[Nfbf-l] {Spam?} The Death Of Screen Reader Innovation

[Alan Dicey]

Those of you who have been wondering how JAWS has reached its current state of development should read two articles written by a former head of Software Engineering at Henter-Joyce and Freedom Scientific.  Although he left FS in November 2004, his knowledge of how things get done, or not done, there still applies.
one of these  articles below 
 http://chrishofstader.com/the-death-of-screen-reader-innovation/

http://chrishofstader.com/screen-reader-failure-innovation-deterioration-despair/

 

A bunch of blogs by Chris "Gonz Blinkko" Hofstader and his friends and their dogs.
The Death Of Screen Reader Innovation
and 

45 Replies
On the Monday of Thanksgiving week 2004, I walked into my St. Petersburg office for the last time as a Freedom Scientific employee. I had, at that point, been at the helm of the FS software engineering department for six years but, as Lee Hamilton, then CEO of Freedom Scientific told me that day, I was, "no longer capable of managing the team." He was right, I had burned out very badly and was in terrible physical and mental shape. My repetitive strain injuries (RSI) caused me constant pain and the Vicodin prescribed by my physician had too many cognitive side effects to permit me from having a clear enough mind to perform my tasks while the steroidal injections I received for the same injuries had intense emotional side effects that felt like I was on cocaine or methamphetimine.
While my final few months at Freedom Scientific were a personal disaster for me and not too good for FS or its customers, I am very proud of the many things we accomplished during my six year tenure. During that time, Eric Damery, Glen Gordon and I invented a ton of new screen reader features now seen in all such utilities on Windows.
What Did We Accomplish?
In my time at FS, six years ending in November 2004, our little team released versions of JAWS beginning with 2.51 (a minimal update to fix an authorization problem in the 40 minute demo) to JAWS 3.31, the first screen reader to add what is now the essential virtual buffer on the Internet in all screen readers to JAWS 6 the last JAWS in which I participated. In those release we added new and interesting features with each revision and pushed the user interface of screen readers forward every six months or so.
In that period at Freedom Scientific we:Invented the virtual buffer concept for delivering web information to JAWS users.Invented the idea of querying applications through a private interface to gather and present information to our users - a concept used today in JAWS, Window-Eyes, NVDA, System Access and Orca screen readers.
Provided the first ever ways of reading charts and graphs in a major screen reader.
Advanced usability of office suites in a way never previously seen in a screen reader.
Invented the now ubiquitous "QUick Keys" style of navigating web pages more efficiently.
Added the JAWS "Speech and Sounds Manager" for adding tonal augmentations to information, thus, expanding the number of simultaneous semantic dimensions enjoyed by users.
Added features to "intelligently" skip beyond repeated information on web pages.
Added features to recognize similar documents and spreadsheets and automatically apply a set of adjustments for reading the data.
And many more innovations in screen reading user interfaces that you can find by looking up the "What's New" sections of the release notes for these JAWS releases..
Returning To Windows
I hadn't used a Windows computer or a Windows screen reader in more than five years but, recently have found that VoiceOver on Macintosh can't provide the level of support I need so, I downloaded and installed VMWare Fusion, Windows 7 and NVDA. Once everything was up and running, I started exploring this terrific free screen reader.
The first thing I noticed was that NVDA has adopted many of the ideas that we invented in JAWS. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that, thankfully, most of our innovations happened before FS became crazy about patent applications and aggressive lawsuits so our most important ideas seem to have made it to other screen readers and it's nice to see my work so widely accepted in virtually all Windows screen readers and in Orca on the GNU/Linux platform.
I continued to read the NVDA documentation to see what new and noteworthy concepts have been invented in the nine years since I walked out of Freedom Scientific on that November morning. The first thing I found was a gesture based navigation system, a notion first introduced by Apple in VoiceOver for iOS and adopted by NVDA first and, based on statements made at CSUN this year, will be added to JAWS this autumn. I looked further and found nothing new. I read up on JAWS, once the hands down leader in innovation and found nothing new there in many years either.So, in a decade, the only new ideas in screen readers have come not from a small, highly focused screen reader company but, rather, from a mainstream super power. Ted Henter's prediction that big mainstream companies making screen readers would result in a failure to innovate seems to be partially true, Apple innovated at first but has allowed the OSX version of VoiceOver to deteriorate and they haven't expanded on really good ideas that are present but incomplete but, contrary to his prediction, the smaller, blindness specific companies have done nothing new or interesting in years either.
Was I That Important?
At Henter-Joyce and, after our merger, Freedom Scientific, the best ideas came out of a collaboration mostly between me, Eric Damery, Glen Gordon and Joseph Stephen. Some of these ideas started as hallway conversations with other employees, phone conversations with beta testers, questions from our technical support staff and lots of other sources. I was usually the person who wrote up the ideas into a formal specification (FS product managers seem to have some kind of innate aversion to writing anything down) and, sometimes, I originated the notion but, by the time it became a task to add it to JAWS, the concept would have been thoroughly reviewed multiple times by Eric, Glen, Joe and, often, Ted Henter.
Eric, Glen, Joe and lots of other smart and interesting JAWS users (yes, although sighted, Eric can use JAWS with any power users out there) remain at FS. I don't think they lost all of their creativity and ability to come up with new and valuable features for JAWS so what has gone wrong in the screen reader business?
Leaders Who Are Blind
As far as I can tell, other than Mike Calvo, CEO of Serotek, makers of the System Access screen reader, I was the last blind person with direct authority over a commercial screen reader and, as System Access has never had a large user base, the last blind person with direct authority over a widely used commercial screen reader. System Access, in its hey day was a pretty innovative screen reader and Mike's influence as a user advanced features like their "See Saw" global "dictionary" for web sites, the end of "Forms mode" (something Glen and I invented that wasn't the greatest idea), the first ever "virtual" screen reader and a variety of other excellent concepts. I'll contend that these happened in SA because it is a project led by a blind user of the software.
Reexamining how we invented things at Freedom Scientific, I recall that, often, the best ideas came out of frustration. Joe Stephen wanted to read notes in braille different from the contents of PowerPoint slides so we added the ability to have one stream of information go to the speech synthesizer while another went to the braille display. I got sick of making all of the JAWS settings just to read the FS financials on a weekly basis so we invented a way that JAWS could recognize different but similar spreadsheets and automatically apply the settings. We invented Quick Keys while Glen and I talked on the phone about single letter navigation in some emacs scripts. Most of our best ideas grew out of desires by actual users in our employ.
Why Doesn't NVDA Take The Lead?
NVDA is an excellent free, no cost screen reader for Windows. As far as I know, all of its code is written by blind people who use the software as their primary means of interacting with Windows computers. Why, then, don't they innovate?
NVDA, as far as I can tell, is written almost entirely by two guys. These guys are really smart and creative fellows and were the first to bring gesture navigation to Windows for screen reader users, a concept, while not novel, that is both powerful and useful. Nonetheless, it is a large and complicated bit of software that requires all of the maintenance of JAWS without anything approaching the FS ability to invest in a project.
Screen Reader Funding Models
There are three major ways to fund a screen reader's development. A large mainstream company like Apple or Microsoft can make their own screen reader motivated by federal and state regulations requiring accessibility as a condition of sale. A free software screen reader like NVDA or Orca can be funded by corporate dollars contributed to the effort, by contributions from users and the general public and by selling services to support development. 
Lastly, a commercial technology company like Freedom Scientific or GW Micro can fund their research and development costs from sales of their products.
When I left FS in 2004, we were selling about $1.2 million worth of JAWS per month. We were spending less than one million dollars annually to make JAWS (including software engineering, testing, scripting, product management and sales roll outs) and, when I ran the project, I insisted we spend some of this money on innovation in JAWS and our other software products.
One might ask, if you made about $15 million on JAWS sales, how did Freedom Scientific spend the money? In that final year at FS, we reported a total profit to our investors of $6 million so where did $9 million in JAWS sales alone go?
The answer is simple, Lee Hamilton (then FS CEO) and the FS board of directors saw blindness and low vision hardware as their future and invested heavily in the hardware division while allowing JAWS to stagnate. The authors and publishers of the then world's leading screen reader milked its sales dollars to try to expand their business with products like PAC Mate, Focus and a whole pile of digital magnifiers. So, for all intents and purposes, new JAWS sales and SMA dollars were spent not on the screen reader but, rather, incredibly high margin hardware devices - an outcome not terribly good for JAWS users.
At the time I left FS, it cost the company about $400 to manufacture, package and ship a PAC Mate BX 440 (then a fast processor and a 40 cell display) and we would sell them for about $5000. JAWS, on the other hand, sold for about $900 so, the most we could make on the software was limited by its price while we could enjoy $4600 of pure profit on each PM sold. 
Today, I'm told that a digital magnifier costs a tiny amount in parts and manufacturing but they also sell with windfall level profits.
For its business, taking the lucrative JAWS as a funding source for hardware made a lot of sense. It did nothing for the companies customers though.
The Fight
I have always been one who fights for what he thinks is right. While at Freedom Scientific, I had huge arguments with our CEO over whether or not we should invest in a wide variety of different ideas. I lost most of these battles but had my share of wins and I'm proud of the work we did with JAWS, OpenBook, MAGic and our other software projects back then. At the same time, I can only think that what stopped innovation at FS may be the lack of "fight" in those I left behind.
More so than anyone else at FS other than me, Eric Damery has always been the guy to push hard for new features that can improve the experience for JAWS users. Meanwhile, Eric is bound by the toughest non-compete agreement in the business and a salary that would be impossible for him to get in any other field. Eric is bound by contract and golden handcuffs from doing anything too bold. I was stupid, I thought I could leave Fs and continue in accessibility but, over my first two years out of FS, they threatened me with legal action nine separate times and I serve as an example for any other FS executive who may consider moving on.
Glen Gordon, one of the smartest and most creative software developers with whom I've ever had the pleasure of working, is the FS chief technical officer who had it really easy when Ted Henter ran the company. When Ted was around, we merely had to pitch a good idea and Ted, a user himself, would embrace it and we could go off and do the implementation. After the merger, Glen retreated and would ask me to fight the good fight, a role that ultimately destroyed my career at the company.
Joseph Stephen, Rob Gallo and some others with a high level of creativity are in positions too junior to have access to the executive committee and others in decision making positions. Hence, without Eric or one of the blinks in the executive suite fighting for an idea, something my sighted replacement hasn't (according to reports I get from friends who remain inside FS) even once.So, while the ideas weren't mine exclusively, my role at FS led both the advancement of JAWS and that of screen readers from our competitors. Without JAWS leading, I doubt any Windows screen reader ever will again unless Microsoft decides to either license NVDA or make a truly usable Narrator.

What Did Users Miss?
I cannot speak to any ideas discussed within Freedom Scientific after I left the company in November 2004. I suspect Glen and Eric presented a bunch of good ideas that have been ignored. I can, however, speak to the projects I had going at FS that were canceled upon my departure. I'm not sure all of these were good ideas but, compared to what FS has done since, they were certainly bold, creative and, perhaps useful. As these notions never saw a commercial release, we cannot know the actual impact they may have had if they fell into the hands of users in the wild.
The projects they killed were:
JAWS for Macintosh was requested of us by the third party development people at Apple. I had formed a relationship with the people at Apple and, when they asked us to propose doing a Macintosh version of JAWS, I pitched the idea at an executive staff meeting and was nearly laughed out the door. In the latest marketshare figures I could find, VoiceOver and NVDA are the only two screen readers showing growth. Could we have made something better than VoiceOver? I think so.
JAWS on mainstream Windows Mobile devices was not just possible but something we already had running on both iPaq and the Dell Axim. Lee Hamilton said that such would compete with PAC Mate and, instead of allowing JAWS to grow with mainstream hardware, FS insisted on forcing its blind users into the ghetto with a massively more expensive hardware device with all of the social grace of a brick. Our friends at Code Factory did make this into a reality but with their minimal ability to market their products, uptake was slow and, as the accessibility of the Windows Mobile platform ecosystem decayed, their screen reader died on the vine.
We had started a project into making JAWS for Symbian cell phones. While today, years after the death of Nokia's OS, this seemed like a bad idea, then, with Nokia on top of the world, we could have produced and sold a killer screen reader on more mainstream hardware. Again, the Code Factory team and my late friend Torsten Brandt, with his Talx screen reader (sadly, I could not find online references to either my late friend or his software to add as a link) got their first and provided excellent access for a whole lot of years.
We had a blind mathematician and screen reader power user designing a 3D interface for a tool for reading and writing math. Ted Henter had already started HenterMath and was doing some really interesting things with user interface for blind people who wanted to manipulate equations but he was also based in JAWS as it was, a unidimensional approach to the information. 
I thought we could do something really great with math for our users but, within a week or two of my departure, the project was killed. Blind people, meanwhile, have no good math tool to this day.
We had my friend Will Pearson on the payroll as a contractor working on a "machine vision" approach to screen reading. At the same time, we had a terrific gal, an awesome hacker with a solid computer science background working toward a rectangular approach to a screen reader interface. 
Combining these two concepts, we could have provided a layout similar to one with vision would see. We could have used positional information to better increase reading efficiency while also presenting the semantic information that comes from a visual layout - ideas that, to my knowledge, have only otherwise been explored by researchers in labs.
Where Did FS Invest In JAWS?
On the day I left FS, my friend and terrific young hacker, Waishan Lau was leading the cell phone screen reader project. Within a week of my departure, her project had been canceled and she was put back onto her previous task, namely, JAWS authorization. Waishan, now working in California at a health informatics business in Palo Alto, is one of the hottest hackers with whom I've ever worked. She is a brilliant and beautiful young woman who can code rings around most others in or out of FS. Her terrific talents were used almost exclusively on copy protection - a feature that no user actually enjoys.
Freedom Scientific does continue to invest in JAWS. Their advancements, though, are minimal. They support the latest and greatest MS operating systems, they try to support the most recent versions of Microsoft Office and, now and then, they add a new feature that will be mostly ignored by the user base. FS is happy making its annual release and taking the SMA dollars from its users whether or not they add anything of any actual value to those users. Supporting the latest OS may not be easy but it's something that no other software companies charge for.
So, Maybe I Was Important For years, I thought my years at Freedom Scientific had ended in failure. I couldn't, due to health problems, continue to lead that team any longer. I still had the odd good idea but constant chronic pain while unable to sleep from the steroids drove me into a very bad place. Fighting every step of the way for innovation in JAWS and our other products nearly killed me.Looking back, though, on the accomplishments we made, the major strides in screen reader user interface and the tremendous improvements we made in the lives of JAWS users in the workplace, I'm reminded that we did a lot of good stuff.
Perhaps, our success relied on the odd combination of actors in our story. 
Eric Damery's undying commitment to our users, Glen Gordon's software engineering genius telling us what was possible, Joseph Stephen adding ideas to JAWS application support while we were asleep and my creativity mixed with my insanity, a crazy that says that we can do incredible things in spite of having to fight within the company to do so that led to those great years in screen reader development. I don't know why it worked so well for us in those days but I will state that I believe it had more to do with having a blind person in charge of the product than any of our individual contributions.
I made a huge difference at FS because, in spite of having to fight so much to get anything interesting done in the post merger era, I was willing, no matter how much pain I experienced, no matter how personally painful it was to see great ideas and support for mainstream hardware killed, I kept fighting until my last day. Without such an advocate within the company, I can't see innovation happening again until a major screen reader is once again led by a user.
This entry was posted in Personal Essay and tagged Accessibility, failure, 
Freedom Scientific, innovation, JAWS, screen readers on July 20, 2013 by 
Chris Hofstader.

About Chris Hofstader
I'm an accessibility advocate working on issues involving technology and people with print impairment. I'm a stoner, crackpot, hacker and all around decent fellow. I podcast for Pod Delusion, , blog at this site and occasionally contribute to Skepchick. I'm a skeptic, atheist, humanist and all around left wing sort.
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45 thoughts on "The Death Of Screen Reader Innovation"
Mike Calvo July 20, 2013 at 10:51 am
Chris:
This is one of the best pieces you have ever done! I thank you so much for your willingness to be transparent and give each and every one of us a peak behind the curtain. It takes balls and great character to tell the truth!I have said it before and I'll say it again, I am standing On The Sholders Of Giants If it wasn't for hackers like you and the team you lead, Serotek wouldn't have ever been possible. When the history books are written You will be called a legend. I am honored to know you and call you my friend!
thank You for your energy and unending desire to make the World a better place! I love you man! Keep up the great writing and don't ever stop fighting the good fight!
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Marcie Brink-Chaney July 25, 2013 at 10:46 am
As an instructor of blind and low vision computer users, teaching them to use screen access software screen readers and magnification programs, I've found that the two major screen reader program developers Freedom Scientific and GW Micro seem to be "keeping up with the Joneses" by trying to make their screen readers work with the latest operating systems for Microsoft. I believe that the future of computers will be going away from the desktop. The more lap tops become more robust, the more they will be used in place of desktop computers. Even more flexible are cell phones and tablet computers. 
If these can be made accessible directly by the companies that produce them, screen readers will be unnecessary. Currently, I recommend to my students that if they can get NVDA, they should download it to make their computers accessible. Some of them have not been able to use their computers since they lost their vision and they can't afford an expensive screen reading program. I would purchase an Apple computer which is accessible out of the box. However, I don't know if the printers, embosser, scanner and the server software in my home would work with Apple products. I have also had at least one student who has memory issues and can only use one hand without difficulty. I trained her to use an Iphone and an Ipad mini because she just had to move her finger around the screen and when she found the letter she wanted on the on screen keyboard, she just lifted her finger and it would say and type the letter for her. Magnification can be used with Voice Over on all of the Apple products and this benefits my students. The latest thing I've seen is a tablet which hooks into a portable keyboard and can be used with or without the keyboard. If that can be accessible, she will have something easy to use and carry. Right now, our assessment for college students is not keeping up with the technology. Everyone needs to be able to use computers to do word processing so that they can do college assignments and even take notes at school. Jaws and Window Eyes need to be able to be used with tablets, cell phones and laptops and who knows, they may need to be able to work with these special glasses Google has just come up with to access the internet and do other activities you could ordinarily do on a computer.
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Al Hoffman July 26, 2013 at 11:50 am
I think this is a great article, even if a bit self serving.I'm not sure I accept the conclusion. Its not the blindness that makes the person good at the job, it's the energy, interest and commitment. I used to evaluate and play with screen readers in my spare time, or sometimes even in my not spare time because I was so interested in the subject. I was sort of good at internet business because I saw so many things to do new, but it wasn't because I was blind. I also would ask the question what would be your list of four or five things you think we should have done since then when in reality the windows interface hasn't changed a hell of a lot until windows 8 really. We got a bit better UIA to replace MSAA, still had mirror drivers now called assistive technology interface in Windows 8, and still have keyboard driven apps. I suspect Doug Houser at GW might contest the claim to inventing the whole accessibility programming interface concept as well. They figured out most of the general basics by JAWS v5 really, and in reality by v3.x had the proofs of concept operating with bugs. I don't think porting JAWS to multiple platforms is really that evolutionary but sure would have been nice and would have made FS a lot more money in the long run. FS could have owned this space even harder than they already do by simply re-using the technology base they built. Pretty stupid of them not to get higher return on investment from that. I suspect you could have easily provided ideas behind the scenes to folks who wanted to build a better mouse trap, noncompete or not. But I'd agree there hasn't been much innovation in this space for years now, and until the basic interface changes I don't expect much unless someone can really figure out a realtime screen watcher that can "know" what you need to read and be right almost 100% of the time. 
The demand for new and novel screen readers decreased because the basics were covered-80/20 rule. Just as DOS screen reader innovation died off, Windows innovation died off because the actual framework didn't change that much and people had the minimal support they wanted. People don't push for more unless their needs are not met. I hope Fs lost a lot of money on the hardware market because in my opinion they suck at such products. They are over priced pieces of junk for the most part of which I couldn't see how one could possibly be proud.
If you asked me what are the few things we should have had done by now for screen reader for windows I'd say full integration with .net programming to allow 3rd party applications to be used to write scripts, a heuristic learning interface to learn what users need spoken, in what order, for things that don't read well, and a way to drive Braille displays to present multiple independently viewable windows simultaneously-or a three line 40 cell wide display driver and hardware. They could have licensed JAWS for testing purposes as I raised numerous times and gotten revenue there for no investment. They could have implemented the OCR thing they have done so badly now a lot sooner if they had been interested. They could have done a lot better job working with the Citrix folks, and could have worked with Microsoft to build the JAWS functionality in to Windows as a supporting feature for remote access which still sucks in Windows.
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Steve Lee July 20, 2013 at 12:49 pm
Chris, thanks for the obviously painful and heartfelt post.Re innovation, most large companies stop innovating unless they divide into small groups or embrace open innovation. That said, something seems to have gone very wrong at FS as I've heard first hand tales of pain from another developer who left them a few years back (and who incidentally has gone on to great things since breaking free).
As for NVDA, well in addition to Mike and Jamie there are others in the core team including one who works on the Arabic translation and other key features. However, as turned out to be a very hot topic at our AT Summit at Mozilla London last year, they really must grow and diversify the community in order to attract more users and developers and so accelerate the innovation. Since then the Web site has been greatly improved and provides an excellent landing page for potential collaborators. I suspect you would be a very welcome contributor indeed.
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Frank Ibarra July 20, 2013 at 1:57 pm
I had suspected for a long time something like this was going on. Thanks for bringing it to the forefront. I will add much to my detriment that many of the features so carefully thought out such as the schemes and sounds manager have now been buggy as all get out for several versions. IN particular the voice aliases. The research it project while definetely an easy tool for new users has now become a crutch for some at time leading me to wonder if a FS dedicated web browser is on the future. I could say the same stagnation is happening with in the scripting language. Although a bunch of new, and very powerful functions have made it through in the last few version of the screen reader, the language is stuck by its own design in its own proprietary place unlike Window Eyes'.Still, one way or another, Jaws for windows is still the leading screen reader in the world.
But with that being said, my question is, for how long?
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Geoff Shang July 20, 2013 at 3:27 pm
In case you do want to link to Talx (later renamed Talks), it's here:
http://www.nuance.com/for-individuals/by-solution/talks-zooms/index.htm
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John Greer July 20, 2013 at 3:46 pm
It's good to see articles like this. It's also not an easy thing to do, 
because we can easily feel bound by the world we are a part of. There is one bit of innovation the article missed though. The innovation isn't all about what a screen reader can do, but what a screen reader can do for the people it serves. The one innovation that seems to get over looked over the past few years has been, making accessibility available to everyone, and not just a select few who can afford it. My hat goes off to you for writing this article.
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Beatrice Sayban July 20, 2013 at 4:54 pm
blessings to jaws and open book. Was able to work for 20 more years. All together, worked 38 and a half years as a medical typist. Open book helps me read my mail. Jaws and open book have given me a life with independence. 
Thanks so much for your expertise.
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Aaron July 20, 2013 at 6:23 pm
Hi Chris,
My name is Aaron Linson. I'm the director of podcasting and Sound Engineering at Fedora Outlier. We are looking for hero's to come on the Delivering Access podcast and interview them about their lives. I would be greatly honored as a Fedora Outlier team member to have other people hear your story. My e-mail address is: [email address removed by moderator]. if your interested.
Thanks,
Aaron Linson
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Jessica Arnold July 20, 2013 at 6:44 pm
This is awesome! Personally, as far as iOS goes, I love VoiceOver, but all 
this is true. I agree. I'll be sharing this.
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Richard Wells July 20, 2013 at 6:54 pm
Chris: The only needed revision in your account is the fact that GWMicro did 
a virtual buffer a full year before it was done at Henter-joyce and actually 
worked, believe it or not, in Internet Explorer 3.2 running on Windows 95. 
Speaking as a user today, System Access still blows JAWS, Window-eyes and NVDA out of the water on Windows screen access support in Windows.
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chris.admin July 21, 2013 at 7:45 am
GW Micro had something like a virtual buffer in Window-Eyes with an 
interface similar to what we did in JAWS 3.31, that is true. However, they 
used only MSAA to collect the data rather than sucking in the raw HTML at 
first and, later, walking the DOM after it was invented.
Our approach allowed JAWS to reach a score of more than 90% of the user 
agent guidelines, something that, prior to GW abandoning MSAA on the web and 
taking up the DOM strategy that we invented, could not do. In fact, GW, if 
my memory serves, never broke 60% of the UAG during my tenure at FS and I'll 
bet they haven't gotten much better since but I've no data to work with.
Years ago, a Canadian guy would publish a UAG scorecard at CSUN that 
compared various screen readers on the web. In the first year, JAWS lost to 
HPR something like 85% to 70%; in year two, we scored 80% while HPR remained 
at 85%; year three, we broke 90%, HPR didn't move and GW and Dolphin never 
cracked 55%.
So, while you're right that Window-Eyes did have something of a virtual 
buffer type concept before we did, it was, at best, incomplete. GW did get 
the basics down in that MSAA buffer but took years to make it 
actuallyusable.
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Richard Wells July 20, 2013 at 6:58 pm
What I meant to say also in the last post is that System Access blows the 
competition away in web support using Internet Explorer 10 and later on 
Windows.
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shaun everiss July 21, 2013 at 4:47 am
Hi.
I got your article from audiogames.net forums.
Yeah I wander where the fuck things went wrong.
What really pissed me with jaws is the fact all addons and such cost, and 
the suits.
I myself am a power user and also a fringe hacker.
The other issue with jaws I hated was the fact you payed a lot for the 
reaeder.
Also, the fact that just about ever organisation touts it as the best reader 
for the blind.
Its why probably fs is payed so much cash and why it continues to continue.
I payed up jaws to v6.0, but it started to bloat loads.
And no reader needs to get a licence for a pro version of the os like jaws 
does.
Worse, though not necessarily jaws related, is the fact it and other readers 
rely so much on intercepters.
Nvda does not and for just about all apps it doesn't even need a curser.
True web and cloud bassed programs are more comman, but nvdas major 
advantage or inivation is it uses to the fullest everything that exists.
this is not just uia like everyone else in win8 and so on will use, or msaa 
or sapi, but the common windows libs.
This libs like the richedit control and the html dlls already exist.
The synth while robotic is cross platform to linux, and is good for what it 
is.
bar a few things like espeak brltty and liblousis all opensource projects 
99% of it is writen in python script.
yes jaws did start the script language and win eyes and supernova which is 
the other reader I have for comercial apps that need more power, than nvda, 
actually do use lua script and some other things, nvda's use of a standard 
python language as a script enables it to do a lot more things than jaws 
ever will.
In nvda you can run scripts for programs, but the scripts can themselves be 
internal programs themselves.
like a full ocr system using the google tesseract system, or a resource 
moniter or just about anything.
Some of these features do end up in the core, though there may be a slightly 
higher risk of malware infection the programs are checked by devs and others 
a lot and loads actually test and other things.
I suspect though that the reason that fs and other inovation has stopped is 
probably because there is no real need for anything more.
nvda does have a controler that can make nvda work with some apps but even 
so.
THe blind need something to access the computer.
this includes, some games, office ie mozilla apps or chrome or other 
brousing, notepad, and an email app.
bar a few differences that for the basic user will never change at least for 
the probable future.
There is no need to inovate because we have run out of ideas.
Our next stages will depend on what the mainstream companies do.
however I think unless we need to make a new visual system readable for us, 
there will not need to be any inovation unless someone can think of other 
things.
The issue with the fs suits is sadly not their fault fully.
Aparently the patent system in the us is screwed, and every company from 
samsung to apple is wripping at eachother's throats like a pack of wild 
dogs.
It was not so long ago when publishers of books movies and music threatened 
to try to make it alegal for the blind to do anything due to copywrite apple 
and samsung had a battle like this.
so maybe all inovation is stagnating.
The future.
I predict that it will be down to the rebels, pirates and master system 
hackers like myself to make a difference.
Even with the large game companies I have seen a drop in development after 
all most of them are 1 man bands.
However there is continuing movement in the smaller darker reaches due to 
engines like bgt.
The fact is that inovation for the big guys may be almost over.
Its time for the users.
Sadly though, yunger people are forgetting some of the older generation's 
steps.
the command line, braille, the fact thateverything can be replaced if broken 
or fixed by inserting a disk and reformatting.
If something breaks its chuck away rather than fix.
To be brootally honest we probably would need a world nuke war every fucking 
30 years, and an echonomic crash every 20 to keep inovation going.
We are getting to comfortable and while I don't mind that some days I wander 
why life can't be more exciting.
The world seems to have lost its creativity.I used to be in the end of the era 20 years back when I tried to get a job.I had orgs, advisers, and everything.Most of them burned out before they could find things lost my data, gave me broken equipment and late software, and other gutless things.then expect to pay them cash.put me to several sites for jobs, and lists which end up with nothing but my address being spammed, hacked and with nothing to show for it.
everything is now to by the book.
Lately people have been asking me to do it.
A bit of me thinks it is a good idea after all to be a fucking bum is really 
bad for the world.
However most of me feels why should I fucking bother!
Everyone fucked me round all the fucking day.
I tried my fucking best, it may be better to commit suiside than actually 
bother.
I may bother, but this is the last time.
As far as they care or as I can care they can all fuck of.
I am still quite angry at all this.
Sadly not many actually know or care for exactly what stuff should be.
the users and not some guy that takes the business and thinks they can 
handle it can't do it right.
Businesses designed for the blind should be run by the blind.
A sighted person may be able to do things faster but is not expect to know 
what to do.
They are better than us and happily go in and handle it.
Sadly I fear that the stagnation, is happening to us to.
There are vary few of us that have the wish to think outside.
Or at least those that have come to me at all!
Of those, one of them has moved away from his field, another is dead, 
another has simply put his energies elsewhere.
The rest may get jobs in a limited number of fields but most stay at home 
being fucking bums like myself.
And I wander what the point is.
My life as it is is fine.
I still live at home.
But I have a good idea what will happen in the end.
What must happen in the end.
I will go to a home.
where i expect I wll do blindy things, lie in bed, get fat and die.
I don't think right now that I can get out of the hole everyone seems to be 
stuck in.
What is more worrying is that most don't give a fuck about the self made 
cage they are now in and are happy living their lives away.
And if this continues, in a hundred years or so it won't even matter.
Fortunately its not all dead at least not for me.
I do spend a part of my time doing research for the local uni.
My boss, is from one of the older generations.
And like me one of the last of the free thinkers.
He is fead up with the world and doesn't give a fuck about debating it with 
me either, asking me the questions that push my bounderies.
Unlike the rest of the sheep at least he has the sence to try and rattle the 
bars.
Its not all bad but then we seem to move slowly.
I think the next inovation will have to be a way to make the blind and other 
disabled people normal, because we have reached the end of this chapter in 
the world.
There are a few things left.
the cheap braille display.
thats one.
Next I think we should have some blindy phone that does sms, and phone for 
those that just want that.
I know a lot use the touch interface but I still have an old semi working 
unit and to be honest symbian is not that bad for what I do.
I barely use the phone as it is.
I was born when dos was round and where things went happily on.
In the 26 years I have been using a computer I have seen the rise of the 
net, a couple echonomic crashes, and I have seen the slow decline of the 
world's creative energies.
It was so slow you never thought about it.
Now its here!
Once the old guys die off there will not be any new ones.
Unless we try to go there.
And in another 30 years it will be to late for me.
in 30 years it will be time to go to the home where I wait my death.
Not sure what I will actually do, the fact my life is as free as it is is 
because of me staying at home.
I am concious of things like not being able to maintain a house or actually 
work as such.
and it worrys me a great deal that for at least now my own inovative 
energies are down the drainage system.
What is next I wander?
Ok, I can continue this life for at least another year or 2.
but there are some changes that could happen in the next 5 or so years.
It is likely to be the beginning of the end.
I may have the courage to try one more time.
Just one more time while I am stable and able to get round without much 
effort.
but thats probably it.
so yeah I feel your pain over inovation, been wandering about that for a 
long time.
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Brenda Smith July 25, 2013 at 6:38 am
Wow Shaun it's eerie how much I can understand and relate to so much of what 
you said.
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Pranav July 21, 2013 at 10:31 am
Chris,
I agree with you that there is virtually no innovation in the screen reader 
space. The same applies to the entire assistive technology space. Yes, we 
have seen some useful apps on mobile phones but there are so many problems 
that remain unsolved. Take remote access for instance. Yes, we have some 
solutions but they involve installing components on the computer that we 
want to access remotely. This is not always possible. Take nonstandard java 
script implementations of menus. Yes, it would be nice if standards are 
followed but as a customer, it is not something that is under my control. 
Finally, speech delivery is still linear. I use Dragon Naturally Speaking 
with J-Say and Jaws. Many quick navihgation commands require one to specify 
the number of units to move. E.G. "Move fordward 10 words." Well, it is not 
easy to count when using speech and if I were to read ahead and count, what 
is the point? I am not sure where the problem is here. Oh of course, we 
continue to have long standing bugs etc. <grimace
wrant over.
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Paul Topping July 21, 2013 at 5:17 pm
Great post. Me and my company are only on the periphery of the screen reader 
world but I found your account fascinating all the same.
If there is a death of innovation in screen readers, one cause might be that 
mobile devices and the companies that create their s/w platforms have not 
opened their architecture to allow such innovation to flourish. On Windows, 
MSAA and other browser and app interfaces allowed screen readers to compete 
and that caused innovation. Google and Apple have not yet done this on their 
platforms and the so-called Web Platform (HTML5 and other W3C standards) 
have not created standards that would allow screen readers to live on those 
devices. On Windows screen readers made use of browsers' plugin mechanisms 
to get at the DOM. Although these mechanisms were browser-specific, at least 
they existed. On mobile platforms, none of this seems to exist and that is a 
shame.
I am surprised that screen reader vendors and the W3C don't do more to 
create public standard interfaces, that browser makers would be encouraged 
to support, to enable screen readers on mobile devices to exist. I will 
admit to having a small stake in this as my company makes 
math-to-speech/braille software and, therefore, would benefit from what I am 
suggesting here.
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Joe Orozco July 21, 2013 at 6:17 pm
So, what's the next step? I keep hearing there's no more innovation, and yet 
this seems to come from people who primarily work in or for the blindness 
field. The rest of us who chose to take a different route still find 
challenges in making government and private sector applications work with 
our technology. I would kill for innovations that would make my screen 
readers work better with the databases in my office. Just because the 
features no longer scream of bells and whistles don't mean the innovation 
can't take the shape of making every day tasks work more efficiently. That 
would not be just innovative. That would be pretty damn miraculous.
To Shaun, either you're full of crap when it comes to your hacking prowess, 
or you're allowing your talents go to waste. Either way it makes you a 
disappointment, because in the time it took you to write that response, you 
could have potentially helped another blind employee perform her job on 
equal footing.
Chris,
I'm seriously grateful for the projects you took to Freedom Scientific that 
served as springboards for other companies. But, that celebration is 
short-lived if all you can offer us now is a depiction of the problem. Get 
off your ass and be our advocate again with your innovative thoughts and 
hacks. I'm tired of getting riled up by other people's rhetoric. At the end 
of the day I am still coming home wishing the accessibility landscape was 
better than what it is. I don't need to be reminded of how terrible the 
traditional assistive technology companies are. I need results, and you just 
might be one of the remaining few with the talent to deliver them.
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Lisa Brooks July 21, 2013 at 8:44 pm
Thanks for sharing your story. I am glad I bought my focus 40 used, and the 
last feature from jaws I have found the most useful is flexible web. I 
continue to use the software like most people drive around the car they've 
had for the last 4 years. I know what it does, what programs it works with 
well, and I can do all the things I need to do mostly. Perhaps this is why 
agencies continue to tout it as the best screen reader to use to get 
employed or make one independent for living skills justifications, because 
it works with familiar/mainstream applications. I like it when people walk 
in the door and can now say they have tried NVDA, or that they want a Mac. 
It shows initiative but somewhere along the way they get stuck or can't 
figure out how to get the screen reader to do something, or they come for 
other core services like mobility and tech training is part of the whole 
package. Some counselors refuse to approve macs because they are not 
mainstream enough, because the majority of companies still use Windows. 
While I train people to get the most out of their access technology today, 
they are not provided with SMA's, so 3 years from now when they are still in 
college, or sending out their resume's, and their technology is now behind 
because the new version of something has come along and they can't afford to 
upgrade if they don't have rehab services, were we really doing the right 
thing and recommending Jaws? When I learned to use voice over, there was a 
learning curve and times I wondered if I should throw the thing out the 
window. But the frustration and the learning curve was short lived, and I 
didn't have to pay extra cash for a screen reader or think about counting 
the cost for future upgrades. Voice over is relatively easy to teach if 
someone has the manual dexterity to perform the gestures and remember them. 
While jaws has basic reading commands, in order to get profficient and fast 
to compete in the work world of the sighted, there are specific commands 
that must be learned for reading in Excel, Word, Internet, and so on. Look 
at all the hours of training time that will now be needed with voice over 
versus Jaws. Its a mutually beneficial relationship between agency and 
company. Its just something to think about. Some agencies also get parts of 
the profits for their reccomendations, yet we are suppose to as tech 
trainers be neutral in what we recommend, and while I've tried my best to 
stay neutral in the back of my head run the voices of two separate people 
who quietly said recommend a certain screen reader whenever possible because 
it takes the longest to train. There is not just sickness in innovation, but 
in how things are done. Jaws has been my bread and butter, (do I make time 
to learn a new technology when the one I have works just fine), so I am 
loyal in a sense for that reason, but changing the screen reader culture is 
something that is not going to happen over night.
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Zuhair Mahmoud July 21, 2013 at 9:12 pm
I agree that innovation has stagnated in the AT sector as a whole, with a 
few exceptions. What I am having trouble with, however, is the claim that a 
PackMate BX 440 cost FS only $400, and returned a margin of $4600. This can't 
possibly be right!
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chris.admin July 22, 2013 at 7:39 am
Prior to FS inventing what we then called a "braille stick," braille cells 
cost between $25 and $40 each. At FS, we decided to take a new approach and, 
rather than using very expensive, hand built, European made cells, we 
started building them in China and in blocks of 20 or 40 cells. As this was 
a single part instead of 20 or 40 separate cells, it was both less far less 
expensive to manufacture and integrate with the housing. Thus, a 40 cell 
display from most companies (the FS block of braille cells is covered by a 
patent so their competitors can't use a similar design) costs between $1000 
and $1500 for the cells alone; FS, however, can build a 40 cell unit for 
much less, about $400 for a PAC Mate 440 back in 2004.
If you still have questions about any of my numbers, please feel free to ask 
and I'll provide as best an explanation as I can. Remember, I was a vice 
president at FS, had access to the weekly financials and saw the margins on 
these products increase as we did a lot of things to cut manufacturing costs 
by finding new an lower cost ways to build these things.
If anyone tell you that it costs FS more than $400 to build a 40 cell 
braille display or notetaker, they are lying.
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Monica Moen July 21, 2013 at 10:16 pm
Chris, this is an excellent article. I remember the excitement of new JAWS 
releases in the early days, the new applications that got support each time. 
That has all stopped. Now they add features for sighted trainers like 
autoforms mode, or they add features I don't need like the new settings 
manager.
I disagree with the gentleman who says that we're not seeing innovation 
because no features are really needed. How about full support for HTML 5, 
making Quickbooks accessible, better handling of javascript, or a better way 
to engage with controls in video playback on the web? How about updating the 
virtual buffer system to understand CSS? Or why not work on making JAWS 
operate with sites that use drag and drop controls to rearrange items like 
tasks in a to-do list in project management software?
Those of us who work need way more than email, Notepad, and a browser. We 
need full access to Windows and full access to *all* of Microsoft Office, 
not just Word, Excel, and Outlook. I missed out on a job promotion because 
Microsoft Access isn't fully supported and Microsoft Project isn't supported 
at all. When I asked about it, I was told blind people don't need that level 
of access to Office projects.
There is still plenty of room for innovation if someone has the resources 
and the willingness to be creative.
Is this possibel? I don't know. I do know they're not trying though. The new 
features list is usually targeted at sighted trainers and newbie computer 
users. Power users co go hang.
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David Isaacson July 21, 2013 at 10:47 pm
Wonderful Article BTW Talks is with a k not x its website is 
http://www.nuance.com/for-individuals/by-solution/talks-zooms/index.htm hope 
that helps
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James July 23, 2013 at 4:34 pm
Possibly the best FS related article I've ever read. Really. Well written. 
Here's to the truth.
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not important July 25, 2013 at 4:33 am
Of course the tools needed to do a job are going to be developed at a faster 
pace near the beginning of a product or class of products. If this doesn't 
occur, the product won't survive. So it is no surprise that the raw material 
for performing the tasks will come at a slower pace after the initial surge 
of development has occurred.
As far as what is occurring today, nvda is the best screen-reader in 
existence today and that gap will only widen. It is the best because being 
open source, anyone can improve it. It is updated everyday which no other 
screen-reder can match. Its next snapshot branch is stable and if a restart 
is needed it takes seconds so that is negligible. Claiming that system 
access works better in ie 10 than nvda, the better point would be what does 
system access do in ie 10 which nvda doesn't do in any of the browsers it 
supports which are the latest nightly Firefox builds, opera 15 and all of 
the chrome variants, dragon, sr-iron, and more. It supports .It worked with 
windows 8 before any other screen-reader accept for narrator. You can 
install it easily anywhere. Other screen-reders work better so is the claim. 
If the response is immediate when pressing keys and it reads as fast as any 
other screen-reader then how are they better? Nvda can also be used with a 
mouse. You actually can submit a ticket and get action on that submission 
very quickly. It also works with Powerpoint. Look at the number of programs 
which have to be scripted in Jaws sometimes at considerable cost. it is also 
no use to talk about the latest version of a product and employment the 
company is using a version which is 4 versions back because they don't want 
to pay for the upgrade. Sure more people are using the commercial 
screenreaders, not because nvda won't perform the task as well but because 
that is what the agencies are trained in so that is what they teach.
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not important July 25, 2013 at 5:18 am
Additionally of course it is a moot point when most of the world can't 
afford the commercial screenreaders anyway.
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Christopher Sims July 25, 2013 at 6:08 am
Hello Chris, and all who have taken the time to comment. While I realise 
that you are outside of FS now. I think that you are the kind of person who 
could develop some kind of remote access client that would allow any AT 
software to access the appropriate information with out the requirement of 
needing any software to be installed on the remote server. I have missed out 
on jobs just because of what the requirements are around giving Jaws, and 
other screen readers access to remote access connections such as Citrix. I 
should say, that I never lose hope. I concentrate my own energies on doing 
what I can to help other people, blind or sighted on their journeys through 
life.
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Darryl July 25, 2013 at 10:25 am
Best article on FS ever.
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Russell July 25, 2013 at 10:28 am
Great post Chris, and, great responses by everyone. For the past 4 or 5 Jaws 
versions I've seen nothing of really useful nature added. In the old days, 
probably when you were still there Chris, when I encountered an issue with 
Jaws and a certain program, I could usually email or call FS and receive, if 
not a fix for the issue, a workaround. Then issue would then, in most cases, 
be fixed in an upcoming update. Fast forward to 2013 and Jaws 14! The 
feature FS seems to spend the most time on is Research It, a feature which I 
hardly use. I'm not knocking the feature, as I know many users like it, but, 
I'd much rather see FS fix problems that have been ongoing for the past 5 
years. At work we use MS Access to track alternate format requests. I need 
to enter information sent by students that include the textbook title, 
author ISBN, and publisher. Most students put dashes in the ISBN number, but 
the field in the database doesn't accept dashes. When I was using Jaws 9 or 
10, I could copy and paste the ISBN into the appropriate field, arrow to the 
dashes in the ISBN, and delete the dashes. Starting with Jaws 11, I think, I 
could no longer do this. The cursor would not move in this edit field. So, I 
ended up having to paste the ISBN into notepad or Word, remove the dashes, 
and then copy and paste into Access. I contacted FS about the issue. It was 
elevated up the ladder. I wont' mention to whom here. I was asked if I could 
send a copy of my database to FS so they could look at it. I took the time 
to make a copy of the database, remove any student information, and send it 
to FS, never to hear from them again. I tried several times to contact them 
afterward, but the person in question never bothered returning the call. 
Both NVDA and System Access worked in this edit field as expected, so, it's 
not like the field is unusual or of a odd nature. We are moving to a new 
database this fall, so the point is mute, but, really FS?
I now use a Mac at home. have been doing so for the past 4 years, and I love 
it. At work I must use Windows, but, the day I retire, I'm not sure I'll 
ever again purchase another Jaws SMA.
End of rant, and, thanks Chris for all your hard work and ideas while you 
were at FS! I do also wish to add, that if it were not for Jaws, I would not 
have been gainfully employed as I have been for the past 12 years, so, I am 
really grateful for the freedom and independence Jaws has given me.
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Jake July 25, 2013 at 11:08 am
This is a very interesting and thought-provoking post. I was a JAWS user for 
several years, having started out on JAWS for DOS and using a DECtalk 
external synth. It's so interesting how all these things happen. I 
immediately fell in love with JAWS from the get-go. It seemed to do an 
excellent job at reading the computer screen, and I thought the features at 
the time made it a product not to miss. One feature which I particularly 
found intriguing was the multi-lingual support, and with every new version 
and update I anticipated more languages being added so that I could test 
them out. I now use NVDA and System Access, and I love both. I think what 
Serotek has done is fantastic, and I hope they continue long into the 
future. I have spent countless hours on SAMNet, marveling at all the great 
content that is available on there. Furthermore, it seems that Serotek folks 
are very supportive of people who use other companies' products in addition 
to theirs, or in place of. That is something I truly never thought would 
happen. NVDA has also really taken off, and I really like what has been done 
with it. My final thought on this is that both SA and NVDA absolutely need 
to become embraced by state VR agencies, especially those with tight budgets 
such as the one here in the Land of Lincoln! Best of luck to you in the 
future. I only wish I could meet all these awesome assistive tech folks 
whose names are now all to familiar!
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Josh July 25, 2013 at 11:31 am
Personally I got rid of jaws back in early 2010 and have been using NVDA for 
the past 3 years now. And in early 2009 I played around a bit with grml 
linux and speakup and an early version of vinux then called vibuntu. In 2010 
or so I really got into vinux. But I had to fight with vinux to make some 
hardware work right. Then in early 2013 I heard about sonar and the new 
vinux4. I played around with sonar13.04 and vinux4 which recently came out. 
It is so nice that microsoft windows is an option now, and not a 
requirement. Furthermore vinux4 and sonar13.04 and above are so easy to use. 
NVDA yes it works with openoffice to an extent, but Orca does a much better 
job. I am also impressed with the innovation of qt-at-spi. I am amazed at 
how fast Linux operating systems are growing compared to windows. And to 
tell you the truth between windows, mac, and a linux operating system? I 
would choose a good linux operating system like vinux4 or sonar over windows 
and mac. why? 1. A good Linux operating system or operating system built on 
the Linux Kernel can be installed without sighted help. 2. a good Linux 
system like vinux4 or sonar13.04 and above will bring new life to a 10 or so 
year old computer. 3. The screen reader commands are similar to those in 
NVDA. 4. Orca, too, is scriptable. 5. Due to how at-spi and qt-at-spi work, 
most apps just work right out of the box. at-spi is the accessibility 
framework that lets Orca interact with the OS to give information to the 
user qt-at-spi does the same thing but for qt apps. 5. My six-year-old son's 
windows xp machine crashed due to a power outage. NVDA would not even start 
up. Could I have probably made an unattended install disk and fixed xp, 
reinstalling all the drivers and such? yes. But why do that? So I booted a 
live dvd of vinux4. tested all the hardware and everything seemed to work 
good. So I installed it. I installed adobe flash for online games and other 
things he likes to do since he is sighted. And he has been happy with it 
ever since. No problems at all. The computer runs 3 or 4 times faster with 
vinux on it than it did with windows. My next laptop wil only have vinux4 or 
sonar13 on it but I do need windows for audio games and other things so I'll 
be using the terminal app to quickly install vmware player and install 
windows7 in a virtual machine for games and things. Orca works with espeak, 
svox-pico tts from google, festival, cepstral voices and voxin an 
eloquence-like synthesizer. And it picks up USB and bluetooth braille 
displays automatically just like the mac does. Oh, need a braille 
translator? don't pay $600 for duxbury, just add the odt2braille extension 
and turn libreoffice into a full featured braille authoring tool for free. 
For tactile graphics and some other things you may need at least windows xp 
and the free quicktack in vmware player. Vinux4 and sonar13 operating 
systems will do nearly everything you need. Oh for you hackers out there 
there is a bug in orca when selecting text in firefox orca doesn't read what 
is selected. If any of you guys could fix this I'd appreciate it, thanks. 
maybe for the new sonar 13.10 release? in october? The other great thing 
about vinux and sonar is you can get a laptop off ebay for $280 or so or an 
older windows vista laptop for $150 or so put vinux or sonar on it get rid 
of windows of course, get a bluetooth braille display add the braille 
extension for libreoffice and you have a great computer/notetaker for 
school. oh and that remote access you were talking about? a good linux 
operating system already has that no special stuff required. and it's 
accessible. go into the terminal app and use ssh. ssh into someone else's 
machine fix it then disconnect. in fact vinux4 has cfh cry for help and its 
free. another vinux user can get into your machine with your permission and 
fix it then disconnect. also works with sonar13 but you may have to add the 
vinux repositories to sonar the easiest way is with software center. I would 
recommend vinux over windows any day. my son loves it. With windows he 
hardly touched the computer. Now with vinux I have trouble getting him to 
shut it off at night. It also has its own antivirus software. and d-base the 
equivalent of ms-access is fully or mostly accessible. I haven't played 
around with it. So please guys go support vinux and sonar and orca and 
at-spi and qt-at-spi. Between windows mac and vinux4 and sonar13 my favorite 
is vinux4 or sonar13 if you want some extra screen reader features not yet 
implemented into vinux4 but aught to come soon in update manager.
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megan.bening at mnsu.edu July 25, 2013 at 4:25 pm
To the person who said that they got passed up for a job promotion because 
microsoft access wasn't fully supported by their screenreader and was then 
told that blind people should not need to use tools this advanced. Are you 
freaking kidding me? I despise, absolutely despise, when assistive 
technology manufacturers dare to tell me what I do and do not need. Simply 
because I don't have vision, that does not give you the right to decide what 
I do and do not require my computer to do, or to behave accordingly when I 
call you for technical support. Right now, for example, my blind employer 
uses Quickbooks to do the accounts for his small business because it is the 
industry standard and because that is the program that his accountant asks 
her clients to use. This man owns his own business, can independently fix 
computers and routinely goes up on customers' roofs to install cable and 
Dish, but he can't do his own books because his screen reader doesn't 
support the program and the one that does work is not industry standard. 
Calling tech support resulted in basically the same scenario mentioned 
above. When, when, when did this become ok??? When did we begin to allow 
assistive technology to run our lives instead of being instrumental in 
ensuring, by personally calling every week if necessary, that it continue to 
be innovated to meet our needs? When did we begin to expect assistive 
technology not to innovate at a rate comparable to that of the mainstream 
technology and just accept that fact? And this is to say nothing about the 
people who couldn't afford screen readers in the era before NVDA and System 
Access to go who are still fighting the effects of that loss today. For 
example one of my best friends, who despite being out of high school for 
years, has no plans to go to college anytime soon because he is basically 
computer illiterate. His parents couldn't afford to buy him a computer and a 
screen reader, and his school refused to purchase one because they decided 
that a BrailleNote was sufficient for his needs. He's still struggling to 
conceptualize how key parts of windows work, such as the desktop, and trying 
to learn how to type on a qwerty keyboard, to say nothing of learning the 
finer points of a screen reader. And he's not the only person I know who is 
going through something like this. So many people are falling through the 
cracks in our current system, and I believe that at least part of that blame 
belongs at the doors of companies like these, who fail to innovate or even 
to consider that some of their users are trying to make lives for themselves 
outside of the blindness sector. The world is never going to stop and wait 
for our technology to catch up, and it shouldn't have to. But I'm honestly 
really terrified of graduating college and being turned down for job after 
job after job because another person can do the work more quickly, or doesn't 
have the same struggles with accessibility that I do. And I hope and pray to 
God that we, as a user base, will rally together and stop taking this 
stagnation for granted. If we don't try to change these circumstances, no 
one else is going to! Its up to us to make sure that the future is better 
than the picture we have of it right now.
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Philip July 25, 2013 at 5:02 pm
First I worked forBlazie Engineering and then when it was bought out, I 
worked for FS. I was told in person and by an email message, "don't fix 
bugs, add features. Fixing bugs don't sell products, adding features does."
I still have the email message.
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Wael July 25, 2013 at 11:34 pm
Actually I believe FS stopped debugging Jaws since a decade. Innovation 
requires some sort of a listening ear, fresh mind, etc etc. Jaws does not 
only lack true innovation, Jaws stopped supporting a wide range of 
professional applications like SPSS. FS seems never heard of oracle  . I'm 
not yet sure if notetaker manufacturers like FS and Baum are sincere enough 
to upgrade components reasonably? i.e. Pacmate is not yet 1gig ram! would 
they just sell the braille device and allow us use linux in stead of paying 
for windows for mobile? I believe much to be taken into consideration when 
looking from a critic view.
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David F July 26, 2013 at 9:14 am
An interesting article. I am horrified that FS could charge so much money 
for a PacMate, a piece of junk technology if I ever saw one. I hated mine 
and all but gave it away to someone just to be rid of the thing. Disgraceful 
that they would make over $4600 from a population group who's unemployment 
rate is so high. I guess unlike MR. Damory, Mr. Mozen, was not treated so 
well at FS and has left as he did from HumanWare-a trend perhaps. I wish I 
were as good with computers and software. I'd have the most efficient 
scopist job using either Case CATylist or Eclipse by now. BUt that stuff 
loses me. It must be such an interesting field if you are very good. Sorry 
about your RSI problems. That truly must hurt. Best to you in future.
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Nick July 26, 2013 at 9:44 am
Cris thank you for a very well written article. You really got me thinking 
man.
I and jfw are in a love relationship I use it from version 2 in windows 
3.11. I loved version 3.2 because with a dolfin apollo 2 hardware synth, I 
could at last access my first language which is Greek.
There were times I had to stay behind in jaws versions cause I had no money. 
Some times I would find a copy from the university or the current job if 
there was one.
Jaws helped me finish my studies in software engineering in Brighton, 
England. It helped me compose my own music by using cakewalk sonar with the 
scripts from dancing dots. Now, dancing dots still inovates, trust me.
I consider myself a jaws power user. I never bothered with cirtification, 
but I can use mostly all the functions of the jaws scripting language, I can 
write and debug scripts, and I'm one of this people that actualy bother to 
use it:)
Reason I'm saying all this is in order to demonstrate how sad I was when I 
had to contact fs regarding a problem I had.
So I decided and purchased a braille display, a braille pen cause it was not 
very expensive and on top of that it's usable with my iphone and there are 
times I use it as my note taker so I don't want voice over speaking or 
clicks or anything, so I use it with braille only.
I looked for a jaws driver, to make a long story short, I would have to 
downgrade my jaws to use the old braille voyager driver, and no guaranty it 
would work.
I contacted the fanufacturors of both products to get a feel for the water.
Naturally the guys that produce the bp are more expert in hardware, so they 
can't know how to write a jaws driver, that's what my contact said.
>From fs, I was told that the hardware company has to write the driver for 
jfw themselves, weather that's true or not.
So I called back my bp guys and asked them weather I could write a jfw 
driver for them, free of charge. But, when I got back to fs, which had 
considered my case solved and I asked them to send me the driver specs. 
Guess what I got back?
A big nothing.
And that is how a big love ends, as I'm going not to pay for another sma 
ever again. Me and jfw are done, though I'll forever be grateful for all 
that I've accomplished using it.
Demonstrate no inovation is one thing, but preventing another from doing 
something quite another thing. I'm sure that if I was able to do it and 
write that braille driver, a lot of people could benifit from that project, 
not to mention myself in the first place.
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Vivien July 27, 2013 at 9:48 am
Thanks so much, Chris, for a great article, and thanks to everyone who has 
commented. I too am totally done with JAWS and am dismayed at the lack of 
innovation and the failure to fix bugs. It is totally unacceptable that FS 
can carry on treating customers with such contempt. (I don't consider 
features such as Researchit to be useful or innovative in the slightest, and 
sadly, I feel this pattern has been happening for long enough, whilst the 
software - or bloatware, continues to be buggy and disgracefully 
overpriced.) Blindness agencies have been far too willing to push JAWS to 
the people they're supposed to be serving. When I was in short-term 
employment from mid-2005 to early 2006, JAWS was purchased for me via our 
Workplace Modifications Scheme here in Australia, but I only opted for JAWS 
in the end because at that time the context-sensitive help was superior to 
WindowEyes, and I (mistakenly in hindsight) thought I'd be better off at 
least in so far as having support from a local dealer - funnily enough, our 
blindness agency here in Perth. I had also had problems with the computer in 
the office (running Windows XP Professional) crashing or freezing when I was 
trying out a demo of WindowEyes. (This, in hindsight, may well have had more 
to do with the operating system, but my colleagues were certainly puzzled, 
and GW Micro couldn't deduce the source of the problem via our long-distance 
communication. I do remember there were blue screens involved, and I was 
having to restart to be working back to normal again, adding to the stress I 
was already under with trying to manage the work and make some informed 
decision about which screenreader I'd choose.) Well, when my fully licensed 
copy of JAWS finally arrived after a ridiculous delay, I was further 
disgusted to find that my attempts to contact Freedom Scientific for 
assistance regarding the software's handling of checkboxes in Word documents 
resulted in nothing more than the pathetic automated replies acknowledging 
my message, despite me attaching a sample of the document we were using. 
(And as with so many occasions like this, the local dealer can't help with 
this sort of query and ends up having to chase FS any way!) After my 
employment was over, I was able to continue using JAWS at home on my Windows 
XP Home machine, but I stopped at version 9.0.2169U when I got sick of the 
unstable, buggy behaviour and conflicts whenever I tried having two 
screenreaders on my machine. I was also absolutely outraged at FS's lawsuit 
against GW Micro. Version 9 was the last one in my SMA, and I have no 
intention of purchasing any further "upgrade". I have been using NVDA for 
about 3 or 4 years and, as of a few months ago, a Brailliant BI 40, funded 
by a local disability equipment grant here in Western Australia. Megan, I 
agree with you about the appalling attitude of assistive technology 
companies presuming what blind people should or shouldn't need their 
computers to do, but I also strongly feel it's high time mainstream 
workplaces and indeed mainstream technology manufacturers showed more 
innovation and flexibility too. Your employer should not be placed in a 
position where he has to rely on someone else for accessing the accounting 
package. He should be free to use the accounting package he finds 
accessible/user-friendly. I have no experience with accounting packages 
myself, but surely the accountant could look at more suitable arrangements? 
(Are they not, after all, supposed to be at the service of their clients?) 
Absolutely, assistive technology vendors need to lift their game too, but I 
would also say how about the makers of Quickbooks making their product fully 
accessible? I started learning to use a computer in 1992 (in the MS-DOS 
days):), and I only learned Windows very reluctantly and only stuck with it 
because of the prospect of being able to use the Internet. To this day, I'm 
astounded at how the blind community could find it acceptable for an 
operating system to still not be fully accessible, including the 
installation process. And the general population, astoundingly, puts up with 
this cumbersome, unfriendly and unstable product! Whilst not specifically 
blindness-related, I highly recommend an article which illustrates what the 
likes of Bill Gates get up to when they're not making their operating system 
more riddled with ribbons instead of menus (and still failing to make the 
product accessible out of the box). The article is at: 
http://southweb.org/blog/monsanto-buys-blackwater-the-largest-mercenary-army-in-the-world/ 
Josh, I'm very intrigued and inspired reading about your switch to Linux. I 
certainly know of others in the blind community who are using it (and Vinux 
in particular), but my impression - at least when I last looked on the vinux 
site and asked other users, was that at least in the initial stages, it 
still required some fiddling or tweaking (and patience) in order to be up 
and running? (I'm not that tech-savvy and lasted about a week in an IT 
course.)  Thanks again to all of you for your insights.
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Tasa July 28, 2013 at 8:40 pm
Hay Cris, and all of you boys and girls whom still have free thinking and 
creativity. I invite you to join the NVDA project. Your skills will be 
greatly welcomed. Noe one will put handcufs on your thots or ideas. Its time 
to fight back.
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Greg July 29, 2013 at 12:32 pm
I have been debating on whether or not to post and I am finally taking the 
plunge. I lost my eyesight back in 2002 and I still consider myself a 
relative newbie to the AT field. Like Megan mentioned, I am going to be 
graduating from College and I am scared to death of not being able to find a 
job. My degree will be in Computer Information Systems with a specialization 
in Web Development and Administration. In quite a few of my classes so far I 
have struggled because of trying to get my Screen reader(I use JAWS and 
NVDA) to work with the tools needed to complete my assignments. When the 
tools worked, I was still unable to work as well as the other students. This 
was especially true when trying to use programs like Visual Studio or the 
Eclipse IDE's for programming. I have been using JAWS since version 4.5.1 
and the only features I use that have been added since then is the OCR and 
the text analyzer. Other than that features like research it seem to be more 
for fluff than anything else. I want to be able to go to NVDA full time but 
it is just not quite there yet. I do want to encourage those with the 
technical know how to use NVDA so they can help to make it better. One 
individual by the name of Paul Warner has created a couple of little 
programs, they cost about $5 each, that really help NVDA. They are called 
VMouse and VTurbo. If there is anyone using NVDA and have not checked these 
programs out I encourage you to. If anyone reads this, I thank you for 
reading my ramblings.
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Deborah Armstrong July 29, 2013 at 6:49 pm
One thing the iDevice community of blind users has going for it is 
applevis.com. We need a community site for Windows software, that would let 
us share what does and does not work with screen readers. And like their 
campaign of the month, we need to be able to put pressure on companies to 
make their software more accessible.
And tied in with that, the screen reader vendors need to write a simple set 
of guidelines a user can forward to a developer, so that developer knows 
exactly what to do to make their software work with a screen reader.
Today, the average user is caught between a developer blaming the screen 
reader and the screen reader blaming the developer for a lack of 
accessibility. Apple solved this problem by clearly documenting what an app 
developer needs to do to ensure his app works with VoiceOver on iOS.
FS, GW, Dolphin and Serotek need to pool resources and write such a guide. 
Then it's up to us users to start demanding that software developers follow 
it. But the AT companies won't do this without a clear marketing advantage. 
So how can we convince them that such a colaboration benefits them 
financially? I don't know, but I hope someone else has a thought!
One thing I have been noticing is that most of the open-source software I 
download and attempt to use doesn't work well with screen access. Even 
though I have some programming background, I have know idea, technically why 
one music player may work with JAWS and another one might not. But if I did 
know, or had a document that explained why, I could start by passing this 
knowledge on to the developers who write open-source software. If they write 
software for their own amusement, rather than to keep shareholders fat and 
happy, they are much more likely to make changes to improve a program's 
accessibility.
But today, I can't even tell an open-source project why their software fails 
to work with my screen reader. And until I, a user can do that, we can't see 
a whole lot of software becoming any more accessible than it already is!
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Jodie July 29, 2013 at 9:07 pm
After reading about the $400 to $5000 ratio on PM, I stopped using jaws on 
principle last week. It disgusts me that FS is so greedy, and that they're 
so suit happy! I haven't been happy with their monopolizing for a while, but 
that passage in your blog just pushed me over the edge! I am now a full SA 
convert and will never renew my jaws SMA! Thank you for letting us know the 
truth!
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frank perry July 29, 2013 at 9:56 pm
This was a fantastic article to read. I can remember how I discovered screen 
readers and at the time I thought how innovative they were. For want of a 
better description I was a fully sighted person and completely ignorant of 
blindness related issues especially screen reading technology. Four years 
ago, I begag going from fully sighted to being classified by Australian 
doctors as being legally blind. So I was employed for insurance companies at 
the time doing investigations into genuine and not so genuine claims, but 
now I couldn't drive, couldn't do the physical leg work required for such a 
job. Even with the free perks the Australian health system has, I was facing 
high medical bills, my loss of most of my sight was completely unexpected, 
so it was hard to get cover for everything. And I wanted to keep working. I 
liked my employers, I liked my work but what was I going to do, and how was 
I going to do it? My employers and I sat around the conference room for 3 
whole days, no I am not kidding you and than we began researching screen 
readers. If I could find a decent screen reader, I would be assigned to 
accounts and billing, if not, I was out of a job with little prospect of 
getting another job without further training, meaning very little money 
coming in and debt collectors knocking on my door demanding I give the bank 
my house to pay my medical bills. So at the time we were using windows. 
Microsoft narrator was hopeless. Jaw was way too expensive and not to 
mention the upgrades. Support for window eyes and system access in Australia 
was non existent. Zoom text and magic were ok but my eyes were getting tired 
ov all the the information they had to read. My employers weren't exactly 
happy about it, but the answer was apple mac. The mac had zoom and voice 
over. I would have the best of both worlds. I could use my remaining sight 
and if the eyes got tired use voice over. So we got the apple mac with 10.6 
and I remember thinkoing how briliant voice over was at the time. Sadly, no 
innovations have happened since and apple has had 2 upgrades of major 
significance.
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Sam Jewell July 31, 2013 at 11:31 am
Deborah Armstrong suggests that the big players "need to pool resources and 
write such a guide. Then it's up to us users to start demanding that 
software developers follow it. But the AT companies won't do this without a 
clear marketing advantage."
Mr Hofstader - I wonder to myself whether you could write such a guide by 
yourself, which we could all get behind and push developers to implement? 
You're in a unique position having skills right now and no affiliation to a 
particular manufacturer, and this might help the industry a great deal. Just 
a thought.
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Ben Watson August 3, 2013 at 1:59 pm
Chris, good, thought provoking post. And thanks to everyone else for their 
comments. Mine are a little rambling. First, Jaws. I've used most versions 
since 3.7. With each successive version I've wondered why I upgraded. So 
last year I didn't. I was in the midst of a move both in location and 
workload. Now, I wonder if I want to bother since I'm not using Windows 8. 
In fact, I'm wondering just what I'm going to do to keep being able to teach 
online.
Pac Mate. I use it almost every day but am wondering what my next step will 
be with this device. there is no indication that they are going to upgrade 
it. Oh, and the upgrade they made in 2007, as far as I'm concerned has been 
almost worthless as it continually reboots. I've had it reboot in the middle 
of sermons and Sunday School lessons. So again, am not sure what I will do 
or what I can afford to do in the next few years. By the way, I use my Pac 
Mate almost every day for reading teaching or something.
As far as innovation is concerned, I'm not sure we're seeing a whole lot of 
innovation anywhere. Between government that prys into everything and 
business that doesn't want to do anything we're in pretty big trouble as a 
society. So my hats off to anyone who is innovating anything.
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Mayson August 12, 2013 at 2:25 pm
Hello Chriss, my name is Mayson. after reading your 2 articles about jaws, A 
friend of mine now can not deside on what screen reader to use. We both love 
jaws. but, what should we do now? is their a screen reader that will work 
best in colegge and or in Highschool?