[gui-talk] FW: E-Access Bulletin: September 2006

[Christopher McMillan]

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Jellinek [mailto:dan at headstar.com] 
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2006 3:17 PM
To: eaccess at headstar.com
Subject: E-Access Bulletin: September 2006

++E-ACCESS BULLETIN.
- ISSUE 81, SEPTEMBER 2006.

Technology news for people with vision impairment
( http://www.headstar.com/eab/ ).
Sponsored by:
RNIB
( http://www.rnib.org.uk )
BT Age and Disability Unit
( http://www.btplc.com/age_disability/ )
Ford Motor Company
( http://www.ford.co.uk )

NOTE: Please forward this free bulletin to others (subscription details
at the end). We conform to the accessible Text Email Newsletter
(TEN) Standard:
http://www.headstar.com/ten/ .


++Issue 81 Contents.

++Section One: News.

01: RNIB Addresses Software Accessibility Gap
- resource for developers and decision makers goes live.

02: Win For Campaigners In Massachusetts
- government to accommodate users of assistive technology.

03: Councils To Launch Talkative Robots.
- call centre services cut waiting time and keypad navigation.

04: Path Cleared For Wearable Navigational Device
- research team wins funds.

News in Brief: 05: Moving News - RSS feeds for mobiles; 06: Show
Support - online radio show petition; 07: Description Expansion -
more cinemas to have audio description capability; 08: Price Error -
screen readers price correction.

Section Two: 'The Inbox' - Readers' Forum.
09: Reader Questions - screen reader feedback request; 10: Locked
Out - debate on technology in developing countries continues; 11:
Reading Linux - compatibility question.

Section Three: Focus - Education.
12: Lessons Learned In Strathclyde And Malawi. The assistive
technology team at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland is
working with teachers and lecturers in Malawi to increase access to
education for vision impaired students. Derek Parkinson reports.

Section Four: Opinion - Personal Computing
13: All Change!: Providing working people with subsidised access to
assistive technology is a wonderful thing, but technical support and
replacements for faulty devices can be inadequate. And we must not
forget unemployed people. Kevin Carey argues for alternative
approaches.

[Contents ends].


++Sponsored Notice: BT's BSL Guide
- Improving Communication for All.

To celebrate the third anniversary of British Sign Language (BSL) BT
launched the first ever campaign in BSL to raise awareness of the
benefits broadband technology has to offer to deaf people, the first
time an internet communications organisation has run a commercial
internet campaign in sign language.

High speed internet coupled with the use of web-cams and video
streaming allows BSL users to communicate via the internet and break
down geographical barriers.

By logging on to:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/bt2 ,
users can access BT's BSL Broadband Guide which was created in
partnership with SignPost, Britain's largest supplier of BSL on-screen
services for all media platforms.

[Sponsored Notice ends]


Section One: News.


+01: RNIB Addresses Software Accessibility Gap

The RNIB has launched an online resource of advice and information,
the first stage in a wider initiative to raise awareness of accessibility
issues for software generally, rather than just the technology used for
websites.

Aimed at web designers and developers, systems integrators,
purchasing professionals and policymakers, the 'Software access
centre'
( http://fastlink.headstar.com/rnib7 )
provides information and advice on testing and evaluating software for
accessibility, procuring software and information on the relevant
legislation in the UK and Europe.

The site will expand to include more examples of good software design
and purchasing, tools and techniques including company case studies.
The team behind the site also plans to introduce a software
accessibility audit service and training courses.

"We needed to get some information and resources into the public
domain," Senior ICT Development Officer and site author Ruth Loebl
told E-Access Bulletin. She said there is already a glut of resources on
web accessibility proved by the high hit rate of RNIB's 'Web access
centre' on which the resource was based. "Access barriers in software
are just as high," Loebl said.

The resource was launched in response to an assumption the word
"accessibility" stands for 'web accessibility according to Loebl. "Web
accessibility is generally easier and quicker to fix than software
accessibility because software renewal cycles are in the range of five to
10 years compared with website renewal which is more like five to 10
months," she said.

The software centre includes the RNIB's top five recommendations for
ensuring software is accessible including: 'get to know the standards
and guidelines' and 'try to carry out every task and action without
having to use a mouse.'


+02: Win For Campaigners In Massachusetts

Anti-discrimination campaigners in Massachusetts have won important
concessions that will ensure electronic documents published by the
State government are accessible to users of screen reader technology.

Campaigners attacked government plans to switch its electronic
publishing from proprietary software such as the Microsoft Office
suite, to software based on the Open Document Format
( ODF - http://fastlink.headstar.com/odf ),
the first State in the Union to do so. See E-Access Bulletin Issue 73,
January 2006 for more details.

Campaigners protested that many screen readers are built to work with
Microsoft products rather than those based on open source software.
The move, originally intended for 80,000 desktops by January 2007,
has been replaced by a plan that will see official documents published
in both formats.

Beginning in January 2007 the State government will deploy plug-in
software for its Microsoft products that will enable documents to be
saved in ODF as an option. According to the State, the Massachusetts
Office on Disability will be among the first wave of government
agencies to deploy the plug-in, and the migration is set to be complete
by June 2007.

However, an official statement from the government suggests that this
is seen as a transition arrangement, and that regular reviews will be
made of the software market for products that comply with ODF and
are accessible
( http://fastlink.headstar.com/mass3 ).

The Information Technology Division of the State government did not
respond to requests for further details from E-Access Bulletin.


+03: Councils To Launch Talkative Robots

By next summer, residents of Camden in London will access
information about local services by phoning a council number and
holding a normal conversation with interactive voice software, instead
of using a phone keypad to navigate through menus, or waiting for an
operator to respond.

Users can ask questions as if they were speaking to a human operator,
and receive a natural-sounding spoken response. "It should be able to
handle quite general queries like 'What's on tonight in Camden?'" said
Alasdair Mangham, Camden Council's Head of Business Systems and
IT. "It would probably respond with a question like 'Are you interested
in cinema or theatre..?' and so on," he said.

According to Mangham, such a system is well-suited to local
authorities because of the large number of services they deliver.
"Councils deliver around 500 services. You can't have 500 options
available through menus and key presses, there's a lot to gain from
having an interactive voice technology like this," he said.

The system, put together from a mixture of existing technologies and
bespoke components by councils in Camden, Barcelona and Turin
( http://www.bcn.es/hops/ ),
also has the potential to respond automatically to a caller in a range of
languages. So far it has been tested in Catalan, Spanish, Italian, and
English, on two types of service: a guide to local events and
entertainment and a service for removing large items such as unwanted
furniture.

The next step will be to invite between 60 and 100 Camden residents to
test the service, probably in late October or early November. "We hope
to have a prototype built by the end of December, and to launch the
service in Camden around April next year," said Mangham.

NOTE: This story was originally published in E-Government Bulletin,
the sister publication of E-Access Bulletin.


+04: Path Cleared For Wearable Navigational Device

Research on a wearable device that provides a detailed "audio map" of
a user's environment, enabling navigation around small obstacles in
the street and through buildings, has been boosted by 600,000 dollars
funding from the US National Science Foundation.

The System for Wearable Audio Navigation (SWAN), developed by
the Georgia Institute of Technology
( http://sonify.psych.gatech.edu/research/swan/index.html ),
provides audio "beacons" to help direct the user. As the user nears a
destination their tempo increases until a chime sounds to indicate
arrival. "Consider a ring around your head, about a meter away, at eye
level," assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Psychology and
College of Computing Bruce Walker. "Sounds seem to be located at
any point on the circumference of the ring."

While other navigational devices for vision impaired people have been
developed, few allow for indoor navigation. But the development team
are to improve the indoors navigation capability of the device
following the funding award.

At present, the system consists of a backpack holding a laptop
computer, Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) and other sensors, a
digital compass, a tracking chip, a head tracker, four cameras, a light
sensor and bone-conduction headphones, which convert electric signals
into vibrations, sending sound to the internal ear through the cranial
bones thus allowing other sounds to permeate.

Work is also underway on reducing the size of the device. "We are
relying on more wireless and bluetooth, to eliminate wires and cables,"
Walker said. "The dream is to make the cameras embedded in a
headband," said assistant professor in the Georgia Tech College of
Computing Frank Dellaert.

The project team will shortly begin usability testing of the device with
sighted and blind participants. In future there are also plans to use the
built-in camera for facial recognition to speak the name of the person
to the user.


++News in Brief:

+05: Moving News: A free pilot of a text-to-speech Really Simple
Syndication (RSS) feed for mobile phones has been launched allowing
vision impaired users to listen to up-to-the-minute sports, weather and
news reports and blogs. SpeakFeed by US company DemandVoice,
originally designed for trapped commuters, uses internet technology:
http://www.demandvoice.com/news/speakfeed.html .

+06: Show Support: Over 1,200 people have signed an online petition
to reverse a decision to axe Ireland's only radio show dedicated to
blindness issues. Audioscope, broadcast on Ireland's National RTE
Radio One, had been running for 30 years. The National Council for
the Blind of Ireland has called on the station's boss to reverse the
decision:
www.saveaudioscope.com .

+07: Description Expansion: Some 240 screens at 200 cinemas will use
digital projection allowing audio description to be more easily installed
in the UK by Spring 2007. Following the rollout of the Digital Screen
Network initiative, the overall scheme received 12 million pounds of
funding from the National Lottery through the UK Film Council:
http://www.creativematch.co.uk/viewNews/?92703 .

+08: Price Error: In the last issue of the bulletin in story 04 on the
launch of a free screen reader, Thunder, we wrote incorrect prices for
screen readers Window-Eyes and JAWS. Window-Eyes costs 520
pounds and JAWS costs 655 pounds for operating system Windows
XP Home Edition and 785 pounds for Windows XP Professional.

[Section One ends].


++Section Two: 'The Inbox'
- Readers' Forum.

Please email all contributions or responses to
inbox at headstar.com .


+09: Reader Questions: Don Wessels from South Africa writes: "The
August issue of the bulletin reports on the launch of a free screen
reader called Thunder. Is there anyone out there that has tried it? How
good is it for surfing the internet? I am still using the rather old JAWS
3.7 which is not very good with the internet."
[responses please to inbox at headstar.com]


+10: Locked Out: Asim Rauf from Islamabad in Pakistan writes in
response to Diana Monahan's offer of a 'Eureka' with manuals and a
range of access software: "Thanks Ms Monahan for your generosity.
The fact is that although we are living in the third world by the
standards of developed countries and we have access to all the latest
inventions in the field of information technology, the only problem for
visually impaired people is that they are not available at our price. I
don't think that anyone in these countries is using those programmes
you have mentioned in your mail. I have seen that even in England, the
adaptive technology is so expensive that an ordinary person can't
afford to buy it. The need now is to urge governments to take steps to
bring down the prices of these things and to force the manufacturers to
sell them on a no-profit basis. In my opinion, the price hike of adaptive
technology amounts to inaccessibility.

Asim also asks readers: "Can any one guide me how to scan and read
at the same time in Kurzweil?"
[responses please to inbox at headstar.com]


+11: Reading Linux: DPM Weerakkody, Professor of Western Classics
and Head of the Department of Classical Languages at the University
of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka writes: "I am writing to find out whether you
have information regarding any screen reader with voice synthesis for
use with the Red Hat Linux operating system?"
[responses please to inbox at headstar.com]

[Inbox ends]


++Special Notice: 'e-Access '06' - Technology For All.
- 14 September 2006
- New Connaught Rooms, London.

'e-Access'06' is the UK's leading annual event on access by people
with disabilities to all technologies. The conference and exhibition
focuses on how digital technology both enables and prevents people
with disabilities to achieve greater independence.

Speakers include Peter White, BBC Disability Affairs Correspondent;
Kevin Carey, vice-chair RNIB and Ofcom Content Board Member;
and Guido Gybels, Director of New Technologies, RNID. Sponsors
include BSkyB, BT, Jadu and Ford.

Places cost 195 pounds for public sector, 295 pounds for private sector
and 145 pounds for small charities and not-for-profit organisations (all
prices exclude VAT) See:
http://www.headstar-events.com/eaccess06/ .

[Special Notice ends]


++Section Three: Focus
- Education.

+12: Lessons Learned In Strathclyde And Malawi
by Derek Parkinson

As the start of the new academic year approaches, university
departments are gearing up for the new intake of students, but for Carol
Murphy, an Assistive Technology Adviser at the University of
Strathclyde, this summer has been busier than most.

This year, Murphy has been involved in the early stages of setting up a
project to improve the accessibility of learning materials for vision
impaired students at schools and universities in the African republic of
Malawi.

Supported by 180,000 pounds from the Scottish Executive
International Development Fund, the 'Making Wonders' project has
supplied laptops, assistive technology such as screen readers and
magnifiers, training and support to three schools and one teacher
training centre in the African country
( http://fastlink.headstar.com/strath1 ).

This first phase of the three-year project involved laying the
foundations, installing products such as the Freedom Scientific JAWS
screen reader and the Zoomtext magnifier from AI Squared on
computers, and training teachers in Malawi to use them effectively.
"The training began with switching on the computer," says Murphy.
"We taught them to touch-type without looking at a monitor,
sometimes using headphones and sometimes with blindfolds," she
says.

The teachers were also taught about how the operating systems worked
using Sarah Morley's book 'Windows XP Explained'
( http://www.winguide.co.uk/ ),
says Murphy. Over the next two years, Murphy and her colleagues will
deliver further support for Malawi's teachers as they take their newly
acquired skills into the classroom, providing educational opportunities
that weren't available before. "Examination papers are available in
Braille, but not course materials," says Murphy. Although the
government of Malawi has little funding available to spend on
technology, it is committed to helping support the training of teachers,
she says.

 Although there may not be obvious similarities between the education
systems of the UK and Malawi, Murphy says that her experiences in
Africa will certainly benefit her work in Strathclyde. "I've hardly had a
chance to take my notes out of my case and look at them, but they're
so comprehensive they will certainly be useful here," she says.

At Strathclyde, Murphy's work involves liaising with assistive
technology developers and the IT department to ensure that the
University's JAWS and Zoomtext equipment is up-to-date and the
licences paid for, helping students use the equipment, and flagging up
problems with the accessibility of coursework to academic staff.
"Generally they're very good and try to help," she says. "There was
one course that involved heavy use of websites, and some were very
difficult to use with screen readers. The problems were fixed within
days," says Murphy.

Unfortunately, other issues can take longer, she says. Overall, Murphy
says that Strathclyde's IT staff, lecturers, and library staff are generally
very supportive of her team's efforts. But the process of assessing a
student, applying for funding, setting up equipment and training can
take months. This can mean that most of the first term has gone before
a new student has their assistive technology needs sorted out.

Strathclyde has found ways of minimising the worst effects, says
Murphy. "We can loan students equipment until the funding is sorted
out," she says. With 10 years work experience in this area, Murphy is
well-placed to spot shifts in attitudes in the education sector.
"Legislation has helped to focus people's minds," she says. "One of the
changes is that dealing with disability is increasingly seen as
everyone's responsibility, not just disability advisors."

[Section three ends].


++Section Two: Opinion
- Personal computing

+13: All Change!
by Kevin Carey

There is no doubt that, in terms of access technology, I am one of the
elite: I am a self-employed consultant with a well appointed office
where my Index Braille embosser is attached to my PA's computer. I
work on a [HumanWare] BrailleNote qwerty version and tend to
transfer all my messy files to my PA for editing and routing. The
equipment was initially supplied through the Department for Work and
Pensions's Access to Work (ATW) programme. It's a fine life.

Except that, in the past two years, since I acquired the new embosser
neither the software it came with nor the software I used before work
properly. I have had to settle for a situation where every apostrophe
and single quote comes out as 'ae' (which makes reading awkward as
these letters contract with contiguous characters); and I have to put up
with huge slabs of Braille because the translator can't handle hard or
soft line breaks. My BrailleNote is wonderful, as are the people who
support it, but it hasn't worked properly for the past two years; and, as I
write, I have been waiting for a new one for four weeks. I will have to
buy this as ATW says the 'Friday afternoon' model that I've got is
repairable; well, so is a vintage car!

In the past 10 years my whole system has never gone for more than
four months without a fault. I gave up trying to use standard systems
with bolt-on accessibility because the incompatibility disputes never
got solved; but the turnkey solutions are provided by companies that
are too fragile. Incidentally, I have never been able to work out how
you stop the Braille display cursor in either kind of system defaulting
to the extreme right or disappearing onto the invisible next line; this
started when I moved from WordStar to Word on a bolt-on system and
persists in the BrailleNote.

All in all then, with my sound basic knowledge of the technology, my
accessibility life is quite difficult; so what must it be like for people
who are unfamiliar with technology and find it hard to pick up the
phone and get some service? And as the kit originally came from
ATW, what about people who are not working?

I think it is time that we had a total change. Starting with the ATW
programme, but expanding to all vision impaired people, there should
be a legislated right to access information based not on grants for
purchases of hardware and client side software, but on financial
support for hardware leasing and a subscription-based server side
service providing applications and storage.

Of course this will only work with broadband and flexibility will
require that to be delivered by wireless, for example. But as the policy
will take years to implement there is no need for my elite peers to
worry about whether they will be able to pick up their emails on Mount
Snowdon at three in the morning. Clearly a broadband, server side
service will not be totally ubiquitous but anyone who wants something
better should pay for it.

What I am proposing would spare us all the problems of
incompatibility and the wretched upgrade. It would allow us to use
much thinner clients with much less complicated technology and this
would facilitate a much faster turnaround of faulty kit.

Obviously there will have to be a joint agreement between the
Government and organisations like the RNIB and perhaps even the
accessibility industry, as long as it does not try to preserve the status
quo. The cartel of companies that run global accessibility have had
their chance and failed; it's time to face the broadband future with a
more viable accessibility package.

NOTE: Kevin Carey is director of HumanITy, a digital inclusion
charity and vice-chair of the RNIB.

[Section Four ends].



++Special Notice: Web Accessibility Forum.

Accessify Forum is a discussion forum devoted to all topics relating to
web accessibility. Topics cover everything from 'Beginners' and 'Site
building and testing' through to projects such as the new accessibility
testing tool WaiZilla and the accessibility of the open source forum
software itself.

All you need to register is a working email address, so come along and
join in the fun at:
http://www.accessifyforum.com .

[Special notice ends].


++Special Notice: Braille Translations.

Braille Translations provides a fast, cost-effective, high quality service
of translating any document into Braille. We are able to provide Braille
menus, public leaflets and business cards in Braille and help make you
compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act. We can translate
from large print, audio tape or audio CD.

We can also help with premises accessibility including Braille Tactile
Signs for toilets and other doors.

All work is proof-read before dispatch and we are able to provide an
express 24-hour service. Please call our offices for an immediate
quotation or for further information on Freephone number 08000 190
946; Mobile: 07903 996533; email ghow at brailletranslations.co.uk or
see:
http://www.brailletranslations.co.uk .


++End Notes.

+How to Receive the Bulletin.

To subscribe to this free monthly bulletin, email
eab-subs at headstar.com with 'subscribe eab' in the subject header.
You can list other email addresses to subscribe in the body of the
message. Please encourage all your colleagues to sign up! To
unsubscribe at any time, put 'unsubscribe eab' in the subject header.

Please send comments on coverage or leads to Dan Jellinek at:
dan at headstar.com .

Copyright 2006 Headstar Ltd http://www.headstar.com .
The Bulletin may be reproduced as long as all parts including this
copyright notice are included, and as long as people are always
encouraged to subscribe with us individually by email. Please also
inform the editor when you are reproducing our content. Sections of
the bulletin may be quoted as long as they are clearly sourced as 'taken
from e-access bulletin, a free monthly email newsletter', and our web
site address http://www.headstar.com/eab is also cited.

+Personnel:
Editor - Dan Jellinek
Deputy editor - Derek Parkinson
Senior reporter - Mel Poluck
Technical advisor - Nick Apostolidis
Editorial advisor - Kevin Carey.

ISSN 1476-6337 .

[Issue ends.]




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