on the experience. As you’ll hear, this technology is transformative!
The Big Takeaways
- Why Music? Navigation technology that uses voice, tone, or haptics can create an added distraction for some users. But the brain processes music differently. Instead of overloading the senses, for some users music works alongside them, allowing them to single out separate sound cues, or take in the entire environment as a whole. Like how the different instruments correspond to various characters in “Peter and the Wolf,” BenVision assigns unique musical cues to individual objects.
- User Experience: Shanell Matos appreciated how BenVision blends in more subconsciously, allowing her to navigate a space without having to be as actively engaged with the process.
- Additional Applications: BenVision began as an augmented reality program, and its creators see a potential for it to grow beyond a navigational tool to expand for use by people who are visually impaired or fully sighted. For example, it could be used to create unique soundscapes for museums, theme parks, and more, augmenting the experience in exciting new ways.
- The Role of AI: Artificial Intelligence already plays a big role in how BenVision works, and its creators see it being even more important in the future. BenVision already harnesses AI for object detection and its companion app uses AI to provide instant voice support about the immediate surroundings if needed. Moving forward, AI could be used to help instantaneously generate new sound cues or to help users customize their experience at the press of a button.
Tweetables
- “We thought that if the human brain can learn echolocation and we have this amazing technology that’s available to us in the modern day, then why can’t we make echolocation a little bit more intuitive and perhaps a little bit more pleasant.” — Patrick Burton, BenVision CEO & Co-Founder
- “You can think of it like a bunch of virtual speakers placed at different locations around the user. So like a speaker on a door or a couch or a chair. And then there are sounds coming from all these virtual speakers at the same time.” — Aaditya Vaze, BenVision Technology Lead
- “I want to gamify this idea so that the user can actually find some interest and joy by using it, rather than just find it only helpful, but also [to create ] some pleasant feeling.” — Soobin Ha, BenVision Audio Director & Co-Founder
- “So if there’s a lot of people, there’s a lot of conversations happening, a lot of sounds happening, a lot of movement happening. It’s really difficult to keep up with what everything is doing. Whereas with music, it’s not as difficult to pick out layers.” – Shanell Matos, Lighthouse Guild Volunteer
Contact Us:
- Contact us at [email protected] with your innovative new technology ideas for people with vision loss.
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