[Journalists] update on radio thing!

[jean parker]

In addition:

I wonder if the Knfb reader could be useful?  I have been able to read to 
some degree directly off the computer screen with mine.  Accuracy and 
consistency then become the issue but perhaps with some customizing of the 
software this could work?

Just playing with possibilities.

Jean

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lynn Zelvin" <lynn.zelvin at verizon.net>
To: "Blind Professional Journalists List" <journalists at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 1:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Journalists] update on radio thing!


> Since you now have a comfortable position that isn't going to present the 
> same access difficulties and thus you can advance based on your skills and 
> hard work, , maybe it will be a comfortable thing for you to pursue 
> solutions to these access problems as a sort of project.  There's probably 
> a story in it also. Easier to contemplate, perhaps, if it isn't standing 
> in the way of your career.
>
> Here are some of my rambling thoughts on access possibilities:
>
> The pen someone mentioned has potential for small single-line displays. 
> I've played with it. the problem for a blind person trying to use it to 
> read is that you have no way to track a line. The pen needs to be run 
> directly over the line of text. It would be interesting to see how it 
> worked on a narrow display where you could use the top or bottom of the 
> display to line up the pen. It would probably be worth talking to the 
> developers of the pen to see what they think. When I saw it they were 
> interested enough in a potential market outside the community of people 
> with learning disabilities but I have a little vision  and had a very very 
> hard time getting it to do anything useful.
>
> I'm assuming these are single or two-line displays, but even if they had 
> more lines, perhaps you could have someone build a guide that would help 
> you position the pen.
>
> I remember some years back that the World Blind Union put out a list of 
> the top ten  products they would like to see developed for blind people 
> worldwide. Most were not high tech, but one was some way to read numeric 
> displays. so many  jobs require reading numbers off single line displays 
> and access to these would seemingly be much simpler than the more complex 
> task of accessing mixed material on a large display.  I wonder what ever 
> happened with that.
>
> This may be completely absurd, but I've heard of blind people using light 
> detectors to identify money. There are two kinds of light detectors and 
> one kind can be used to tell whether there is text on a piece of paper or 
> if it's blank. Because it responds to the reflected light off the paper. 
> that is the kind people were using to ID money. I'm wondering if it could 
> be used accurately to id numbers off a simple display. Just tossing ideas 
> around in my mind and musing out loud.
>
> Of course, you could probably do it with an optacon but that brings up the 
> question as to how we let the Optacon go obsolete as it is a device that 
> has the potential to make many jobs accessible that aren't otherwise. Even 
> if you were not the most adept optacon user, I'm guessing that you could 
> learn to comfortably use it for such a limited purpose. The question for 
> you would be how much money it was worth to procure a device that is still 
> somewhat expensive to purchase used and which it might be difficult to get 
> repaired if it were to stop working.
>
> Another thought, and this might be something to pose at a place like Smith 
> Kettlewell, is that it might be possible to just plain attach speech to 
> these displays. I know people have managed to get at numeric displays in 
> different sorts of commercial products such as music synthesizers and I 
> know someone who was able to do the same with a commercial navigation 
> device designed for use on boats. It most likely means creating an opening 
> in the thing, like with a drill or saw or whatever is appropriate. That 
> might have people at the station shuddering, but I think this is not a big 
> deal for someone who knows what they are doing and it does sound like your 
> boss has the right sense of adventure to take this on. I really am 
> clueless about how they accomplish this but I know you need some kind of 
> synthesizer to speak the output and I remember that somehow the old speech 
> plus calculators were good for that purpose. If it gets that far I have a 
> couple I'd be happy to donate for a good purpose.
>
> \]Another place that works on this sort of solution is the Trace Research 
> and Development Center somewhere in Wisconsin.
>
>
> Really, if you found someone interested in exploring the possibilities 
> with you. the results would not only to be to demonstrate what is possible 
> but how ridiculous it is that this sort of output isn't built in. It's one 
> of those things that would cost pennies if designed in from the start.
>
> AS for the computer, I agree that the touch screen is not the issue. The 
> issue is how accessible the software is.  I'd recommend getting screen 
> reading software installed on the computer to see , first of all, how it 
> works out of the box. I'd suggest trying WindowEyes and System Access as 
> well as JAWS. One thing in particular that might be useful is that these 
> two programs will speak as the mouse moves over things. This would allow 
> you to kind of poke around on the touch screen, possibly with the help of 
> a sighted co-worker to check out what information is accessible, 
> regardless of whether there are keystrokes specifically tailored to get at 
> the information.
>
> I'm a little hazy about the question of remote access but I do know that 
> you probably can't use the software that your boss uses. System access 
> uses a different approach which might work just fine for you if the issue 
> is getting access to more than one computer from a single work station. 
> JAWS also has some kind of system for doing this built into newer versions 
> and it's worth checking that out also. I would sincerely hope that the 
> manufacturers of the screen readers and remote access software would work 
> with you on this.
>
> Lynn
>
>
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