Category: Cool Tools

An indoor navigation solution for blind users? Check out Navatar

Published September 5, 2012 by L. Legendary

This is absolutely fascinating. Ever wonder why there are no navigational devices suitable for indoor use? Ever wished to be able to efficiently navigate a mall, a hotel, or other indoor space? Wonder why, when there is no end to the solutions for auto or pedestrian use, there seems to be no version of GPS for people who are blind to use indoors?

Take a look at this. It’s called Navatar. In its earliest stages, research is being conducted on a device to assist blind users to move around in smaller spaces indoors. Read more here:

eelke.com/navatar-indoor-navigation-blind.html

Dr. Eelke Folmer is an Associate Professor researching Human-Computer Interaction
in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno. "We are planning to expand our navigation system with a new feature that can help with spatial perception," says Eelke. "We are currently sending out a questionnaire to potential users of our system to better understand the barriers of indoor navigation."

Want to help with the research? below is a short questionnaire that you can fill out and send to Eelke. Just cut and paste the questions into the body of an email, answer as thoroughly as you can, and send off the email to the address at the bottom of this post.

I hope to have the opportunity to field test the actual device, so you can grease the wheels for me by letting Eelke know I sent you. Well, now that I think of it, perhaps too many respondents will actually work to my detriment. Hmmm. Okay, here are the questions:

1. What type of visual impairment do you have?

2. Do you use a cane to navigate in indoor environments? and if so can
you name some limitations on using a cane in indoor environments?

3. Do you use a cane to explore the layout of a room? if not do you
use other techniques? e.g. hands?

4. Can you describe the process you follow to familiarize yourself
with the contents of a room?

5. When you look for an object in a room (e.g., phone or coffee cup)
what techniques do you use?

6. Do you sometimes use a sighted person to familiarize yourself with
an indoor environment? If so what kind of questions do you ask this
person?

7. If we could build a tool that could help with spatial exploration,
what kind of features would you like this to have?

Send completed questionnaire to: Eelke Folmer - eelke.folmer at gmail.com

Technorati Tags: accessibility,blindness,GPS,mobility,Navatar,technology

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NFB 2012 preview: Digit-Eyes to exhibit at national convention

Published June 25, 2012 by L. Legendary

Here’s something to look forward to if you’re planning to attend the 2012 National Federation of the Blind conference held this year in Dallas, Texas :.

Digit‐Eyes is exhibiting at NFB this year.
This is your chance to meet the developers behind the product!

Digit-Eyes is a unique application that enables people who are visually‐impaired to identify items using their iPhone or iPad. Digit‐Eyes reads nearly 27 million UPC and EAN codes and tells you the product name ‐ and the full description, usage instructions and ingredients ‐ in 10 languages. Using Digit‐Eyes, inexpensive off-the-shelf office supplies and a standard inkjet or laser printer, you’ll be able to record audio labels or make text labels that are read aloud by your phone.

At our booth at NFB, you’ll be able to try the Digit-Eyes products that you’ve seen online, let us know what new features you’d like to see in the product and even make appointments to work with one of our master teachers to refine your Digit‐Eyes skills.

The booth features:

· Hands‐on experience with the iPhone and iPad.

o Find how Digit-Eyes can be used to make and play back your own labels

o Learn how to apply the special washable labels to create talking food containers or to label clothing

o Use the iDevices to read the manufacturer’s UPC codes to identify all sorts of items. Even find out the product ingredients, usage instructions and nutritional information.

· Opportunities for educators and counselors to get free introductory packages that contain not only sample labels, but also iPhone and Digit-Eyes information and training materials for low-vision and non-sighted students and clients.

· The complete line of Digit-Eyes products – all at special show pricing:

o Pre-printed paper labels

o Washable Labels

o QR-coded Playing Cards you can read with your Android or iPhone

A limited number of spaces for free training are available on a first-come, first-served basis. If you’d like to reserve your session, please tweet @digit_eyes or e‐mail support(at)digiteyes(dot)com.

Look for Digit-Eyes at booth B-31 starting July 1st, 2012

Technorati Tags: accessibility,Android,blindness,Digit-Eyes,Ipad,QRcodes

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Anatomy of a Kickstarter project: Preliminary examination

Published May 24, 2012 by L. Legendary

If you are not a regular reader of the Accessible Insights blog, it will not require much poking around here to discover that, along with my pet topics of inclusion, accessibility, disability awareness and assistive technology, I often write about entrepreneurship. In the spirit of "necessity breeds invention," I have been a solopreneur for years. Recently, I’ve undertaken a new venture.

It is this new venture about which I write today. Actually, I’m going to write about the process of getting my little project off the ground, with the assistance of Kickstarter. If you’ve been curious about Kickstarter and how it works, if it would be right for you, or if you are just delighted to have the opportunity to watch a business go down in flames, like the ghoulish fixation people have with another person’s tragedy, then you’ll get your fill here. I’ll either be the hero or the goat, and if you like the idea of rooting for the underdog, you just can’t beat the odds that are stacked up against me.

My little startup venture is called Elegant Insights Braille Creations. It is a line of jewelry and accessories that are embossed in Braille. So far, the business barely qualifies as a hobby. Still, my plan is to make a go of it, and that’s why I turned to Kickstarter.

In case you don’t know, Kickstarter is the largest of the new "crowdfunding" platforms growing like wildfire today. The upshot is that you create a project profile, upload all the relevant info, create a video, post product descriptions, ask for people to "kick in" some cash, promise them a reward for doing so, and hope your project can attract "backers" before the expiration date you’ve set for your project completion. Piece of cake, right?

According to the Kickstarter web site, www.kickstarter.com, just under half of all projects are successful, meaning that they’ve met or exceeded their funding goals in the allotted timeframe. That’s a bit intimidating. For those entrepreneurs who have found success, however, many of them have far exceeded their fundraising goals, and have gone on to take up and complete other projects.

The catch with Kickstarter is that you cannot post a project that is open-ended. All projects must propose a finite goal, with a specific end point. In other words, just saying that "I need money to start my business" is inconsistent with the Kickstarter guidelines, and your project will not be approved. All projects are reviewed by the Kickstarter staff before they go live on the site. You must also create and upload a video, wherein you can demonstrate your passion for your project so as to convince your hoped-for backers to contribute. This is where Kickstarter loses me. Without going into depth regarding my pathos about being seen in any sort of video, suffice it to say I’ll need to undergo some desensitization therapy before I tackle that particular aspect of the task. Furthermore, this feels just a bit like begging to me. I guess this is a personal weakness. I’ve never been good at asking for money.

As I learn the Kickstarter process, I’ll keep you updated. You can ogle to your heart’s content, especially if you’re one of those fascinated at being witness to a car crash in progress. Or, you can be in my corner and cheer me on as I blindly (literally and figuratively)feel my way through the minefield of funding a new business. I’ll also point out any accessibility pitfalls about which to be aware if you are a screen reader user and considering Kickstarter. Wish me luck, or pennies from heaven, or something.

Technorati Tags: business,crowdfunding,Kickstarter

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Try this accessible tool to increase blog readership: Subscribe To plugin

Published May 15, 2012 by L. Legendary

Anyone who wants to build a regular blog readership, or who wants to start their own blog site, knows that attracting and holding onto the restless and fickle eyeballs of the information-seeking public is a challenge. The content needs to be interesting, of course, but all the experts say that you should probably post updates several times a week. Further, offering customers a reason to come back, providing some interactivity, as well as some "sticky" content that keeps your readers on your site for more than a split second, also helps. I suppose the purpose of this last is to encourage those impatient eyeballs to rest upon the ads you have sprinkled around your site.

In the case of this blog, however, I have no such ads, and if you are one of my regular visitors, you drop by to absorb the occasional pithy little wisdom pellet dispensed here. Today I want to alert you to a Word Press plugin I’ve just installed to make that a bit easier. Why it has taken me this long to offer this feature is beyond me, but if you want to subscribe to alerts about new posts, you can now click on the "Subscribe" link on the page and sign up to get my aforementioned wisdom pellets dropped into your email inbox. I’m like a one-woman digital Pez dispenser.

While the "Subscribe To" Word Press plugin is one of the most popular in the sharing plugin category, I didn’t find it to be the most intuitive I’ve ever installed. I’ll say this, though, it was mostly accessible, with some decent menu options that allow for some nice flexibility. I cannot urge you strongly enough, however, to read the readme.txt file included with the download files. On another of my blog sites, I used one of the suggestions made by the developer to create a "dummy" blog user, set as an administrator. Give the dummy user a dedicated email account just for sending out new post alerts. Since most web hosts allow you to create a gazillion email addresses, just set one up that you only use for this purpose.

Finding accessible plugins has not been easy. For me, "accessible" means that I as the administrator must be able to install and configure it myself, without sighted assistance, and that my blog users must also be able to use the features. Subscribe To, for example, allows you to enable an Ajax style subscribe form, or for visitors that do not have javascript enabled, a choice to use a widget or not. On most blog sites, many plugins get a test run, then are deactivated and deleted. Here on the Accessible Insights Blog, you can check out a list of the plugins I’ve used, some of which are currently deactivated. I had to uninstall a popular sharing button because as of the latest version, it became inaccessible for my screen reader users. I wrote to the developers of this sharing plugin to ask if they provided an accessible alternative, and I was told that the button does not support screen readers as of the current release, and there are no plans to make the button accessible in the future. Out it went. To see a list of plugins used on this site, just click on the "plugins used" link at the top of the page. Plugins Used is actually the name of a plugin that creates a page, then deposits on it a list of all the plugins you are running. All those that I have installed and are currently active should be accessible for all users.

So, please subscribe to my blog. Yes, new posts are tweeted out, thanks to Twitterfeed, but if you aren’t following me (@Accessible_Info), you don’t always know I’ve posted something new. The Subscribe To plugin makes acquiring content more convenient, because readers need not frequently check for new posts. Also, a site visitor does not have to register, although if you do, you can make some adjustments to your preferences as to how you want the content delivered. I’ve selected the text-only option for the email updates I’ll send, since this blog isn’t exactly a multimedia production, anyway. Subscribing is a simple, opt-in sequence that takes seconds. You’ll only get an email when I post something new, so fret not that you will be inundated with messages. My purpose here is to inform, not harass.

Click here to go to the Subscribe To plugin page.

Thank you, as always, for your eyeballs, text-to-speech engine, or whatever you use to consume my content.

Technorati Tags: accessibility,blogging,plugins,Subscribe To

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Read them. Hear them. Quote them. Be inspired by American Rhetoric

Published January 16, 2012 by L. Legendary

Have you ever heard the Martin Luther King Jr. speech, "I have a Dream" in its entirety? We’ve all heard the same snippets over and over, but hearing it from beginning to end is a whole new experience. One of my favorite web sites is called American Rhetoric, and on it, you will find an incredible collection of speeches, audio, and text transcriptions of famous speeches for your review. You can relive presidential speeches, movie speeches, and speeches inspired by the events of September 11th, 2001. If you are a blogger, print writer, or just an admirer of a beautifully crafted sentence, you’ll appreciate this web site.

Go here:

www.americanrhetoric.com/

As a speaker, I have repeatedly turned to American Rhetoric for quotes and context. This site is a fantastic resource for education and entertainment. You can also purchase some of their offerings. American Rhetoric is a must for educators and information purveyors everywhere.

To read or listen to the "I Have A Dream" speech in its entirety, click here.

www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

Keep dreaming…

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An accessible place in the meeting space: Accessible Event

Published December 6, 2011 by L. Legendary

Anyone who has read a few posts on the Accessible Insights Blog has read my rants about barriers to accessibility. Little is more aggravating to me than when I can only proceed so far into a process before I can proceed no further, due to an unlabeled and therefore invisible graphic I’m to click on, or links and buttons labeled simply as "link." Most of us who use assistive technology to navigate our world find ways to overcome these barriers, either by memorizing the layout of a page, the sequence of steps, or creating scripts or purchasing other types of end-arounds that at least get part of the job done. Much of the time, however, we find that we are unable to utilize every feature of a web site or service, because only some aspects are accessible.

A specific example is the online collaboration, meeting and presentation space. I’ve been unable to conduct my own online seminars or presentations because I’ve been unable to helm the service from beginning to end without sighted assistance. Now, I can.

Thanks to an invitation I received to participate in a podcast, I made the fortuitous discovery of a service called Accessible Event. If you have struggled with using the online virtual meeting services and have been hoping for an accessible alternative, check out this solution by Serotek.

Accessible Event can be used concurrently with Go To Meeting and other virtual presentation services, which allows for people who have hearing or print disabilities to access the same material available to their non-disabled counterparts, at the same time. The interface is streamlined and straightforward, with the FAQ’s and user’s guide right on the home page.

what has me excited to use Accessible Event is the pricing schedule. Unlike some of the other services that require a monthly fee, Accessible Event has a per-event option. If you don’t hold enough online meetings or webinars to justify the monthly cost, you can use Accessible Event when you want to, and pay as you go. Or, you can pay for a monthly, yearly, or enterprise server option.

There is a new version coming out soon, so check it out now, and check back to learn about the latest release.

Click here to go to Accessible Event home page

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Find what you’re looking for with new ZoomText 10 WebFinder

Published November 21, 2011 by L. Legendary

The Web Finder feature in ZoomText is not new, but the enhanced Web Finder really is. Based upon what I’ve seen of the latest features rolled out in these “feature leaks, ZoomText 10 surely had to have been a from-the-ground-up rebuild. This new feature will make navigating even cluttered, content-heavy sites fast and easy.

Watch the video to see the enhanced Web Finder, but watch the whole thing, because the demo where the CNN site is used is fantastic. Finally, I can find the news story I’ve been searching for, without the frustration of endless clickthroughs’.

Video of Enhanced Web Finder.

What do you think of the new ZT 10 so far? Are you excited about the upcoming release? Will these new features enhance your online experience? Which do you think you’ll rely on most?

LL.

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Another ZoomText 10 first look: ZoomText Recorder

Published November 18, 2011 by L. Legendary

Okay, friends, this is the feature that now has me excited to upgrade to ZoomText 10. It’s called ZoomText Recorder, and I can think of about a thousand ways to use this. In a nutshell, if you can copy it to the clipboard, you can send it just about anywhere. Email, web sites, documents — all can be "recorded" and sent to either a file location on your computer, Windows Media Player or even iTunes. Then, you can listen on your mobile device.

You really have to watch the video to see the potential here, so head over to the AI Squared web site and click the play button.

Click here to go to the AI Squared blog page.

You’ll also find bundle and pricing info there.

Technorati Tags: accessibility,screen reader,ZoomText

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ZoomText 10 sneak peek 2: Background Reader

Published November 16, 2011 by L. Legendary

Now this is a nice new feature. It’s called Background Reader, and it allows you to navigate freely through text without concerns about losing focus or other activities behind the scenes interrupting the read. You can literally have ZoomText reading in the background while you perform other tasks.

Click here to watch video.

The new ZoomText 10 makes use of a new hotkey, the caps lock key. This in combination with CTRL, spacebar, and arrows let you use Background Reader almost like an audio player. Whether reading text from the clipboard or a PDF doc, Background Reader is a useful tool enabling greater flexibility. You can go back, resume, navigate by word or sentence. This looks pretty great to me, so check it out.

More soon…

LL

Technorati Tags: AI Squared,technology,ZoomText

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