Re: wave file as alt tag?

At 09:45 AM 5/17/99 -0400, David Poehlman wrote:
>al, You are quite correct, but there is a new lexicon emerging and
>that is a lexicon of direct image to sound conversion.  It will allow
>for a limitless aray of application matching sounds with images never
>before heard.

Of course you are right.  The expanding possibilities are more important
that one arguable example.  I was impressed with the ability of first-time
users to grasp simple shapes from their vOICe sonification when we played
with this at CSUN.

I wonder if there aren't also exciting, world-expanding possibilities to be
explored for communication between people with different disabilities if a
lexicographer were to catalog the multimedia cliches that are widely
recognized today and hence already work as code because the cross-medium
associations are present and consistent for many people.

Al

>
>Al Gilman wrote:
>> 
>> At 02:18 PM 5/16/99 +0200, Peter Meijer wrote:
>> >Technically this should be quite feasible. For instance,
>> >if an image of the American flag is showing with something
>> >like Alt="Stars and stripes" in the HTML IMG tag, a blind
>> >user might at the same time hear a "wav tag" of "wave file
>> >as alt tag" like (88K file size)
>> >
>> >   http://www.seeingwithsound.com/extra/usflag.wav
>> >
>> >which is the sound generated from and corresponding to the
>> >usflag.bmp example image that can be downloaded from
>> >
>> 
>> Yes, technically, the sound that is attached to the flag icon could be the
>> sonification of the image.  But this would be a triumph of technology over
>> communication.
>> 
>> In popular culture this image already has an associated sound.  The sound
>> for the image of a waving stars and stripes is that of Arthur Fiedler
>> conducting the Boston Pops in Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" on the
>> Esplanade on the Fourth of July.
>> 
>> For inclusion of the reading-impaired, it is important to honor the
>> associations of sight, sound and text that already exist as cliches in the
>> lexicon of popular culture.
>> 
>> Al
>> 
>> >   http://www.seeingwithsound.com/extra/usflag.zip
>> >
>> >For bandwidth efficiency, for guaranteeing mutual consistency
>> >between image and sound, and to avoid adding a burden on any
>> >website developer, one would want this sound rendering done
>> >automatically on the client computer, based on the original
>> >image that the IMG tag was referring to.
>> >
>> >Linking a browser to a third-party add-on for the image based
>> >sound rendering would do the job. The browser would only have
>> >to pass on the image data when the user indicates he/she wants
>> >to analyze the audible counterpart of an image, perhaps zoom
>> >into it, hear it in inverse video, hear it line by line, apply
>> >OCR, or whatever else may help with understanding the content
>> >of the image through sound. All the necessary ingredients except
>> >for the browser link are already available.
>> >
>> >Best wishes,
>> >
>> >Peter Meijer
>> >
>> >
>> >Soundscapes from The vOICe - Seeing with your Ears!
>> >http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/
>> >
>
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Received on Monday, 17 May 1999 14:05:39 UTC