[Nfbf-l] Fwd: Check out Google’s Phone Apps for the Blind, and Everyone Else - Bits Bl...

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Subj: Check out Google’s Phone Apps for the Blind, and  Everyone Else - Bits 
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_Google’s  Phone Apps for the Blind, and Everyone Else - Bits Blog - 
NYTimes.com_ 
(http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/googles-phone-apps-for-the-blind-and-everyone-else/)   
April 2, 2009, 4:27 pm  
Google’s Phone Apps for the Blind, and Everyone  Else
By _Miguel Helft_ (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/author/miguel-helft/) 
 
Peter DaSilva for The New York Times T.V. Raman with his guide dog Hubbell 
and Charles  Chen.
The featureless glassy screens of touch-screen phones may seem like  a 
forbidding barrier for blind users, who often rely on tactile clues to feel  their 
way around. But a pair of engineers at Google, T.V. Raman, who is blind,  and 
Charles Chen, who is sighted, have developed software that makes the  
touch-screen T-Mobile G1, which uses Google’s Android software, _more accessible to 
blind users_ 
(http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2009/04/announcing-eyes-free-shell-for-android.html) . They  hope the technology will also be useful to 
anyone who needs to operate a phone  without looking at the screen, like drivers. 
 
Back in January, I _profiled Mr. Raman_ 
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/business/04blind.html) , who has a long  history of adapting technology to his 
needs. I thought the work on touch  screens he was doing with Mr. Chen was 
intriguing: 
Since he cannot precisely hit a button on a touch screen, Mr.  Raman created 
a dialer that works based on relative positions. It interprets  any place 
where he first touches the screen as a 5, the center of a regular  telephone dial 
pad. To dial any other number, he simply slides his finger in  its direction — 
up and to the left for 1, down and to the right for 9, and  so on. If he 
makes a mistake, he can erase a digit simply by shaking the  phone, which can 
detect motion.
If that is hard to conceptualize, now you can see it in action. Mr.  Raman 
and Mr. Chen have created _five videos_ 
(http://www.youtube.com/user/EyesFreeAndroid)  to demonstrate the first  installment of their work, which includes a “
shell” application that operates  an Android device, a dialer and a method for 
inputting text.  
The applications themselves are available in the Android  Marketplace, an 
applications store for the G1. Mr. Raman said that based on  comments posted there
, more sighted people than blind people were using the  applications. That’s 
perhaps not surprising, since blind users may not have  been inclined to 
purchase a touch-screen phone, even one with a keyboard like  the G1. But it seems 
to validate Mr. Raman’s approach in developing  technologies not just for the 
blind, but for anyone who cannot look at the  screen.  
“People are saying they are using it in their cars,” Mr. Raman  said.  
The “shell” application has an interesting location function that  combines 
GPS or cell tower location data with Google Maps and the G1’s  compass.  
For Mr. Raman, who was once dropped off by the Google employee  shuttle on 
the opposite side of the street from his usual drop-off location  and walked two 
blocks before realizing he was heading the wrong way, it’s  pretty useful 
technology. “You just touch it, and it tells you which direction  you are heading 
in, the location you are close to, and the cross streets,” he  said.



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