This is quite cool. For the first time ever I am writing this blog using a wireless laptop. Can you tell the difference? Just loungin' around, thought I'd connect with cyberspace, moved my computer towards me a little, and whaddya know I'm posting without even having to wander to another part of my house where the computer resides. Well actually it blew up but that's another story. I'm a little late to this wireless thing, seems everyone else has been into it for quite some time.
Took delivery of a brand new laptop at the weekend - note, not this one. It has Vista on it - Microsoft's new operating system.
I'm using JAWS 8 with it currently but from the get go I have been having problems using it. For starters, the JAWS installation CD is designed so that you can install the screenreading software independently. Yeah. Well. That may have been the case on Windows XP but not so on Vista it seems.
Vista's big seling point, and big innovation, is its added security. So far it seems that the inbuilt Vista security methods are getting in the way of me installing jaws in the first darn place. In short: it doesn't all speak.
I got someone else to help me install it and now have JAWS on board. However, there is a certain amount of learning that I need to do it seems. For starters, where has the shutdown button gone? How do you turn your PC off in Vista? It used to be in the start menu. Not any more.
But oh ... JAWS doesn't work too well in the Vista environment yet. Certain things just aren't being voiced. I have to say I am extremeley disappointed so far.
JAWS 9 is due for release any day now though so maybe this'll fix the bugs. It had better. JAWS specifically claims it supports Windows Vista.
IF anyone has any tips for me, please leave a comment on this blog. My home email address is not working currently so I am not picking up any personal messages.
Showing posts with label accessibility. Show all posts
Showing posts with label accessibility. Show all posts
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Wayfinder Access: audio demonstration
A few days ago I wrote a blog entry about Wayfinder Access - a GPS direction-finding solution ... a bit of software you can put on your mobile phone. It's meant for people with visual impairments and is optimised for those who have a mobile speech synth/screenreader like Talks or MobileSpeak.
Kate pointed out quite rightly that it has potential benefits for wobblers too, people with Cerebral Palsy whose direction finding abilities are somewhat crap because of all that spacial awareness built-in malfunction ... I hope I used the right medical terms? I think Kate refers to herself as Map Disabled.
Anyhoo, I've just found an MP3 on the net; an audio demonsstration of the product done earlier this month by a fella in North America called Earl Harrison. You've gotta love the internet!
mp3 Audio demonstration of Wayfinder Access. (if you click the link directly you will be waiting a minute
or two for the audio to load into your PC. Best idea if to save it to your hard disk so you have more control over it and maybe even transfer it to your iPod. right click on the link and 'save target as' and do your usual saving routine you'll be familiar with I'm sure)
What you'll hear -- Earl sspends about 5 or 10 minutes going through the product in his house. You can choose the destination you are travelling to at home, and have the route calculated before you leave your front door. (I think you can also browse the route and see its twists and turns before leaving home too but Earl doesn't show this)
It's crucial to know that you can use Wayfinder either on foot as a pedestrian or in a car. There are two different modes on Wayfinder - the 'in car' mode turns it into a gizmo very similar to Tom Tom with that classic SatNav cool calm controlled female voice we're used to. In 'pedestrian mode' it falls back to using the speech synth you have on your phone because speech synths can give you much more and better information than the built-in female satnav voice just mentioned. (speech synths can read street names, for instance, built-in satnav clear voices can only say pre-recorded limited info such as "in half a mile, turn left")
So, after Earl has setup the route in his house, he gets in a car and we go into car mode. We hear what Earl, as a blind passenger, gets from the experience. He can help navigate.
One thing blind people often have a problem with is giving good directions to car drivers if, for instance, we want to get back home. A pedestrian and driving experience can be much different hence this function gives you real control and the ability to stop faffing around and tell your mate exactly where you want to go, giving directions as you go along.
"But Damon, what does the front of this pub look like? There are a few here but I can't see the names because it's a bit dark"
"I don't blinking well know!"
atnav will at least take you to within about 30 feet of its front door.
Note there is also a 'taxi mode' but I don't yet know what this does. Remember I'm writing all this as someone who has googled about Wayfinder and not yet used the darn thing. The version I need isn't out for a week or two.
Next Earl gets out of his car and plots another route on his mobile that he is going to attempt as a pedestrian. We hear him walking along with his guide dog Patrick being told by the phone where to turn and how many feet until the destination on a regular basis.
So there ya go. It's deep blind tech so you may want to skip to the bit where Earl is in his car if you're not too bothered about the menu system on the phone and would rather just jump right to him using Wayfinder in action.
God the net is great! I've been waiting for someone to post an audio demonstration and here it is! Maybe I'll do one when I get the gizmo.
Any feedback or thoughts appreciated! And if anyone knows of any other audio demos, or is about to do one, email me or post here. I'd like to blog it.
Kate pointed out quite rightly that it has potential benefits for wobblers too, people with Cerebral Palsy whose direction finding abilities are somewhat crap because of all that spacial awareness built-in malfunction ... I hope I used the right medical terms? I think Kate refers to herself as Map Disabled.
Anyhoo, I've just found an MP3 on the net; an audio demonsstration of the product done earlier this month by a fella in North America called Earl Harrison. You've gotta love the internet!
mp3 Audio demonstration of Wayfinder Access. (if you click the link directly you will be waiting a minute
or two for the audio to load into your PC. Best idea if to save it to your hard disk so you have more control over it and maybe even transfer it to your iPod. right click on the link and 'save target as' and do your usual saving routine you'll be familiar with I'm sure)
What you'll hear -- Earl sspends about 5 or 10 minutes going through the product in his house. You can choose the destination you are travelling to at home, and have the route calculated before you leave your front door. (I think you can also browse the route and see its twists and turns before leaving home too but Earl doesn't show this)
It's crucial to know that you can use Wayfinder either on foot as a pedestrian or in a car. There are two different modes on Wayfinder - the 'in car' mode turns it into a gizmo very similar to Tom Tom with that classic SatNav cool calm controlled female voice we're used to. In 'pedestrian mode' it falls back to using the speech synth you have on your phone because speech synths can give you much more and better information than the built-in female satnav voice just mentioned. (speech synths can read street names, for instance, built-in satnav clear voices can only say pre-recorded limited info such as "in half a mile, turn left")
So, after Earl has setup the route in his house, he gets in a car and we go into car mode. We hear what Earl, as a blind passenger, gets from the experience. He can help navigate.
One thing blind people often have a problem with is giving good directions to car drivers if, for instance, we want to get back home. A pedestrian and driving experience can be much different hence this function gives you real control and the ability to stop faffing around and tell your mate exactly where you want to go, giving directions as you go along.
"But Damon, what does the front of this pub look like? There are a few here but I can't see the names because it's a bit dark"
"I don't blinking well know!"
atnav will at least take you to within about 30 feet of its front door.
Note there is also a 'taxi mode' but I don't yet know what this does. Remember I'm writing all this as someone who has googled about Wayfinder and not yet used the darn thing. The version I need isn't out for a week or two.
Next Earl gets out of his car and plots another route on his mobile that he is going to attempt as a pedestrian. We hear him walking along with his guide dog Patrick being told by the phone where to turn and how many feet until the destination on a regular basis.
So there ya go. It's deep blind tech so you may want to skip to the bit where Earl is in his car if you're not too bothered about the menu system on the phone and would rather just jump right to him using Wayfinder in action.
God the net is great! I've been waiting for someone to post an audio demonstration and here it is! Maybe I'll do one when I get the gizmo.
Any feedback or thoughts appreciated! And if anyone knows of any other audio demos, or is about to do one, email me or post here. I'd like to blog it.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Wayfinder Access - GPS direction-finding for blind people
OK. This is cool. I've previously written about how visually impaired people are now really starting to use GPS to give an extra dimension of direction-finding in an article on Ouch: Don't scrimp on your access, you're a long time dead (15 March 2007)
I vaguely mentioned a product called Wayfinder in the article - couldn't do too much on it as it was on the BBC, no commercials please.
Since writing it though, a new product has been developed, it's called Wayfinder Access, read more about it here: Wayfinder Access on the TalkNav site
They've taken the original product aimed at the sighted market, worked with the blind community and turned it into a product that now speaks more (though you have to also be running the Talks or Mobile Speak mobile screenreader software) and worked it up into an interesting product.
That said, I've not had chance to test it out. But I believe it speaks more, gives more relevant info to people who can't see - such as what Points Of Interest are in the vicinity: pub across the road, cinema round the corner,church 100 yards further down the street etc.
So, going back to the start with a bit more detail.
Blind people are so gadgety and tech obsessed you wouldn't believe it - hardly surprising for a group whose computer is their pen, their newspaper, their accessible mail, their browsable shopping experience and more. Blind peple surely have the best gadgets?
Lots of us are now carrying around mobile phones with a bit of talking 'screenreader' software on it, e.g. Nuance Talks or the new Mobile Speak from Code Factory. These products can only work on certain phones: Symbian platform phones with Talks and I think Windows mobile platform with Mobile Speak (don't know enough about this product yet as it's fairly new). I use Nuance Talks on my Nokia N73.
To spell it out, screenreaders are bits of talking navigation software. They make your phone talk and have intelligent ways of helping you access the visual concepts. Blind people might just say "I've got a talking mobile" though :)
SMS, web surfing, creating and using phonebooks, they're the things visually impaired people typically use speech enhanced phones for.
Wayfinder Access, once installed on yer talking mobile, allows you to plot routes from A to B. You can review them at home before you leave if ya like. You also need a GPS satellite receiver. Mine, a very slimline and small Holux GPS receiver, is about the size of a packet of chewing gum, you can see it in the Ouch article I linked to at the top of this entry. It speaks to my phone using a Blue Tooth wireless connection. Easy as pie.
You apparently need to walk outside with your GPS reciever pointed skywards to lock onto the GPS satellites up there in low level orbit. Once it has a lock you can simply put the receiver in your jeans pocket ... so don't go imagining you need a big visible dish on your head. It's all very discrete. You won't look like a crippled Borg monster.
I'm going to be really interested to get this product and start using it. The big thing for a blind person about going out is usually that you need to know where you're going and what you want before you leave home. Mostly. The GPS map software will allow me to be a bit more adhoc, flexible, relaxed. I'll be able to find cafes that I didn't know were there, walk around and then ask the GPS phone to point me to the nearest tube station. Maybe even walk through a big wide-open park ... wide open areas with no pathways or landmarks are usually next to impossible to navigate through.
I'm getting mixed reports as to whether these systems work well in built-up areas though. This will be interesting to test. London could be a satellite blackspot for pedestrians. GPS receivers need 'line of sight' communication with satellites.
The next big thing being talked about is 3G direction finding. i.e. not just the use of a GPS but also extra help from mobile phone transmitters that, through a process of triangulation, can help you set coordinates in satellite blackspots ... which also includes indoors! GPS certainly won't work in Brent Cross or Blue Water shopping malls now will they. Be great when they do!I'll just drop a Point Of Interest marker outside each shop I want to visit then I'll be notified of them as I walk past them in future - not disimilar to what eyes and brains do if you think about it (oh, just for the sake of clarity, you can drop markers with Wayfinder too, plus share them via SMS to your mates)
Hope this was interesting or useful.
See my above Ouch article for more on the excellent Loadstone GPS project: A group of blind fellas who are creating a FREE piece of GPS software for mobile phones. At present you can only drop and share markers though, there are no maps so you can't tap in a postcode and get a route spurted out at you. Very useful though, take a look.
Wayfinder costs approx 260 pounds currently.
I vaguely mentioned a product called Wayfinder in the article - couldn't do too much on it as it was on the BBC, no commercials please.
Since writing it though, a new product has been developed, it's called Wayfinder Access, read more about it here: Wayfinder Access on the TalkNav site
They've taken the original product aimed at the sighted market, worked with the blind community and turned it into a product that now speaks more (though you have to also be running the Talks or Mobile Speak mobile screenreader software) and worked it up into an interesting product.
That said, I've not had chance to test it out. But I believe it speaks more, gives more relevant info to people who can't see - such as what Points Of Interest are in the vicinity: pub across the road, cinema round the corner,church 100 yards further down the street etc.
So, going back to the start with a bit more detail.
Blind people are so gadgety and tech obsessed you wouldn't believe it - hardly surprising for a group whose computer is their pen, their newspaper, their accessible mail, their browsable shopping experience and more. Blind peple surely have the best gadgets?
Lots of us are now carrying around mobile phones with a bit of talking 'screenreader' software on it, e.g. Nuance Talks or the new Mobile Speak from Code Factory. These products can only work on certain phones: Symbian platform phones with Talks and I think Windows mobile platform with Mobile Speak (don't know enough about this product yet as it's fairly new). I use Nuance Talks on my Nokia N73.
To spell it out, screenreaders are bits of talking navigation software. They make your phone talk and have intelligent ways of helping you access the visual concepts. Blind people might just say "I've got a talking mobile" though :)
SMS, web surfing, creating and using phonebooks, they're the things visually impaired people typically use speech enhanced phones for.
Wayfinder Access, once installed on yer talking mobile, allows you to plot routes from A to B. You can review them at home before you leave if ya like. You also need a GPS satellite receiver. Mine, a very slimline and small Holux GPS receiver, is about the size of a packet of chewing gum, you can see it in the Ouch article I linked to at the top of this entry. It speaks to my phone using a Blue Tooth wireless connection. Easy as pie.
You apparently need to walk outside with your GPS reciever pointed skywards to lock onto the GPS satellites up there in low level orbit. Once it has a lock you can simply put the receiver in your jeans pocket ... so don't go imagining you need a big visible dish on your head. It's all very discrete. You won't look like a crippled Borg monster.
I'm going to be really interested to get this product and start using it. The big thing for a blind person about going out is usually that you need to know where you're going and what you want before you leave home. Mostly. The GPS map software will allow me to be a bit more adhoc, flexible, relaxed. I'll be able to find cafes that I didn't know were there, walk around and then ask the GPS phone to point me to the nearest tube station. Maybe even walk through a big wide-open park ... wide open areas with no pathways or landmarks are usually next to impossible to navigate through.
I'm getting mixed reports as to whether these systems work well in built-up areas though. This will be interesting to test. London could be a satellite blackspot for pedestrians. GPS receivers need 'line of sight' communication with satellites.
The next big thing being talked about is 3G direction finding. i.e. not just the use of a GPS but also extra help from mobile phone transmitters that, through a process of triangulation, can help you set coordinates in satellite blackspots ... which also includes indoors! GPS certainly won't work in Brent Cross or Blue Water shopping malls now will they. Be great when they do!I'll just drop a Point Of Interest marker outside each shop I want to visit then I'll be notified of them as I walk past them in future - not disimilar to what eyes and brains do if you think about it (oh, just for the sake of clarity, you can drop markers with Wayfinder too, plus share them via SMS to your mates)
Hope this was interesting or useful.
See my above Ouch article for more on the excellent Loadstone GPS project: A group of blind fellas who are creating a FREE piece of GPS software for mobile phones. At present you can only drop and share markers though, there are no maps so you can't tap in a postcode and get a route spurted out at you. Very useful though, take a look.
Wayfinder costs approx 260 pounds currently.
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