New Linux PDA For Blind People

[Jane Jordan (gmail)]

While I mostly agree with that assesment ...

How do you deal with the folks who for whatever reason can't use  
their hands?  Screens won't make a difrerence there.  How do you  
mandate *that* kind of accessibility?  I mean, if you're oging to  
mandate it for one group ...


Jane


On Mar 30, 2006, at 8:23 PM, Glenn at home wrote:

> Ten years ago, I'd said that the government should not mandate  
> accessibility
> into software, but now, it would be so cheap, when the price was  
> spread out
> over the cost of the product to the general public, that I now  
> believe that
> it should be law, that a device needs to be usable with and without a
> screen.
> I mean, it may have a screen, but it should be just as easily  
> usable if the
> screen was covered.
> I'm guessing it might cost a dollar or 2 over the cost of any  
> particular
> product using software, if it was mandated.
> Glenn
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lorenzo Taylor" <lorenzo at taylor.homelinux.net>
> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux."  
> <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 2:14 PM
> Subject: Re: New Linux PDA For Blind People
>
>
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> 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!
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