New Linux PDA For Blind People

[Glenn at home]

Anyone, Blind or sighted on the RockBox list, the open source firmware that 
talks, will agree that the aspect of RockBox that makes it accessible to us, 
is greatly enjoyed by the sighted as well, especially while driving.
http://www.rockbox.org/
Glenn

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Howell" <s.howell at verizon.net>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 7:44 PM
Subject: Re: New Linux PDA For Blind People


I only have one question to your statement, why. Wher eis the answer
to the question a vendor will ask. Why should we spend the money on
research and development for such a small group as compared to the
whole. Hey I am not disagreeing with you, but trying to again point
out the very question the manufacturer/vendor will ask. Just because
its the right thing isn't going to be an answer to the shareholders
and those with a financial interest and only are interested in
profits. Isn't that what its all about? Features in any product are a
result of what the masses want, but you can bet that a lot of time
and money went into choosing those features before the product ever
ended up in production. What would be interesting is if a company
would do a survey of sorts or somehow determine if the sighted masses
would enjoy having their e-mail read to them or whatever and see what
kind of feedback they would receive. I think if there was a real
interest, then you can bet products would be made accessable out of
the gate. I think a talking cellphone is a perfect example where
everyone would benefit. Maybe people would spend more time dialing or
selecting a number from the phone book by listening and pay more
attention to watching the road.


Scott



On Mar 30, 2006, at 3:14 PM, Lorenzo Taylor wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> The voice in a blind-friendly mainstream product should be no
> problem for a
> sighted person.  If they don't like it, they don't have to turn it
> on.  It's
> that simple.  The concept I'm going with here is that a blind-
> friendly product
> won't make a company much money.  This is the excuse given by all
> the companies
> out there who are making tons of money off the government agencies
> and blind
> people themselves who can make the sacrifice it takes to buy such a
> product.  So
> why not make the mainstream product blind friendly at no cost to
> the consumer?
> The voice could be turned off by a sighted person if he/she doesn't
> like it, or
> better yet, it could be very easilly turned on by a blind person if
> he/she needs
> it.  Voice synthesis is extremely cheap to implement now, so it
> wouldn't cost
> the manufacturer any additional money to make it work, and it
> wouldn't reduce
> the functionality of the device.
>
> As for the open source mandate in MA, I think it's a good idea.
> It's the
> proprietary nature of screen readers for the unfortunately most
> popular OS that
> makes it difficult to work with for some blind people.  The screen
> readers for
> Windows are based on proprietary technology and for the most part
> only work with
> proprietary technology.  This is changing slightly, but not
> enough.  This is what
> makes blind people think the state of MA is doing a bad thing by
> trying to cut
> costs by switching to a superior open source technology.  Just
> think what the
> state was doing when they forced everyone to use Microsoft formats,
> or Microsoft
> forced the state to use their formats, whichever you like.
>
> Lorenzo
> - --
> Keep American Idol great! Vote for Mandisa!
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (GNU/Linux)
>
> iD8DBQFELDwiG9IpekrhBfIRAurTAJ9Px4P1N9DM9586a6B0V85BIb7yjQCgh+Fr
> dC/+Z2UTJJ7gXnx6334kNUA=
> =dq8D
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup


_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup