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November 26, 2009
Accessibility Knowledge Series III – Mobile Accessibility
Filed under: Accessibility, Accessibility Knowledge Series, Assistive Technologies, Developing Technologies, Hearing, Techshare India, Visual — Shilpi Kapoor @ 7:01 pm
Mobile Accessibility
With the advent of technology Mobile Phones are becoming more and more powerful and feature rich devices and are great temptation to have one with us. The visually impaired users are no exception to this.
Apart from making and receiving call and to sending SMS a phone is a gadget full of features including variety of communication options, navigation aid, reading appliance, internet device and yes, great asset of entertainment with the option to play and record multimedia content.
Thus the mobile technology is growing at a rate out of imagination but for Person with disability, it is not that easy to opt for high tech solutions that are made available to their non disabled counterpart.
Hold on, you will be happy to know that there are companies like Code Factory working to Make Mobile Phone Accessible to visually impaired and hearing impaired.
The Screen Reader and Magnifier are available for High-tech Phones running Either Windows Mobile or Symbian Series 60 or Blackberry (Orator). The software is capable of rendering Text in Audio or in Braille on a Braille Display. Thus making most of the things accessible out of the box such as personal information management, browsing internet, etc.
There are few interesting advantages of using a high-tech Mobile Phones with accessibility products.
- For instance using Mobile Geo can give the sense of independence in navigation and is very helpful in determining Point of Interest while navigating on a unfamiliar vicinity.
- The tools like color recognizer can help you to identify colors of different objects giving sense of independence over color choices.
- On account of learning, Daisy Books can also be played on a mobile Device thus evading the need to carry a separate device to read books. The Daisy player provides all the option available on any other hardware / software Daisy player.
Thus technology is changing lives of every one with no exception of Disabled people.
Reference:
Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/codefactory and on our blog at http://codefactoryblog.wordpress.com/
Website: http://www.codefactory.es
This Accessibility Knowledge Series has been provided by Caroline Ragot, Marketing Director, Code Factory, S.L
Disclaimer:The views expressed herein are solely those of the author as an individual with interest in accessibility and assistive technology and do not claim to represent those of Techshare India, BarrierBreak Technologies or Net Systems Informatics.
Contribute
Got an idea/product that would bring a change for persons with disabilities? Send it across to techshare@barrierbreak.com
November 19, 2009
Accessibility Knowledge Series II – DAISY: Books Which Every One Can Read!
Filed under: Accessibility, Accessibility Knowledge Series, Alternate Formats, Assistive Technologies, Daisy, Elderly, Learning, Mobility, Print Disability, Visual — Shilpi Kapoor @ 2:17 pmDAISY: Books Which Every One Can Read!
Any one who has a problem in reading a normal print book can read the book prepared as a DAISY Book. Persons with blindness, low vision, Dyslexia, Learning Disability or those who cannot use both hands due to any disability and thus are not able to hold a book and turn pages can benefit from DAISY Books.
Types of DAISY Books:
- Master document that can be used for creating Braille, large print or DAISY Digital books. These are also called DAISY-xml documents.
- Audio Only DAISY Books: These are advance and new generation talking books.
- Full Text full audio DAISY Books: While listening the books, you can also view the text of what is being spoken.
- Text only DAISY Books: You will need to have a mobile phone or computer or a DAISY Player with Text to speech engine to read such DAISY Books.
Navigation in the book based on sentence, page, chapter or subsection is a unique feature of DAISY Books.
Another advantage of DAISY system is that once the source document is produced, Braille, talking book, large print or e-text versions of the book can be prepared with in minutes.
We can read these books on mobile phones, computers, CD players and dedicated DAISY Players. DAISY books are also available through internet or telephone based libraries.
We can produce DAISY Books using special software for production of DAISY Books. Many of these software are available free of cost. Some of these are sold by companies such as Dolphin Computer Access, Innovative Rehabilitation Technology Inc or Plextalk.
For information on DAISY Forum of India and list of organizations visit: www.daisyindia.org. Bookshare India also provides text only DAISY Books to its members. Or send e-mail to dfi@saksham.org
Reference:
http://www.daisy.org
http://www.saksham.org
http://www.daisyindia.org
This Accessibility Knowledge Series has been provided by Dipendra Manocha, Director of the Regional Resource Centre (New Delhi), DAISY for All
Disclaimer:The views expressed herein are solely those of the author as an individual with interest in accessibility and assistive technology and do not claim to represent those of Techshare India, BarrierBreak Technologies or Net Systems Informatics.
Contribute
Got an idea that would bring a change for persons with disabilities? Send it across to techshare@barrierbreak.com
November 12, 2009
Accessibility Knowledge Series I – Audio-Visual Content Accessible to All!
Filed under: Accessibility, Accessibility Knowledge Series, Assistive Technologies, Hearing, Techshare India — Shilpi Kapoor @ 8:30 pmAudio-Visual Content Accessible to All!
Whenever I talk of accessibility, one of the first reactions is that accessibility is for the visually impaired. Since we don’t visually see any problems with the deaf and hearing impaired, people are of the opinion that deaf or hard of hearing DO NOT face any accessibility issues.
It’s time to break this myth, especially in a day an age where content is available in audio-visual formats, the deaf or hard of hearing are at a major disadvantage.
Often you and I have problems in communicating with the deaf or hard of hearing since we might not know sign language, we often resort to gestures and to writing out what we are trying to explain to them. In the case of the web or on television or in movies where audio-visual is being used, the deaf or hard of hearing are surely impacted.
So whats the solution for them? It’s very simple, “Captioning“. I have often noticed that persons having no disability are watching captioned movies. People who don’t understand the accent often use captioning, senior citizens also can benefit from captioning. So it isn’t only the deaf and hard of hearing!
Shouldn’t we be captioning audio-visual files? Find out a lot more at Techshare India 2010.
Reference:
This Accessibility Knowledge Series has been provided by Shilpi Kapoor, Managing Director, BarrierBreak Technologies
Disclaimer:The views expressed herein are solely those of the author as an individual with interest in accessibility and assistive technology and do not claim to represent those of Techshare India, BarrierBreak Technologies or Net Systems Informatics.
Contribute
Got an idea that would bring a change for persons with disabilities? Send it across to techshare@barrierbreak.com
No CommentsNovember 5, 2009
Accessibility Knowledge Series – Bridging the Barriers
Filed under: Accessibility, Accessibility Knowledge Series, General, Techshare India — Shilpi Kapoor @ 1:11 pmUntil now the word “access” in India largely meant built environment atleast as far as the disability sector goes. When we organized Techshare India 2008, most of the time people would ask us what we meant by “accessibility” or “assistive technology”.Now that Techshare India 2010 is scheduled to be held on 15th and 16th February 2010, we thought as a build up to the conference and exhibition, let us start an educational series that will help us introduce people to accessibility and assistive technology.
Over the next few months, through this Accessibility Knowledge Series, we will address how to bridge the barriers that persons with disabilities face.
In the area of accessibility, there are a few key things are that have happened in India since Techshare India 2008:
- National Informatics Centre has developed Web Guidelines for India Government Websites
- Reserve Bank of India issued a notification to ensure that ATM’s are accessible to persons with disabilities
- Ministry of Information Technology is working on the National Policy on Electronic
- Setting up of Accessibility Labs by various government bodies and corporates
- Provisions of Assistive Technology for Children with Disabilities for inculcating the computer literacy, enhancing the skills and providing job oriented training to the disabled children in IT. A project by Government of India.
- Ministry of Human Resource & Development has passed the education bill whereby free and compulsory education for childrens within the age group of 6-14, which also includes childrens with disabilities.
- Prime time News on India’s National Television channel Doordarshan are sub-titled to make it accessible for the hearing impaired.
So let us understand the impact of this and how can we ensure that as the disability sector, the IT sector and the government we can ensure that benefit the persons with disabilities!
Wear your Accessibility hats!
It is time that the Disability Sector sees beyond the ramps and look at how they can use technology to empower the persons with disabilities.
It is time that the IT Companies understand how softwares and solutions that they design and develop can and must cater to the needs of the disabled also.
It is time that the Government sees beyond the limbs and the canes and looks at how to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to technology.
Got an idea that would bring a change for persons with disabilities? Send it across to techshare@barrierbreak.com
Want to participate in Techshare India 2010, write to us techshare@barrierbreak.com
Web: techshare.barrierbreak.com
Tel: +91-22-26860485/86
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