Miscellaneous Deals, Sales, and News

the team at Serotek wants to reward it's customers just for buying their products. Today they announced that people who have a SamNet subscription or one of the Accessibility Anywhere packages will be entered to win prizes each month. This month, they're giving away copies of the book "Out of the Whirlpool" by Sue Martin. Visit the <a href="http://www.serotek.com" Serotek website to learn more.

Access to transportation is a critical issue for the blind and visually impaired. When we don't have access to efficient transportation, our independence can be severely impacted. Researchers at Mississippi State University are studying the transportation issues that the blind and visually impaired face in their daily lives. According to the survey website, the information gained from the survey will be used to help policy makers and other groups that serve our community better serve our transportation needs. Those who complete the survey will have the option to be entered to win 1 of 4 $100 gift certificates.

The University of Nevada Reno is conducting a survey on the challenges that the blind face when dealing with social interactions. A team of researchers is currently developing a device that will recognize faces and give the user information about the faces. They hope that the results from the survey will help them determine what information the device should give to the user. The survey is 12 questions long and should take between 10 and 25 minutes to complete.

For a number of years, WebAiM has collected data on the types of screen readers that people are using. This information is very helpful for website developers. The survey will be open until Jan. 15, 2014.

A team in Italy hopes to make accessing email on the web a much better experience for the visually impaired. As it stands now, many email providers do not offer a quality experience for screen reader users when accessing their mail on the web. Some providers offer simplified options like basic html, but this strips out some if not many of the features that are available to sighted users. To solve this issue, the team has created "Voice My Mail", a web ad on that gives blind users a more feature rich experience when accessing email on the web. Since it's not a stand alone program, the idea is for it to work with any email provider website.

The team has created a working demo for people to try out, but according to the Indiegogo page, they won't be able to make the project global without extra funding. Users of JAWS and NVDA can test out the demo in the Firefox browser. Let us know in the comments what the experience is like and if you would use the app if it was available.

I am always on the look out for finding more ways to get access to books, in fact, I think I have more book apps on my iPhone than is really necessary. Well now I've added one more. Audio Books HQ is an app that provides access to almost 8000 free audio books. This app was previously not usable to Voiceover users, but now I can say with pleasure that the app is easy to use.

The app currently has access to books from LibriVox, PodioBooks, and the Globe Radio Repertory. Each of these three catalogs is easy to search through. Finding books can be done in a number of ways including: looking by genre, title, author, most downloaded, or in order of when books were posted. There is also an option to preview the book before choosing to download it. For me, I really appreciate this feature because it means I get to hear the narrator and decide if I like their voice before I download the book.

There are a number of features when playing books that you've downloaded. You can adjust the playback speed to be slow or very fast, add a bookmark, skip forward and backward by time or by chapter, and even start a sleep timer.

Just as a final note, the app itself is $1.99 but all of the books available in the app are free.

In November of last year, the Braille Authority of North America (BANA), decided to adopt the Unified English Braille code (UEB). After a year of discussions which included a forum in October of this year, BANA voted at their annual meeting to make January 4, 2016 the date that UEB will be fully implemented in the U.S. What this means for braille readers in the U.S. is that our braille code is going to change. Some of the changes are minor, and some will
feel very strange to those of us who have been reading braille for years. BANA has put together a list of many of the changes to the literary code. The most significant of these changes is the removal of nine contractions and no longer joining and, for, of, the, and with.

There are likely those who are still wondering why BANA made this decision since it's going to be disruptive for braille readers and transcribers. In effect, children who are learning braille now will have to know both the literary braille code and the UEB code because they are likely to encounter both. According to BANA's website, there are a number of reasons why they decided to make this change. The primary reason was to allow for more braille books to be sent across borders. The U.S. was the only English speaking country that still was not using UEB which made it challenging to provide braille materials to other English speaking countries. It will also mean that braille readers who go to other countries will not have any problem reading braille produced in those nations.

One of the reasons people often choose not to try new assistive technology is cost. The team at Serotek wants the blind community to have a chance to try out all of their products for free. So, from now until December 11, feel free to download and use any of their products for no cost.

Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do if they want the visually impaired community to start using their smart phones. Nokia is hoping that their Nokia Create contest will encourage developers to make more apps for the Windows Phone platform. There are eight categories for apps, and one of them is to make apps that are accessible to the visually impaired. According to the Microsoft Accessibility blog, developers can submit apps that are as basic as adding vibration to the compass, or as complex as using the built in camera for image recognition. There are ten categories of apps that Nokia is looking for. These include "Image and Photo, Near Field Communication, Maps and Places, Music, Cross-8,
Fun and Games, Work Life,Freestyle, Nokia Lumia Devices, and Remote Device Access." Developers have until December 15 to submit their apps.

It will be interesting to see how effective the contest is at adding to the accessible app options. Having choice is the best way to encourage innovation. It is my hope that at some point, Microsoft can add their name to the list of smart phones that the visually impaired community will want to use because it meets their needs and improves independence.

I personally am a big fan of descriptive audio. Every time I watch a film that has a descriptive audio track, I get more out of the experience and I don't feel like I'm missing out on important parts of the film. It's great to see that many film studios are including descriptive audio, but you can only access the track if you watch the film on DVD or in the theater. Verizon has just announced that they will be the first streaming video provider to offer described films on their On Demand Service. According to the Verizon website, these are the first films that Verizon Fios users can access that have the descriptive audio track, "Wreck It Ralph, The Hangover III, Gangster Squad, The Great Gatsby, Iron Man 3 and Monsters University." Hopefully, more films will be added to the service, and maybe other service providers like Netflix and Hulu will follow their lead.

Being able to order my own plane tickets online is very empowering, but even in 2013, not all airline websites are as accessible as they could be. There are also no accessible kiosks for passengers to check in at any of our airports, but this may be changing. The Department of Transportation (DOT), has just issued new rules to expand access to airline websites and airport kiosks to passengers with disabilities. A portion of the press release is pasted below.

After landing on Mars your job is not only to discover what is on the planet, but because you crashed onto the planet, you must now also survive. This is the premise of a new Interactive Fiction game called Red Planet Rex. The game is different from your average interactive fiction game since it's also voice activated. Instead of typing out your commands, you can just say them. It will be like having a conversation while you're playing.

The plan is for the game to be released for both iOS and Android, and for it to be accessible on both platforms. As a player, you will have the option of using the voice commands or playing the game with just text. This makes the game accessible to both blind and deaf, and allows users to switch off voice commands when they're in a situation where it would be awkward.

Back in August, the Coalition of E-reader Manufactures requested a waver from the FCC. It was their opinion that their dedicated E-readers should not have to comply with the 21st Century Video Communications Act because the primary purpose of the devices was to read printed text. ON October 22, the FCC decided to grant a temporary waver until January of next year to the coalition to give them more time to review the waver request. If you are concerned that the FCC will grant a permanent waver to these companies, make sure to contact the FCC and your representatives in congress.

There is more descriptive video programming on television then ever before, but accessing that content is still a challenge for the blind. With the new rules that the FCC has adopted today, the challenges may soon become a thing of the past. Comcast has already announced a move to make a talking program guide and to enable a single button on the remote to turn on descriptive video or closed captioning. Now all other cable and satellite providers as well as makers of external devices such as the Roku Box will have to do the same. The official ruling of the FCC is pasted below.

October 15 is National White Cane Safety Day. There will be events around the country celebrating the use of the white cane. If you're participating in a White Cane Safety Day event, share your experiences in the comments section.

Along with White Cane Safety Day, President Obama has also declared the day as Blind Americans Equality Day. The presidential proclamation is posted below.

A designer and an Ophthalmologist have teamed up to create a new way for children to learn braille. Fittle puzzles allow blind children to practice their braille while giving them a better understanding for what the word means. An example would be a puzzle in the shape of a fish with the braille letters that spell fish. The goal of the company is to use 3-D printers to make the puzzles so that they can be made cheaply and with different materials. The Fittle website will post the designs for the puzzles so that anyone with a 3-D printer can print them out. In order to make this goal a reality they need funding. The company has set up an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds. Check the link on this post to learn more and support.experience braille.

If you're looking for a compact braille display that will work with a variety of devices, then the BraillePen 12 Touch may be a good option. The newest version of Harpo's 12-cell BraillePen has two new features. It now has Optical Routing keys which differ from other braille displays because they are not mechanical buttons, the idea being there are less parts that can go back. The other new feature is the Clipboard. You can now write with the BraillePen without being connected to a device. Once you connect to a device, you can then copy what you've written to the device. The BrailePen Touch is selling for $1,095 until the end of 2013, at which point the price will go up to $1,195. By comparison, the original BraillePen 12 sells for $995.

The United States Congress has until the end of September 30 to pass a budget or the government will go into a partial shut down. The shut down will effect a number of agencies, including access to their websites. The National Library Service will close their doors on October 1 if the budget does not pass, according to an official. Users of the NLS Braille and Talking Book program will likely be effected and will need to make book requests or download books from the BARD website prior to the shutdown. This nearly happened during a similar situation in 2011 though this shutdown was avoided at the last moment.
If Congress doesn't come to an agreement, access to NLS books will likely be restricted starting on Tuesday, and services will not return until congress passes a budget. While no official statement has been made from BARD administrators specifically, we anticipate loss of download functionality for the BARD mobile app as well. Books that have already been downloaded should still play. Government aid programs including Social Security and Food Stamps will not be effected as they are considered essential services. New applications for benefits would not be processed however.

Before 2012, there was no television coverage of the Paralympics. Then, in 2012, NBC showed 5.5 hours. Now, they've just announced that the 2014 Winter Paralympics and 2016 Summer Paralympics will have over 100 hours of television coverage. The US olympic Committee will also be airing live coverage on their website, TeamUSA.ORG . This perhaps could mean much greater exposure for sports such as goalball which are largely unknown by the mainstream.

Imagine if you could use your voice to request a 3-D printed object. Thanks to Yahoo! Japan, students at a school for the blind are able to do just that. The 3-D printer accepts voice commands. Students can ask for anything they want and the system then searches the database of 3-D printer plans and then prints out the object. If the object requested is not available, Yahoo Japan puts out a request for help in designing the desired object. Perhaps someday, all classrooms will have this technology.