[Blindmath] graphs on iOS (was: SAGE?)

Sean Tikkun jaquis at mac.com
Thu Jan 20 16:24:20 UTC 2011 

Frankly... There's money available from National Science Foundation and I'm sure NFB would be interested!  Lord knows the tactile display technology is always going to hit the financial feasibility wall until haptic bluetooth can link to mobile devices.  Which I think will get us there....


On Jan 20, 2011, at 10:12 AM, Alex Hall wrote:

> Hi,
> I will have to look into these apps. However, one major shortcoming of
> today's notetakers is the lack of a way to hear a graph. The old BNS
> could do this; give it a function, like x^2, and it would produce an
> audio clip that traced the line, using beeps for the axes and pitch to
> tell you if the line went up or down. Is anything like this available
> on iOS? If I had a Mac and $99 per year I would write one myself, but
> I am on Windows and do not have the money to spare.
> 
> On 1/20/11, Roopakshi Pathania <r_akshi_tgk at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Hmmm, thanks for the suggestions. I use Wolfram Alpha on the web, but never
>> thought to look it up in the apps store.
>> As I had written to this list before, I'm looking around the store for
>> accessible apps for Math and other technical stuff.
>> Equation Genius was my first accessible Math app discovery.
>> 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPod Touch
>> 
>> 
>> --- On Thu, 1/20/11, Sean Tikkun <jaquis at mac.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> From: Sean Tikkun <jaquis at mac.com>
>>> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] SAGE?
>>> To: "Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics"
>>> <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
>>> Date: Thursday, January 20, 2011, 9:20 PM
>>> They have 3 apps.  Wolfram alpha
>>> is a trim down interface to their web CAS/info
>>> system.   The wolfram alpha interface is
>>> really worth the $1.99, since it saves old searches and
>>> exports and drags to other apps nicely.  My blind
>>> student produces graphs and pastes them into Pages to
>>> produce print materials that blow away his sighted peers'
>>> pen and pencil work.  For my money the alg and calc
>>> course asst. is worth the $1.99 and $2.99
>>> respectively.  Just to save me the trouble of not
>>> mistyping something on a touchscreen and have all the syntax
>>> completed for me.  They also produced a Music Theroy
>>> app for $1.99, that I'm dying to dig into... But I'm buried
>>> in apps right now prepping an iPad for teachers course.
>>> 
>>> The output in table forms doesn't always read in an easy
>>> way, but when used with a refreshable braille display I was
>>> pretty happy with what I got.  I was using a Focus 40
>>> Blue.
>>> 
>>> Did I mention I LOVE MY JOB?
>>> 
>>> On Jan 20, 2011, at 8:54 AM, Alex Hall wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I am not sure what we would use it for, but it would
>>> be a project to
>>>> be worked on alongside the rest of the class work.
>>> Tomorrow we will
>>>> find out if the professor is going to ocntinue SAGE or
>>> let us work on
>>>> research projects and present them at the end of the
>>> year instead. If
>>>> the latter, this whole SAGE thing will go away.
>>>> Wolfram has an iPhone app? I recently got an iPod and
>>> would love to
>>>> try this. Is it free?
>>>> 
>>>> On 1/20/11, Sean Tikkun <jaquis at mac.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>> I'm curious what your Calc 2 class will be doing
>>> with SAGE?  Wolfram
>>>>> research is a CAS leader and has put most of the
>>> mathematica engine on
>>>>> Wolfram Alpha.  They also released 2 apps
>>> over the weekend that give preset
>>>>> menus and data boxes for iPad/iPod use.  It's
>>> really slick and paired with a
>>>>> bluetooth refreshable braille display... will I'm
>>> just starting to have fun
>>>>> with that.  I'm certain their are
>>> limitations... But I'm curious if anyone
>>>>> can compare the two.  The Alg and Calc app
>>> really are driving close to TI-80
>>>>> series functions in a really simple, and screen
>>> reader accessible, format.
>>>>> Graphs will always be a challenge, but it allows
>>> for a table of values
>>>>> instead of graph for evaluation.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I've been hitting them with e-mail suggestions for
>>> a few months. No
>>>>> response, but maybe they were already working on
>>> it.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Jan 19, 2011, at 10:27 AM, Roopakshi Pathania
>>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> When I first came across Sage, they were
>>> planning a native port for
>>>>>> Windows. If you check the main page, it looks
>>> like they still haven't
>>>>>> started it.
>>>>>> http://windows.sagemath.org/
>>>>>> But if you go to the download page, there are
>>> a couple of binaries.
>>>>>> http://windows.sagemath.org/download.html
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Of course as they mention, Sage can be run on
>>> Cygwin.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> One more thing: when I have tried to access
>>> publicly available Sage
>>>>>> worksheets, they were not particularly
>>> accessible as I couldn't seem to
>>>>>> distinguish between Math and Python code for
>>> Math.
>>>>>> That's probably because they are using MathJax
>>> or JSMath and I cannot seem
>>>>>> to ever manage to read MathML  served
>>> that way.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> --- On Wed, 1/19/11, Alastair Irving <alastair.irving at sjc.ox.ac.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> From: Alastair Irving <alastair.irving at sjc.ox.ac.uk>
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] SAGE?
>>>>>>> To: "Blind Math list for those interested
>>> in mathematics"
>>>>>>> <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
>>>>>>> Date: Wednesday, January 19, 2011, 8:54
>>> PM
>>>>>>> Hi
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Sage has two interfaces, a commandline one
>>> and a web-based
>>>>>>> one that you access via a browser.  I
>>> use the
>>>>>>> commandline interface all the time and its
>>> perfectly
>>>>>>> accessible.  I've never used the web
>>> based interface
>>>>>>> but imagine it will be much harder to work
>>> with.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Sage only runs on linux, so you will need
>>> a linux
>>>>>>> installation.  If you don't want to
>>> install linux just
>>>>>>> for that then you should find out if you
>>> can get access to a
>>>>>>> linux machine with sage which you can SSH
>>> into.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Best wishes
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Alastair Irving
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On 19/01/2011 14:06, Alex Hall wrote:
>>>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>>> I am starting calc 2 this semester.
>>> Apparently, we use
>>>>>>> a program
>>>>>>>> called SAGE. How is this for
>>> accessibility? What
>>>>>>> should I know about
>>>>>>>> this, or should I just seek an
>>> alternative? Thanks in
>>>>>>> advance.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
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>>>>> 
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>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> Have a great day,
>>>> Alex (msg sent from GMail website)
>>>> mehgcap at gmail.com;
>>> http://www.facebook.com/mehgcap
>>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Have a great day,
> Alex (msg sent from GMail website)
> mehgcap at gmail.com; http://www.facebook.com/mehgcap
> 
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