May 2008.

Dotjay provides a useful roundup of assistive tech videos available to view online.

Sometimes it's useful just to sit back and see if there's anything new out there to learn about. 

People are trying out various strategies to make the EEE PC an accessible device.

There's discussion on the eeeuser forum on enabling 'sticky keys' or 'access keys' functions in the default Linux OS. The ORCA / screenreader discussion also continues, with some interesting suggestions. Some sites are starting up  general discussions on eee accessibility, including these pages on ofset. Still early days, I guess, but someone will eventually start to pull all these ideas together and produce a definitive guide to making the eee accessible.

Microsoft "Save As DAISY XML"  Translator for Word released.

This is an interesting development, more news on the Microsoft Website.  

Yamaha PocketTrack 2G high quality digital recorder now in stores.

This highly portable but simple to use digital recorder is pitched towards the musicians market but looks like it could produce very good quality recordings in lectures and meetings.
 

DIY Video Magnifier anyone?

This project shows how someone managed to convert a cheap web cam into an electronic microscope. It makes you wonder how simple it might be to modify this project to produce a relatively low cost video magnifier device that could be used alongside a computer.



April 2008.

Magnifiers.org is still the best source of news about screen magnification and screen reader software.

This guy has been doing an amazing job for years. It's worth checking on from time to time.

Throw away the headset! Voice recognition software is getting better at working with wireless and desktop microphones.

OK, don't throw away the headset until you've tried other microphones first! People who find it uncomfortable or impossible to use a headset can still use voice recognition software. Try out some alternative microphones that are currently available, such as the Revolabs xTag USB wireless lapel mike and the Buddy USB desktop Mike. If you're feeling brave, you could even try out some of the generic wireless microphones available from suppliers like Maplin. 

People are raving about ReadTheWords. Here is what it makes of this site.

Oneswitch site provides ideas for low-cost DIY assistive technology solutions.

The site gives "step by step guides on how to adapt low voltage electronic gadgets and computer controllers for use with external switches. The inexpensive way to get powerful 'assistive technology'."

This prompted me to do a bit of searching for other DIY assistive technology projects on the web. There doesn't seem to be much out there, although the teaching learners with multiple special needs blog provides information about building DIY mounting equipment for switches or other devices. 

Task Coach is an open source time/task management aid. 

This software is designed to help people keep track of multiple important projects, such as coursework assignments You can drag web links, emails, texts from other files into the tasks.  It's open source and in beta development stage, meaning users can play an active part in the development of new features. You could argue that other packages already provide these functions, but this one is small, non-intrusive and can even run off a memory stick. Oh yes, and it's free. 

March 2008.

Audio blogs from CSUN 2008 (Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference).  

Several people have created audio blogs from CSUN this year. Here are some links to interesting audio recordings (all in MP3 format).


Some interesting text-based blogs include ones from SpeEdChange, ILA, Microsoft, GWMicro, NVDA and Ranger Station.

Online mindmapping aids.

Several sites are now offering online mapping services. These are often free and include the facility to collaborate with other users. Current sites of interest include wisemapping, but read this webworker article for more. 

Customise your computer's speech output using open source text-to-speech engines. 

Projects such as eSpeak offer reasonable quality alternatives to the voices supplied with your screenreader or text-to-speech software.

Don't forget there are also demo versions of commercially available voices you can try out, including Cepstral.

LetMeType: Open Source Word Prediction. 

Anyone interested in word prediction packages should try out LetMeType. It's a free 'open source' package. The bad news is the guy has stopped developing this program, and it seems to have some problems with Vista (try it out though). The good news is he's released the source code, so hopefully these problems can be resolved. 

Power Reader project: an open-source reading tool for dyslexic people.

"Our goal is to build a dyslexic text reader/learning tool, a graphical, interactive text reader integrated with computer text-to-speech whose level of focus, complexity, and detail is adjustable according to the user's needs."

Note, a another alternative solution to using commercial packages  is to install WordTalk software. 

Nuance bring Dragon voice recognition software to the Mac.

Finally, speech recognition might actually work on the Mac? Let's hope so. 

ORCA Screenreader improves access to Linux for blind, partially sighted, printed impaired.

Improvements are being made to the screenreader project, already bundled with most GNOME installations, to ensure access to Firefox 3.

How Computers Change the Writing Process for People with Learning Disabilities.

An adult with dyslexia talks from personal experience on ldlonline. 

Search engine uses visual mapping techniques to represent search results.

This site uses flash to prroduce interactive graphics that show the links between search results.

Kurzweil release text scanning/reading software for mobile phone.

"The knfbReader Mobile and kReader Mobile software packages run on a multifunction cell phone that allow the user to read mail, receipts, handouts and many other documents wherever the user happens to be."