Virtual Helping Hands expands Max project
September 2009
Virtual Helping Hands expands Max project by collaborating with the Australian Learning and Teaching Council: http://ausvirtualworlds.ning.com/photo/max-the-virtual-guide-dog?context=latest
Guidedogs.org.uk introduces Max to their community
June 2009
Guidedogs.org.uk introduces Max to their community:
http://www.guidedogs.org.uk/news/meet-max-the-virtual-guide-dog/
Association of Virtual Worlds attends Helen Keller Day and Learns about Max
June 30 2009
Association of Virtual Worlds attends Helen Keller Day and Learns about Max:
http://network.associationofvirtualworlds.com/profiles/blogs/helen-keller-day-and-virtual
Beautiful Visions beyond Sight
June 17, 2009
Beautiful Visions beyond Sight: Guide Dogs and Helen Keller Day in Second Life by Pathfinder Linden
https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/learninginworld/blog/2009/06/17/beautiful-visions-beyond-sight-guide-dogs-and-helen-keller-day-in-second-life
Max debuts on CNN iReport
June 13, 2009
Max debuts on CNN iReport: http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-270433
Meet Max - The Virtual Guide Dog
June 1, 2009
Meet Max - The Virtual Guide Dog: http://www.virtualmindhive.com/component/content/article/3-press-releases/65-meet-max-the-virtual-guide-dog.html
"Paws-On" demo of Max the Virtual Guidedog
March 27, 2009
"Paws-On" demo of Max the Virtual Guidedog at the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education by Louise Later and Dr. Linda Higbee Mandlebaum
Max and Virtual Ability, Inc. meet Metanomics
February, 23, 2009
Max and Virtual Ability, Inc. meet Metanomics
Join Robert Bloomfield and Alice Krueger as we learn about what technology offers to provide accessibility to virtual worlds.
Time: 12:00pm - 1:00pm PDT
Making Virtual World History: How People Who Are Blind Enter Second Life
January 23, 2009
The first blind avatar in Second Life was Jolie1 Magic, the avatar of Jolie Mason, the first completely blind person in SL. Her journey shows how Max, the VHH Virtual Guidedog, allows people with visual and other impairments to use SL—opening SL to everyone and meeting the ADA Section 508 disability access requirements. In real life, Jolie Mason directs the Los Angeles Radio Reading Service (LARRS.org) that provides in-depth information for people who are blind or print-impaired. She also co-hosts the award-winning “Access Unlimited,” an RL radio show about disability issues, broadcast throughout California to about 150,000 listeners on KPFK 90.5 FM each Tuesday 3:00-4:00 p.m. PST, over the Internet at KPFK.org, and in Second Life at Club Accessible.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Taupo/168/91/24
Jolie heard about SL from Science Friday on NPR. She has a personal and professional interest in providing in-depth information to those with disabilities—and the Immersive Internet is the next great way to share in-depth information. She asked her twin sister, Louise Nicholson, to help her get into SL. LARRS has blind radio interns from Junior Blind of America—maybe they could learn engineering and have fun DJ’ing in SL. Louise had joined SL to develop and teach federally-mandated training classes for business people. See here for more information about the classes.
But Louise is visually impaired and found using SL difficult. She couldn’t make her living teaching national classes from SL, until she could find some way to move and to find people and places confidently. With her freebie sled dog and a guidedog harness, Louise started wearing a prop guidedog to signal people “I need extra time with text and navigating.” Next, Louise helped Jolie enter SL as Jolie1 Magic on the opening day of the Virtual Ability Inc. Orientation Trail (8/18/08). But Jolie1 couldn’t interact with objects or hear the chat window with her basic Windows screen reader, so Jolie logged off with Jolie1 standing immobile at the Virtual Ability, Inc. login point.
Later, Charles Mountain contacted Louise to join SecondAbility Mentors, a group Charles founded with Saxet Uralia. A gifted developer, Charles had scripted the SecondAbility Mentor call system, so mentors can assist people with disabilities at anytime. When he saw her guidedog, Charles asked Louise what its scripting did. She explained, “It’s a prop to let people know I need help finding people, places, and things.”
Charles laughed. “My radar script can tell you that. I’ll put it in the dog.” Max the Virtual Guidedog was born.
Overcoming access problems one-by-one, Charles has his beta open-source scripts update automatically inside each guidedog, mobility cane, and mobility ring (users can choose to mirror RL or keep the need for assistive technology private).
Virtual Helping Hands Presents Max, the Virtual Guidedog
January 6, 2009
“Virtual Helping Hands Presents Max, the Virtual Guidedog” as a "proof of concept" means to provide reasonable accommodations for those who are blind, visually impaired, and/or print or physically impaired to use SL. The project focuses on several disabilities and their specific perceptions to meet the needs of a majority of computer users with disabilities. The software approaches always strive to have the users participate as comfortably and completely as possible in the same community as a non-disabled user.
They also allow the user the personal choice of whether or not to don an appearance that indicates that the user has a disability in physical reality—preserving the positive aspect of interacting in a virtual world for distancing from “real life” problems and benefiting from the virtual world’s opportunities for education, entertainment, and employment.
Three desirable design features of the project:
- 1. imports with reasonable ease to various operating systems
- 2. installs on the user’s system as simply as possible
- 3. uses as little as possible of the user’s memory resources