Blog
March 15, 2010
Breaking News: SightSavers Dolphin Pen at an unbelievable price of Rs.9750*
Filed under: Accessibility, Assistive Technologies, News, Visual — Shilpi Kapoor @ 10:27 amThe SightSavers Dolphin Pen is a lightweight pen drive with a screen magnifier and screen reader, and Braille support designed to benefit those living in some of the developing countries.
It enables visually impaired people in India and other developing countries to gain the same access to computers as sighted people – and so to develop their skills and employment prospects.
This is an exciting venture because it is the first time a world-ranked assistive technology manufacturer has collaborated with an NGO (non-government organization) to make high-quality product such as this available at a cost price. In India the same is being launched with BarrierBreak Technologies providing training and support for the SightSavers Dolphin Pen.
Now, Blind and low vision computer users can now carry their assistive software on a pen drive and use it on any PC.
It is a combined screen reader and magnifier helps to reduce eye strain by allowing users to increase magnification or add speech during the day as eyes become tired.
It also includes a full screen reader for people who are blind, which can cope with text and Braille input together with speech and Braille output.
- Provides English and Hindi Support
- Voices provided are Sangeeta for Indian English accent and Lekha for Hindi
- Works on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7
Price of SightSavers Dolphin Pen: Rs. 9750*
* This price can ONLY be availed by Persons with Disabilities by providing the disability certificate.
What will this get you?
You will get a USB Pen with the SightSavers Dolphin Pen which includes screen reader, magnifier and Braille support. You will get updates for free.
Where can you buy this?
Get in touch with BarrierBreak Technologies at +91-22-26860485/6 and sales@barrierbreak.com
February 23, 2010
Are you person with disability and looking for a Job?
Filed under: Accessibility, General, News — Mamta Tandel @ 6:56 pmEnAble India is a non-profit organization for the economic independence and dignity of persons with disabilities. We cater to the needs of all kinds of disabilities such as visually impaired, hearing impaired, physically disabled, developmental delays, mental illness and more across India.
EnAble India works with more than 150 companies across India for the training and placement of persons with disability.
To avail our training and placement services, you will need to register with EnAble India: Candidates can email their resume and details to registration@enable-india.org or may call 080 42823636 for an appointment to get registered. Candidates need to provide the following documents for registration: Photocopy of Medical Certificate of Disability, Resume, Photocopy of Education Certificates, Two Passport Size Photographs.
During registration, we will profile the candidate and understand their skills, aptitude and interests and accordingly recommend the jobs along with any training if required.
IMMEDIATE REQUIREMENT: Last date 28th Feb 2010
EnAble India, Bangalore is the campus recruitment center for Mphasis for 2010. Persons with disability who are technical graduates and have passed out in 2009 or applying for final year examination can apply. Tentative interview dates will be March 5 or 12th.
About Mphasis: Mphasis is a HP company who is an equal opportunity employer, Mphasis believes in diversity hiring and has been working with several organisations across the country to bring the diverse workforce within the company. They are open to all kinds of disabilities such as vision impairment, hearing impairment, physical disability and so on. Currently Mphasis has the following job opportunities: Programmer, Tester, IT Help desk and other technical positions.
Eligibility: Technical graduates (B.E, M.E, B.Tech, M.Tech, B.C.A, M.C.A etc.) who have passed out in 2009 or candidates applying for final year examination.
Work location: Bangalore
Job type: For freshers
Note: Candidates who pass the entry criteria to attend interview will have to undergo 2 days training prior to the interview to brush up their technical skills and to prepare for the interview.
Last date to apply for this event is 28th Feb 2010
Interested candidates can send their resumes to registration@enable-india.org with the SUBJECT LINE: Mphasis campus recruitment drive. For further queries, please contact EnAble India on 080 42823636, 98453 13919
No CommentsExperience Zone at Techshare India 2010
Filed under: Accessibility, Assistive Technologies, Techshare India — Mamta Tandel @ 9:53 amStill remember my first involvement in the Experience Zone at Techshare India 2008. A lot has changed since then in our lives but the experienced remained the same in fact more fabulous. Scores of people dropping in at the Experience Zone, some to find a suitable product for themselves, or worried parents to find products which would make their child lead a better life.
This time around we at BarrierBreak Technologies wanted to make different products and software relate to day-to-day lives of people with disabilities. As a result, products were displayed and categories with a backdrop of living room, bedroom and office areas.
Techshare India 2010 Experience Zone also included small items like Nail Clipper with a magnifier, liquid level indicator for the visually impaired, Flashing door bell and plug-in amplifier for hearing impaired. Along with these, GoTalk product range from Attainment Company rocked for the learning disabled, where parents took manuals and price list for making purchases. Optelec’s Clearview also was a hit in the Office area for low-vision on-lookers.
Adaptive keyboard and mouse, Trackball, Color identifier from Caretec, Screen readers such as Supernova, colorful keys of Clevy keyboard (attracted children), QualiWorld software, tactile sheets that visually impaired users could use to learn computers, bendable cutlery items such as spoon and forks were some of the other products that created an impact for all people visiting the Experience Zone.
My best experience however was a gentleman who had completely lost his eyesight visiting the Experience zone and looking for products for hearing impaired, especially got excited when I showed him the Flashing door bell. On enquiry and much to my amazement, he said his wife was hearing impaired and that Flashing door bell and Telephone plug-in amplifier would be an ideal product for her!
We were also happy to see people attending other conferences within the premises of India Habitat Center were keen and happy to visit the Experience Zone and gained knowledge about the different products available for people with disabilities.
Overall, a fabulous experience being at Techshare India 2010! Hope to see you all there next time with more fabulous products that make a difference in the lives of all people including those with disabilities.
Regards,
Mamta Tandel
No CommentsJanuary 14, 2010
Accessibility Knowledge Series VII – Introduction to Augmentative and Alternative Communication
Filed under: Accessibility Knowledge Series, Assistive Technologies, Elderly, Learning, Speech — @ 5:49 pmAugmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is any method that supplements or replaces speech and writing when these are temporarily or permanently impaired and inadequate to meet all or some of a person’s communication needs. AAC methods allows the user to perform that which is most human – thinking, dreaming, and planning and are effective ‘tools’ to communicate and access the environment. The users include persons with special needs and elderly.
AAC may be unaided, or aided, involving high and low technology. The array includes a simple non-tech alphabet board for spelling or display made with picture symbols and whole words, while the user just point to the symbols to frame a message. On the other hand there are software and hardware systems where the user gets support with the framing of the message (eg. word prediction), and a speech output for that message is generated.
AAC systems and voice output aids are common in the west but have been recently introduced in India. The National Resource Centre for AAC housed at Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy (IICP) and Vidyasagar, Chennai are working in the area of research and development of AAC aids in collaboration with premier technical institutes such as IIT Kharagpur and IIT Chennai. The India Chapter of International Society for AAC has also been formed recently to take forward the movement for AAC and AT for communication in the country. The concern is to develop AAC systems that are affordable and culturally appropriate for our country.
References:
- Alant, E. (1996) Alternative and augmentative communication in developing countries: Challenges for the future. Alternative and Augmentative Communication, 12.
- Kaul, S. (2002) Silent Voices: Proceedings from the International Conference on Augmentaive & Alternative Communication, Disability and Human Rights.IICP, Kolkata.
This Accessibility Knowledge Series has been provided by Swati Chakraborty
Co-ordinator, National Resource Centre for AAC, Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy
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
December 24, 2009
Accessibility Knowledge Series VI – Solutions For People With Low Vision
Filed under: Accessibility, Accessibility Knowledge Series, Visual — Shilpi Kapoor @ 4:52 pmMuch often, we attend meetings and conferences; Today, mostly every speaker uses Power Point Slides to express what they will have to say. Although they speak most of the time, there would be some important content / pictures that convey information more than the talk.
Telescope or hand held magnifiers would be of immense help for people who are partially sighted to get access to these presentations.
Telescopes come in variety of ranges such as 2x, 4x etc. and they can either be hand held or can be mounted into spectacle frame and the distance can be adjusted as needed. These gadgets could also be of help to school going children who have difficulty to see the board.
Secondly, to read business cards and other printed material, portable magnifiers such as Optelec’s Portable Magnifiers could be helpful.
Using this, one can adjust size of the font, adjust the contrast as needed such as black on white, white on black, yellow on blue etc. Even one can take the snap of the material and read at a convenient distance.
Reference:
This Accessibility Knowledge Series has been provided by Srinivasu Chakravarthula, Accessibility Manager, Yahoo! India R&D
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
December 17, 2009
Accessibility Knowledge Series V – ARIA
Filed under: ARIA, Accessibility, Accessibility Knowledge Series — Priti Rohra @ 6:57 pmInformation on the web has become intuitive and users are no longer required to submit the data for further processing on the server in order to access the same. The web today includes features of an application and at the same time provides a platform for instant exchange of data, such as photographs, instant messaging, videos, music etc. In technical terms, it happens with the use of Ajax, JavaScript, RIA, DHTML or even a combination of all of them.
Ever thought, how would people with disabilities interact with such dynamic web content?
For example, how would a person using a keyboard carry out a drag-n-drop function? Or how would someone using a screen reader read the dynamically updating information on a web page?
In order to make the dynamic web content accessible for people with disabilities, Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has laid down specification for Accessible Rich Internet Application (ARIA).
ARIA specification includes techniques to define Roles, States and Properties for different web elements which will make the information available to platform Application Programming Interface (API). Assistive Technologies and Browsers render the information through APIs and convey it to the users.
Some of the benefits of implementing ARIA include:
- Assistive technologies can identify the dynamically updating web page content and inform users about the same;
- Helps Assistive Technology to identify the type of different widgets/controls, such as drop-down menus, tree views, toolbar etc and inform users about the same;
- Keyboard access to different sections of a web page, such as search, navigation, main content, application, footer etc as well as interactive widgets/controls
The WAI-ARIA specification is still at a working draft stage and already user agents, such as web browsers and Assistive Technologies have started implementing the same.
Reference:
This Accessibility Knowledge Series has been provided by Priti Rohra, Senior Accessibility Consultant, 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/product that would bring a change for persons with disabilities? Send it across to techshare@barrierbreak.com
December 10, 2009
Accessibility Knowledge Series IV – Audio Description
Filed under: Accessibility Knowledge Series, Visual — Mamta Tandel @ 5:29 pmAudio Description – Have you heard of it?
Often people get scared to ask a blind or low vision person to see a movie. It’s a simple myth that how he/she would enjoy a movie. Yes they can listen to the dialogues and the sounds and the music, but isn’t there more to a movie than just that.
So how can we give a person who is visually impaired the experience and enjoyment of the movie/television show?
We can add audio descriptions which is basically a narration of what is happening in a movie / television show. Audio Descriptions are delivered where there is a gap between the dialogues.
The Royal National Institute of Blind People, UK, conducted a research report – “Bollywood for all: an RNIB project on demand for audio described Bollywood films in cinema and on DVD”
http://www.rnib.org.uk/livingwithsightloss/tvradiofilm/film/Pages/bollywood.aspx
Watch a great audio-visual which simulates the need for audio description http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu0GYkuCrRg
When will we be able to have this experience for the visually impaired people of India?
Reference:
http://www.rnib.org.uk/livingwithsightloss/tvradiofilm/film/Pages/bollywood.aspx
http://ncam.wgbh.org/richmedia/strategies/AD.php
http://www.skillsforaccess.org.uk/howto.php?id=104
This Accessibility Knowledge Series has been provided by Mamta Tandel, Accessibility Project Lead, 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/product that would bring a change for persons with disabilities? Send it across to techshare@barrierbreak.com
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