- Blindness Resources (New York Insititute for Special Education)
- Provides information by topic, such as deaf-blindness, low vision, eye diseases, vendors of technology and more.
- Blindness Resources (New York Insititute for Special Education)
- Provides over 100 resources on blindness.
- Braille Resources (NYISE)
- Provides links. 10-09
- Disabilities Resources (Fullmer)
- Provides over 100 resources related to disabilities. Called Untangling the Web.
- Disability Resources (New York Insititute for Special Education)
- Provides over 100 resources related to disabilities, in alphabetical order by organization.
- Guiding Eyes for the Blind
- History of Reading Codes for the Blind
- Provides a history. 10-09
- Organizations Related to Blindness Services and Education (New York Insititute for Special Education)
- Provides over 100 organizations related to blindness.
- Visually Impaired and Blind Links (New York Institute for Special Education)
- Provides links. 10-09
- Talking Book Library (Library of Congress)
- Provides resources free of charge through the National Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. 9-02
- Web Text to Speech (Code-It.com - Web Talkster)
- Converts online text to speech for persons who are blind or visually impaired. For highest quality speech, combine it with one of the highest quality speech engines, such as ATT Natural Voices, under "Purchase Resource" at the bottom of the page. 05-09
- -02-26-07 Blind Woman Learns to See (Time Magazine)
- "Neuroscientists have long been convinced that the first few years of life are a crucial period for brain development--a time when connections between neurons are being forged at a prodigious rate as a baby learns to make sense of the external world. Interfere with that process, and you can cause permanent, irrevocable damage. If a child is born blind, for example, it's pretty much over by age 6. You can fix the eyes, and they might be able to perceive light and dark. Without the right visual circuitry in place, though, there's no way to form images--the essence of true sight."
"But then there's the patient known as S.R.D. Discovered by researchers four years ago in Ahmedabad, India, she was a 32-year-old, dirt-poor maid who had been born with severe cataracts. They were removed surgically when she was 12--and within a year, despite what neuroscientific dogma would have predicted, S.R.D. learned to see." 02-07
- American Foundation for the Blind
- Blind Boy Learns to "See" With His Ears (CNN News)
- "To 'see' the world around him, he clicks his tongue on the roof of his mouth and listens to the echo that bounces back. From the sound, he can make out the location, depth and shape of objects around him, allowing him to navigate even unfamiliar areas." 10-09
- Blind Tennis (New York Times)
- "Like tennis for sighted people, the game requires speedy court coverage and precise shot-making. Blind players rely on their ears to follow a foam ball filled with ball bearings that rattles when it bounces or is struck." 06-12
- Miss Florida Contestant Almost Blind (ABC News)
- "When Connor Boss looks out into the crowd this Saturday as she competes in the Miss Florida USA pageant, she will see audience members only as a blur."
"Boss is the pageant's first legally blind contestant. At age 8, she was diagnosed with Stargardt's disease, a genetic disorder that causes progressive vision loss. Now 18 and soon to be a freshman at Florida State University, Boss prefers that her blindness be kept under wraps, her mother Traci Boss said." 07-12
- Stargardt's Disease, Sunglasses, and the President (Think Quest)
- "Affecting about one out of every 10,000 children, Stargardt's disease is the most common form of inherited degeneration of the macula in children." 06-06
- Text to Speech or Speech Synthesis - Personality Matters (Science Daily)
- "People read personality into a synthetic voice even when they know that it’s made by a computer. What’s more, if the 'voice' mirrors their personalities, people will like and be more readily influenced by that voice." 9-02
- Weihenmayer, Erik (2001Everest.com)
- Provides biographical and other information on Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Mt. Everest. 12-01
- Weihenmayer, Erik (AskAsia.org)
- Provides a short biography on Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Mt. Everest. 12-01
- Weihenmayer, Erik - Climbing Mt. Everest (SportsIllustrated-CNN - Swift)
- Provides an interview with the first blind person to climb Mt. Everest. 12-01
- Glasses That Adapt (Adaptive-Eyecare.com)
- "The starting point for the development of Adaptive Eyecare's technology was the astonishing statistic that according to the World Health Organization there are currently around one billion people - including 10% of school children - in the world who would benefit from vision correction, but are as yet uncorrected. Most of these people live in the developing world, and the problem arises principally because the numbers of personnel trained to deliver vision correction in the conventional way are simply inadequate to meet the needs of the people. These statistics have profound implications - they mean that hundreds of millions of adults do not have the vision correction they need to be socially and economically active, and many children are educationally and socially disadvantaged."
"The approach of Adaptive Eyecare has been to develop a completely new ophthalmic lens technology which permits us to manufacture revolutionary new spectacles which are universal, in the sense that one pair may be used to correct the vision of over 90% of people requiring correction. The special feature is that the wearer can adjust the power of each lens to his or her own requirements - this is particularly useful for developing world populations in areas which do not have adequate numbers of those specially trained personnel normally associated with the provision of vision correction."
- Text to Speech or Speech Synthesis (ScanSoft RealSpeak)
- Programs convert text to speech of high quality. Such programs allow you to hear the words that you read. 9-02
- Text to Speech or Speech Synthesis (SpeechWorks)
- Programs convert text to speech of high quality. Such programs allow you to hear the words that you read. 9-02
- Text to Speech or Speech Synthesis - Natural Voices (NextUp.com)
- Programs convert text to speech of high quality. Such programs allow you to hear the words that you read. Provides a demonstration. If the demo does not work, saying you lack a plug-in, try the voice at 8KHz in Wave format. Natural Voices is only available here as part of a NextUp.com bundle that costs as little as $35. This is the least expensive known route to the Natural Voices. Direct from ATT the voices are $150 and still require additional software to interprete. 6-03