access in the news in October

There must have been something in the water during October because there seem to have been a glut of announcements of supposedly ground breaking collaborations and inventions which push forward access to technology for Blind people. and in the main they are adaptive solutions which improve access to more mainstream technologies or services, rather than the alternative bespoke device or software type offerings we tend to expect.

Take a look at the following

Big four unite for greater good collaboration on open standards for subtitling of video content.

 

Talking Braille: A new tool to teach blind children possibly the item here with most potential.

 

Researchers Develop Adaptive Technology for Visually Impaired Engineers

 

and finally:

Employee Helps Cisco Meet Accessibility Standards which begs the question, Why are there so many features of my office phone I can’t use, such as the directory, and incoming caller identification?

new screenless mp3 player

I’m very excited to read about the imminent arrival of this new screenless, thus blind friendly (accessible) 1gb mp3 player the Creative ZEN Stone. it’s Audible compatible and get this!!! will sell for less than half the price of the equivalent Ipod shuffle, £27.99. Better still you can apparently move files to it in Windows Explorer as if it were any USB pen drive. no need for any horrid inaccessible proprietory software like Itunes. I'm front of the queue. Or at least, when I find a UK retailer who is taking pre orders or a release date I will be.

Update, Amazon have them and seem to be cheapest as it qualifies for free delivery. 6 colours available although for some reason the Red seems to be £2 more expensive and take longer to deliver at 2 to 4 weeks, the white, black, pink, lime, and blue taking 1 to 2 weeks. I've seen them a bit cheaper on a few sites but all then charge around £5 for delivery making them more expensive. Brian Hartgen has more details including free jaws scripts for the accompanying software and details on how to use with Audible books.