Month: February 2008

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This year, though, ATIA and the related conferences going on beside it provided some of the most interesting and highly desirable announcements we’ve heard in the AT biz for quite some time.  So, in no particular order:

 

A new non-profit called The Air (for Accessibility Is a Right), announced it would be distributing the web based version of Serotek’s System Access product without charge to users anywhere around the world.  This marks the first time a credible screen reader of any sort became available without charge to anyone with an Internet connection.  Millions of blind English speakers in India, for instance, can go to their local Internet café and, by typing www.satogo.com into the run dialogue, they will have full access to the Internet as well as popular programs like the MS Office suite on their local computer.

 

While the announcement about Code Factory and AT&T has been public for a while, Jim Fruchterman, founder of bookshare.org, discussed how now, with the CF Daisy Reader, a person with a vision impairment can use a phone with a $89 screen reader to reader the more than 35,000 (and growing) books in the bookshare.org library.  There are no cost Daisy readers for desktops and laptops but CF puts one in your handset for less than $100.

 

My praise for Humanware, a company I spent little time learning about in the past continues to grow rapidly.  My Vic died a miserable death while I was in Orlando.  I called the HW technical support, explained my situation and within less than 12 hours, I had a replacement unit in hand and they had my broken one which they will repair and send back to my house at no charge.

 

Finally, GW Micro announced the long desired scripting language for Window-Eyes.  Its strongest feature is that it can use any COM based language so programmers who want to extend Window-Eyes can do so with far greater power and flexibility than any other screen reader out there today.  This is massively cool and I hope Serotek does something similar soon so extensibility will have credible competition again. 

 

Lots of smaller events and announcements happened at ATIA and I recommend following up on the blog world and chat lists about some of the other things that have been announced.

 

— End

 

A number of years ago, a colleague of mine introduced me to the SETI at Home project.  SETI, for those less geeky than me, stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence and, if I remember correctly, the project lives at HarvardUniversity.  SETI software listens for patterns in the background noise of the universe in order to hopefully find something not random and, therefore, a sign of an intelligent source.

 

SETI’s greatest actual contribution to the world of science has nothing to do with ET trying to come home but, rather, came in the form of a distributed computing project called SETI at Home.  This project gave users interested in the project a screen  saver to download and chunks of data for it to crunch upon.  The more people who installed the software, the greater the overall power of what had turned into the largest massively parallel super computing system would become.

 

I loved the idea of people installing software at home or work that would use idle time to process compute intensive projects.  I did not, however, think that using all of this power to listen to noise in order to find a pattern.  Shouldn’t such a massively powerful system work on cancer, AIDS or DNA research rather than trying to find a radio signal that may have emanated from some planet of near incomprehensible distance at a nearly incomprehensibly long time ago.  By the time researchers could respond to the signal they heard, the solar system from which the signal came may have collapsed or any other catastrophe that might occur in a few million years may have caused said intelligent life to go extinct.  True, simply learning that some other intelligent species may have existed in the past or may still live today would be of tremendous interest but little value to our species.

 

A year or so ago, my buddy Sina introduced me to another project like SETI at Home but worked on protein folding and can be found at the Folding at Home web site.  This project, based at StanfordUniversity works on very complex problems with potential outcomes that can cure many different diseases and do a lot to improve the health and quality of life of actual humans. 

 

There are a number of other “at home” projects that work on problems I think are important but I chose folding at home and I stick with it.  Today, I am proud to announce that I have broken into the top 8% of individual contributors on the project which has nearly 1 million members.  I don’t know if anything my various computers contributed has done anything to move someone’s research forward but, in this case, negative results are as valuable as positives as they can help eliminate trials shown to have little or no value.

 

As a lot of these “at home” programs work in the background, I suggest you find something cool and useful and sign up.  You will not notice any sluggishness if you are running a reasonably current computer and joining a massive computer to solve health and other problems and your idle time will add value to something quite worthwhile.

 

I accept that trying to find ET is a bit more glamorous than finding a folded protein of value but your probability of making a significant contribution to the world is much higher with the projects working on “real” science.

 

Afterward

 

I have an original Braille Blazer from the old Blazie days.  It is loud and slow but it is working perfectly.  If anyone wants it, I will accept any offer over $150 (plus shipping) and will contribute the entire sum (except shipping) to either Southeastern Guide Dogs or to bookshare.org, whichever the buyer prefers.

 

A few weeks back, I wrote an article called, “Three New Products,” in which I mention that I had started calling my Victor Reader Stream simply “Vic” in honor of my Uncle Victor Bastek who had fought in both the second world war and in the Korean conflict.  A person named Mark Bastek posted a comment to the blog wondering if we might be related and, indeed, we are.  Unfortunately, Mark Bastek did not include a personal email address to which my sister, who is really into the family history, and/or I could respond.  We’re hoping this shout out results in Mark finding me again but using the information under the “Contact Me” link instead of posting a comment to which I have no way to reply.  We would really like to get in touch with Mark as our mother grew up with his father in Jersey City and, somewhere in my very distant memory, I recall meeting him too.

 

Finally, I’m starting to get involved heavily in the accessible instructional information side of the world of technology used by people with vision impairment.  Any pointers or tips to GPL (or similar) Daisy readers would be greatly appreciated.

 

— End

 

 

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I’ve received a number of emails over the past few weeks asking why this blog went silent for roughly six weeks.  One problem seems to have resulted from my incorrectly setting up the blog posting feature in Word 2007 (a program I still fight with quite a lot).  Other reasons vary from the high level of work I’ve been doing on various projects for a handful of clients, a fairly steady feeling of apathy toward most AT products (screen readers more so than the others) and that I’ve been enjoying pleasure reading with my Vic.

 

Also, my creative writing has focused mostly on the novel I’m doing with a friend up in Boston on which we have bursts of terrific productivity followed by slumps where we can’t stand to think let alone write about the old days – even in a purely fictional form. 

 

BC fans should not despair, I do plan on continuing the blog but I may start writing more about books I read on the Vic rather than the device itself.  Gonz, Samhara, Boris, BC and the gang will make regular appearances in their weird alter-world of my mind.  I also hope that Dena writes an article now and then but she’s pretty busy these days.

 

I would like to publicly thank the Humanware technical support and sales team for helping me out at ATIA.  My Vic, for no reason we could figure out, fried.  In less than 24 hours, the HW team had a demo model in my hands and my unit was back on its way to wherever they repair the devices.  Such efficiency and complete focus on customer service impressed me to no end.

 

I had planned on writing an article called “SAToGo: The Best Screen Reader Money Can’t Buy” but my high level of apathy toward screen readers in general lowered my motivation to write about this very important development in the market for such products.  The AIR Foundation will provide SAToGo at no cost to anyone who wants to download it.  SA is a very good screen reader and, for people who speak English, this is the single most interesting development since Serotek released SAToGo in the first place.

 

While I’m pretty bored with screen readers and most AT products in general, I enjoy the new level of content available for me to download onto my PC and/or Vic.  The other day, I browsed through the list of DVS movies on the Mobile Network formerly known as Freedom Box and found a ton of things I want to hear.  I think Serotek offers something like a 30 day demo and, if you haven’t taken a peek yet, I recommend you do as you will likely find lots of stuff you enjoy up there.

 

The NLS digital book download site gets better every day as lots of titles enter the catalogue daily.  These books, performed by professional readers, cover a very wide range of topics and serve a wide variety of different reasons one might want a particular book.

 

I also really like virtually everything about Bookshare.org.  These books come in a text only version of Daisy and sound great on the Vic with that new synthesizer they use from Nuance.  The Bookshare catalogue contains books one may enjoy for pleasure reading as well as scholarly texts one may need for a scholarly pursuit or just because they enjoy digging further into things intellectual and academic.

 

I’ve also been doing quite a bit of programming lately.  Everything I’m working on carries some form of GPL and I hope to remain on the open source/free software side of programs developed for people with vision impairment into the long term future.  I think the AIR Foundation giving away SAToGo at no cost is a good first step but we users still need to wait for Serotek to add support for programs we may need that may not be on their roadmap.  I applaud the SAToGo initiative loudly but wish I had the source so I could do a few things in programs that don’t make any commercial vendor’s top ten list.

 

Finally, I’m not just apathetic about much commercial AT but I’m also a bit burned out on it.  I try to listen to new feature lists and press releases but find myself dozing off half way through.  I use screen readers because one in my position pretty well has no choice about such; I’m, however, trying to make them much less of a hobby and spend a lot less time thinking and writing about them.

 

n  End

 

[I wrote this a week ago but, for no reason I can think of, didn’t post it until now.]

 

 

A number of years ago, a colleague of mine introduced me to the SETI at Home project.  SETI, for those less geeky than me, stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence and, if I remember correctly, the project lives at HarvardUniversity.  SETI software listens for patterns in the background noise of the universe in order to hopefully find something not random and, therefore, a sign of an intelligent source.

 

SETI’s greatest actual contribution to the world of science has nothing to do with ET trying to come home but, rather, came in the form of a distributed computing project called SETI at Home.  This project gave users interested in the project a screen reader to download and chunks of data for it to crunch upon.  The more people who installed the software, the greater the overall power of what had turned into the largest massively parallel super computing system would become.

 

I loved the idea of people installing software at home or work that would use idle time to process compute intensive projects.  I did not, however, think that using all of this power to listen to noise in order to find a pattern.  Shouldn’t such a massively powerful system work on cancer, AIDS or DNA research rather than trying to find a radio signal that may have emanated from some planet of near incomprehensible distance at a nearly incomprehensibly long time ago.  By the time researchers could respond to the signal they heard, the solar system from which the signal came may have collapsed or any other catastrophe that might occur in a few million years may have caused said intelligent life to go extinct.  True, simply learning that some other intelligent species may have existed in the past or may still live today would be of tremendous interest but little value to our species.

 

A year or so ago, my buddy Sina introduced me to another project like SETI at Home but worked on protein folding and can be found at the Folding at Home web site.  This project, based at StanfordUniversity works on very complex problems with potential outcomes that can cure many different diseases and do a lot to improve the health and quality of life of actual humans. 

 

There are a number of other “at home” projects that work on problems I think are important but I chose folding at home and I stick with it.  Today, I am proud to announce that I have broken into the top 8% of individual contributors on the project which has nearly 1 million members.  I don’t know if anything my various computers contributed has done anything to move someone’s research forward but, in this case, negative results are as valuable as positives as they can help eliminate trials shown to have little or no value.

 

As a lot of these “at home” programs work in the background, I suggest you find something cool and useful and sign up.  You will not notice any sluggishness if you are running a reasonably current computer and joining a massive computer to solve health and other problems and your idle time will add value to something quite worthwhile.

 

I accept that trying to find ET is a bit more glamorous than finding a folded protein of value but your probability of making a significant contribution to the world is much higher with the projects working on “real” science.

 

Afterward

 

I have an original Braille Blazer from the old Blazie days.  It is loud and slow but it is working perfectly.  If anyone wants it, I will accept any offer over $150 (plus shipping) and will contribute the entire sum (except shipping) to either Southeastern Guide Dogs or to bookshare.org, whichever the buyer prefers.

 

A few weeks back, I wrote an article called, “Three New Products,” in which I mention that I had started calling my Victor Reader Stream simply “Vic” in honor of my Uncle Victor Bastek who had fought in both the second world war and in the Korean conflict.  A person named Mark Bastek posted a comment to the blog wondering if we might be related and, indeed, we are.  Unfortunately, Mark Bastek did not include a personal email address to which my sister, who is really into the family history, and/or I could respond.  We’re hoping this shout out results in Mark finding me again but using the information under the “Contact Me” link instead of posting a comment to which I have no way to reply.  We would really like to get in touch with Mark as our mother grew up with his father in Jersey City and, somewhere in my very distant memory, I recall meeting him too.

 

Finally, I’m starting to get involved heavily in the accessible instructional information side of the world of technology used by people with vision impairment.  Any pointers or tips to GPL (or similar) Daisy readers would be greatly appreciated.

 

— End

 

 

A number of years ago, a colleague of mine introduced me to the SETI at Home project.  SETI, for those less geeky than me, stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence and, if I remember correctly, the project lives at HarvardUniversity.  SETI software listens for patterns in the background noise of the universe in order to hopefully find something not random and, therefore, a sign of an intelligent source.

 

SETI’s greatest actual contribution to the world of science has nothing to do with ET trying to come home but, rather, came in the form of a distributed computing project called SETI at Home.  This project gave users interested in the project a screen reader to download and chunks of data for it to crunch upon.  The more people who installed the software, the greater the overall power of what had turned into the largest massively parallel super computing system would become.

 

I loved the idea of people installing software at home or work that would use idle time to process compute intensive projects.  I did not, however, think that using all of this power to listen to noise in order to find a pattern.  Shouldn’t such a massively powerful system work on cancer, AIDS or DNA research rather than trying to find a radio signal that may have emanated from some planet of near incomprehensible distance at a nearly incomprehensibly long time ago.  By the time researchers could respond to the signal they heard, the solar system from which the signal came may have collapsed or any other catastrophe that might occur in a few million years may have caused said intelligent life to go extinct.  True, simply learning that some other intelligent species may have existed in the past or may still live today would be of tremendous interest but little value to our species.

 

A year or so ago, my buddy Sina introduced me to another project like SETI at Home but worked on protein folding and can be found at the Folding at Home web site.  This project, based at StanfordUniversity works on very complex problems with potential outcomes that can cure many different diseases and do a lot to improve the health and quality of life of actual humans. 

 

There are a number of other “at home” projects that work on problems I think are important but I chose folding at home and I stick with it.  Today, I am proud to announce that I have broken into the top 8% of individual contributors on the project which has nearly 1 million members.  I don’t know if anything my various computers contributed has done anything to move someone’s research forward but, in this case, negative results are as valuable as positives as they can help eliminate trials shown to have little or no value.

 

As a lot of these “at home” programs work in the background, I suggest you find something cool and useful and sign up.  You will not notice any sluggishness if you are running a reasonably current computer and joining a massive computer to solve health and other problems and your idle time will add value to something quite worthwhile.

 

I accept that trying to find ET is a bit more glamorous than finding a folded protein of value but your probability of making a significant contribution to the world is much higher with the projects working on “real” science.

 

Afterward

 

I have an original Braille Blazer from the old Blazie days.  It is loud and slow but it is working perfectly.  If anyone wants it, I will accept any offer over $150 (plus shipping) and will contribute the entire sum (except shipping) to either Southeastern Guide Dogs or to bookshare.org, whichever the buyer prefers.

 

A few weeks back, I wrote an article called, “Three New Products,” in which I mention that I had started calling my Victor Reader Stream simply “Vic” in honor of my Uncle Victor Bastek who had fought in both the second world war and in the Korean conflict.  A person named Mark Bastek posted a comment to the blog wondering if we might be related and, indeed, we are.  Unfortunately, Mark Bastek did not include a personal email address to which my sister, who is really into the family history, and/or I could respond.  We’re hoping this shout out results in Mark finding me again but using the information under the “Contact Me” link instead of posting a comment to which I have no way to reply.  We would really like to get in touch with Mark as our mother grew up with his father in Jersey City and, somewhere in my very distant memory, I recall meeting him too.

 

Finally, I’m starting to get involved heavily in the accessible instructional information side of the world of technology used by people with vision impairment.  Any pointers or tips to GPL (or similar) Daisy readers would be greatly appreciated.

 

— End

 

 

For the past few years, I’ve attended the ATIA conference over in Orlando.  For quite a number of years, describing the event as boring (excepting some parties and drunken behavior by otherwise stoic sorts) was perhaps overstating the level of interest one could find at the conference.

 

This year, though, ATIA and the related conferences going on beside it provided some of the most interesting and highly desirable announcements we’ve heard in the AT biz for quite some time.  So, in no particular order:

 

A new non-profit called The Air (for Accessibility Is a Right), announced it would be distributing the web based version of Serotek’s System Access product without charge to users anywhere around the world.  This marks the first time a credible screen reader of any sort became available without charge to anyone with an Internet connection.  Millions of blind English speakers in India, for instance, can go to their local Internet café and, by typing www.satogo.com into the run dialogue, they will have full access to the Internet as well as popular programs like the MS Office suite on their local computer.

 

While the announcement about Code Factory and AT&T has been public for a while, Jim Fruchterman, founder of bookshare.org, discussed how now, with the CF Daisy Reader, a person with a vision impairment can use a phone with a $89 screen reader to reader the more than 35,000 (and growing) books in the bookshare.org library.  There are no cost Daisy readers for desktops and laptops but CF puts one in your handset for less than $100.

 

My praise for Humanware, a company I spent little time learning about in the past continues to grow rapidly.  My Vic died a miserable death while I was in Orlando.  I called the HW technical support, explained my situation and within less than 12 hours, I had a replacement unit in hand and they had my broken one which they will repair and send back to my house at no charge.

 

Finally, GW Micro announced the long desired scripting language for Window-Eyes.  Its strongest feature is that it can use any COM based language so programmers who want to extend Window-Eyes can do so with far greater power and flexibility than any other screen reader out there today.  This is massively cool and I hope Serotek does something similar soon so extensibility will have credible competition again. 

 

Lots of smaller events and announcements happened at ATIA and I recommend following up on the blog world and chat lists about some of the other things that have been announced.

 

— End