(Obsolete) The vOICe on Nokia 3650 Mobile Phone

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The vOICe seeing-with-sound technology for the blind is now also available on mobile phones! Blue Edge Bulgaria (www.blue-edge.bg) has developed a software implementation of The vOICe that runs on the Nokia 3650 (Nokia 3600, Nokia 3660) camera phone. The software is available free of charge for non-commercial personal and academic use!

Featured in the book  Nokia Smartphone Hacks by Michael Juntao Yuan. (Hack 73, p. 353, "Monitor the Real World".)

Nokia 3650 with built-in camera (lens showing on the backside). This smartphone is capable of running The vOICe BEB software from Blue Edge Bulgaria.

The vOICe is now available for multiple hardware platforms to suit different user preferences. Apart from The vOICe for Windows for use with a regular notebook PC, PC camera (webcam) and stereo headphones, some users may prefer using a simplified but highly portable version that runs on mass-market modern camera phones. For continuous use, a head-mounted camera would be much preferred for best sensory feedback, but for occasional orientation purposes, for reading signs, or to have a look at graphs or other graphical material in print, on the blackboard or on displays, a mobile camera phone version of The vOICe can form an attractive alternative.

Blue Edge Bulgaria (BEB) is a software consulting company developing applications for mobile phones, and it has kindly made their mobile phone implementation of The vOICe, The vOICe BEB, available as a free download. If you have a Nokia 3650 smartphone, you can direct it to the download page

to find the software ("vOICeBEB.jad" Java Application Descriptor file which refers to a corresponding "vOICeBEB.jar" Java Archive file containing the executable code; in case of connection problems you can also obtain the two files as a zip file). If you are blind, you will need initial sighted assistance with the installation, but after that you should be able to work with the software using fixed keystroke sequences like "menu key, four times down, select, select" (if this is the first Java application on the list).

Once started, The vOICe BEB will continuously grab and sound snapshots from the built-in camera of the Nokia 3650. After taking a new snapshot, there is a silent pause during which the next soundscape is rendered. The select key interrupts processing the current soundscape and creates a new one after taking a new snapshot. Right softkey exits the application. The "1" key (straight to the left of select) toggles negative video mode for the next soundscapes. You can press the menu key and perform other operations with the phone, while images are taken and sounded in the background.

Note: implementing The vOICe for mobile camera phones is on the edge of what is technically possible with the phones that are currently available on the market, especially with respect to limitations in processing power. Several compromises between quality and speed had to be made at this stage, but the proof of concept has now been delivered with this first implementation of The vOICe for mobile camera phones.

When using Nokia HDD-1 headphones with the Nokia 3650, you may find that both the headset and the loudspeaker sound at the same time. The remedy for turning off the loudspeaker appears to be to plug in the headset connector very slowly, and at some point there should be sound only from the headset and no sound leaking from the phone's loudspeaker.

There now also exist versions of The vOICe for MIDP-2.0 camera phones and for Google Android phones.

Note: The vOICe technology is being explored and developed under the Open Innovation paradigm together with R&D partners around the world.