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Technology has greatly increased the ability for the blind to find employment. Unfortunately, there is still a barrier if the software that companies use is not accessible to their blind employees. The non-profit, My Blind Spot is one of the organizations that tries to eliminate this barrier by providing scripting services so that screen readers can work with software that is unique to a specific company. Their latest project is to make the well known accounting software QuickBooks accessible. They hope that making this widely used software package accessible will open the doors to more jobs for the blind. We've reached out to the developers and will post more info as we receive it.

Learning Ally wants to learn how to better serve their blind and visually impaired customers. they are looking for college students to participate in a multi-month study to get feedback about how blind and visually impaired students access their materials. According to their website, this is what the study would entail: "The study has been designed to allow students to share their experiences with us at their own pace and in their own words. We plan on following students at the start of the semester. Over the course of the semester, they will be asked to leave voice-mail messages to reflect on their successes and challenges. At two points in the semester, researchers will meet with the student to further discuss and observe their academic experiences. Student participation will be compensated at several points in the semester and students will be able to withdraw from the study at any time and for any reason." Participants may be compensated up to $550 if they complete the study. Students in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut will be given preference.

If you're interested in participating, contact Ksenia Pachikov.

phone: 646.321.3003

email: Ksenia@ConiferResearch.com

Many companies over the years have tried to come up with ways to find items that you've lost. Most of them involve a remote and a beacon that you attach to the item you keep misplacing. Most people used these gadgets for their keys, but often people complain that they wouldn't know where the remote was when they needed to find their missing object. A new company called Tile aims to change this problem. Their product includes two components. The Tiles are small stickers that you place on the object that you want to keep track of, and the app they've developed will help you locate the missing object as long as you're within 100 feet. When you tell the app that you're missing something, the tile will beep and the app will help direct you to the object. The company also hopes to use their technology to help people find stolen objects. The idea would be that if you had the tile app, you could then see objects that have been marked as stolen or lost.

The company is currently taking preorders for the tiles. One can be purchased for $19 or you can get 4 for $50. The battery in the tile will last 1 year and the app will notify you when the battery is low. The app is currently available for iOS and uses the new wireless capabilities of the Bluetooth 4.0 standard. Once more Android devices include this standard, a version for that platform will be more likely. Here is a link to the Tile website.

The ) Twenty-First Century Communications and Video ) Accessibility Act of 2010 requires companies who make electronic devices to make them accessible to people with disabilities. At this time, none of the Ebook readers that are on the market meet this requirement. Since many companies feel that this requirement should not apply to Ebook readers, Amazon, Kobo, and Sony have submitted a petition to the FCC asking for a waiver. According to the petition, this is the definition of an Ebook reader: "E-readers, sometimes called e-book readers, are mobile electronic devices that are designed, marketed and used primarily for the purpose of reading digital documents, including e-books and periodicals."

Since Ebook readers are primarily designed for print reading, the companies are arguing that the disabled community would not significantly benefit from these devices becoming accessible. They also argue that because the devices are so simple, making the changes to the devices to make them accessible, would cause them to be heavier, have poorer battery life, and raise the cost of the devices. Finally, these companies argue that since their apps are accessible on other devices such as the iPad and other full featured tablets, that they are already providing access to their content. We've posted the complete filing from the FCC's website below.
Here is a link to the original .PDF

The Professional Development and Research Institute at Louisiana Tech University has started a blog that they hope will be a useful resource for anyone who works with blind children and adults. These are some of the topics that the blog will cover.

• The latest research on blindness to help you to better answer questions
  from educators and the general public, which will improve the opportunities
  available for blind students and professionals;

• Methods for teaching braille and cane travel that will increase the
  effectiveness of instruction, allowing blind people to lead active, truly
  independent lives;

• Philosophy-rich speeches and articles leading the public to see blind
  people as equal participants in their training, education and employment;

• Perspectives from current students and alumni about why they find it
  rewarding to teach blind students and adults, encouraging others to join the
  growing profession; and

• Interviews with experienced professionals, which will create nationwide
  networking opportunities for teachers of the blind that will foster
  collaboration on the latest, research-based instructional methods.

On the website, there are ways to subscribe either via RSS or email.

An organization in Australia has developed a new set of games called Ballyland that help teach children with special needs about the keyboard. Unlike many typing programs, no literacy skills are required. The five games isolate individual keys so that children can learn at a slower pace. According to the Sonokids website, these are the features of Ballyland: "Self-voicing, Spoken feedback, Zoom, Easy recognisable sounds and images, Adjustable colour contrast, and Adjustable response time."

The program is available for PC and will be released for the Mac soon. there is a free trial option or the games can be purchased for download. All prices posted are in Australian dollars.

Running into objects because you can not see them can be a real issue for the blind. Canes and guide dogs do a good job of helping blind people avoid objects that are below the face, but low hanging branches or anything that is at face level can be challenging to avoid. A new project that is being developed by researchers at the University of Sheffield are aiming to solve this problem using ultrasonic technology. The researchers are basing their design on whiskers. Most mammals have whiskers on their faces which detect how close they are to an object. Since humans don't have whiskers, the team believes that they can design something that mimics whiskers to help the blind detect objects and give firefighters better information when they're trying to navigate a smoke filled room. The device will use ultrasonic sensors and vibration patterns to alert the person to how close they are to the object. The stronger the vibration, the closer you are to the object. At this time, they are multiple years out from making a commercial project, but they have already started beta testing with firefighters.

Google glass may not be available for people to buy, but many developers are already working with the new technology. The company Dapper Vision is designing multiple apps for google glass, including two that are relevant to the blind. According to Engadget, the company is already testing out the apps with visually impaired users. One of the apps would allow the user to take pictures and ask either the crowd-powered Mechanical Turk or twitter what the object is. the other, called Memento, would automatically recite notes to the user about a recognizable scene. For example, the app could warn users about dangerous equipment that they might be approaching.

If you're a fan of old time radio then you might be interested in this campaign on Kickstarter. Codename Cygnus will be interactive and use voice recognition during game play. According to the campaign website, this is what the game play will look like: "We're keeping our UI super simple. The experience is entirely sound and story: Writing + Voiceover + SFX + Music. With either a spoken word or a simple tap on the screen you can listen to the drama unfold in a progression similar to the multiple choice dialogue moments that you find in adventure or RPG games. You get to make decisions about what to do and what kind of agent to be in a world of espionage. Your iPhone/iPad recognizes your speech (or accepts the tap of a button) to trigger and play the next sound file so that the characters react to you as the events and story continue." Since the developers wanted high quality sound, they hired professional voice actors and built their own sound booth to save money. The first episode of the game has already been completed, and if they get funded, they'll start working on the second. At this time, the campaign is just over half way to it's goal and there are 11 days to go.

If you're looking for an in depth look at Windows 8 and you use JAWs or WindowEyes, ATI is offering two online courses that provide an overview of the operating system and how to use your screen reader with the new features of Windows 8. The courses include 4 pre-recorded lectures as well as a copy of the textbook. There are also periodic tests that students can opt to take. Each course can be purchased for $225.

Watching TV that has audio description can be difficult to find and difficult to set up.
In case you haven't heard, Blindy.tv is designed to allow the blind to enjoy described television on their computers. The website offers five different channels to choose from and the content covers a variety of genres.
A software developer decided that they wanted to make the Blindy.tv experience even better. They have designed an app that you download onto your PC that allows you to watch Blindy.tv without using the website. According to the application's page, these are the features of the app: "On the main form, you will have comedy, drama, scifi, brain, and etc. You can tab to the station you want to listen to and press enter or the space bar on the play button to start playing. There is a stop button, adjust volume, and exit button."

the author of iPads for Special Needs Sami Rahman, has designed a new online course that covers the accessibility of iOS. The three topics that are covered are voiceover, guided access, and assistive touch. The videos in the course will teach you how to setup each accessibility option, how to use them, and their features.

There is a new site that hopes to be the place where anyone can come to get all the resources they need to learn about blindness and ways to adapt. Blind Wiki has a large list of resources so far, and they are continuing to add more. They also ask that users should submit resources that they don't already have listed.

During Google's press conference Wednesday, there were a number of new things to talk about. First, there will be a new Nexus 7 coming out soon. The prices are a little bit higher, but the screen resolution is better and so is the battery life. According to an article from Redmond Pie here are some of the specs of the new tablet. The display will be 1900 X 1200 and be able to produce 1080P when watching Netflix and other videos, a set of stereo speakers are included, the weight is 50 grams less then the previous model, and the battery life is 9 hours.

The company also announced the latest version of Android 4.3, still called Jellybean. This article in Arstechnica has an overview of what the new features of the OS will include. Tablet users will now be able to create multi-user restricted profiles. This allows multiple members of a family to use the device without changing anything on a different profile. There is also better support for bluetooth 4.0, predictive phone number dialing, and n emoji keyboard.

The final announcement was about their new gadget called ChromeCast, which will allow you to stream media from your cell phone or tablet to your TV. This article from CNet provides a review of the new device. The $35 price tag will give you access to Netflix, Youtube, Google Play movies and TV, and Google Play music. They also hope to come out with access to Pandora soon.

For the past two weeks, students from the Carol Center for the Blind have had the opportunity to test out the new Visus Visual Assistant System from Visus Technology. The system uses a Galaxy S4 Android smartphone paired with a bluetooth headset to convey a variety of information that would be useful to the blind. According to this article in the Boston Globe the these are some of the features of the new system, "The Visus program can be trained to identify faces, so a blind person who encounters a friend or colleague won’t have to guess at a name. Instead, he can scan the face with his phone. An electronic voice can announce the person’s name through a wireless Bluetooth earpiece. Another Visus feature lets the user scan a large area with the camera to pinpoint objects containing text, such as signs or bulletin boards. The software can translate the text to speech and read it aloud. The phone also makes it easier for a blind person to find a restroom. It is programmed to recognize the standard symbols indicating a men’s room or women’s room and point them out to the user. The software can even generate a map of the inside of a building. Using software licensed from a defense contractor, Visus can shoot a video as the user is guided through the building."

The company hopes to have the system available for sale early next year for $999. The price will include the phone, bluetooth headset, and a 4G hotspot. The company is also working on developing for the iOS platform. To learn more about the company, visit the <a href= "http://www.visustech.com" Visus Technology website.

We announced earlier this month that KeySoft 9.3 was coming soon, and today Humanware says that it's available to be downloaded for free. Here's a link to our original post to remind you what new features are included in the upgrade.

Many small business owners are choosing to use square instead of a traditional credit card machine because the fees are lower and the square reader can be used with an iOS or Android device. The NFB of Massachusetts has decided to partner with Square to make their apps fully accessible to the blind community so that blind business owners can use Square with ease. Pasted below is the press release.

In this short video, Marco Zehe demonstrates how Mozilla is working towards making their mobile OS accessible. In the demonstration, we are shown that the device does have speech and that the basic gestures are the same as Android 4.1 and IOS. The company hopes to role out these features in the months to come.

One of the benefits of traveling by plane today is that you can often use in flight WyFy on your mobile device or computer. Unfortunately, not all flights have this option and the WyFy is almost never free. Lifehacker has provided a good list of airlines detailing how many flights have in flight WyFy and how much it may cost you.

A new podcast is available which describes Serotek's new Socializer system, a platform for communicating with friends and family on a wide variety of messaging platforms.
According to their website: "The socializer allows you to communicate with family members, friends, fellow-students, coworkers, and other SAMNet users. You can send and receive instant messages through Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, (also referred to as AIM), Facebook, Yahoo Messenger, GoogleTalk, and Jabber. In addition, you can send and receive both text and voice messages through Skype, as well as with any other user of the system Access Mobile Network; subject to their approval, of course. You can read and respond to messages in the Serotek Users Forum.. Socializer also provides access to Facebook and Twitter.