Internet Archive for Digitized Books

"Brewster Kahle, a digital librarian and founder of a virtual library called the Internet Archive, has launched a worldwide campaign to double the number of books available for print-disabled people."

Digitizing books into the DAISY format for access. 

I'm not sure how this archive differs from NLS, RFB&D, BookShare and Project Gutenberg.  Future article hopefully will explore the differences

Premier AT Software - Talking Pointer Problem

A very useful tool in the Universal Reader program from Premier AT Software is Talking Pointer. TP is a simple tool which allows the cursor to read aloud the text it's hovering over.

Talking Pointer has issues with browsers other than Internet Explorer.  It definitely will not work with the Chrome Browser and has intermittent issues with FireFox.  According to Premier the problem is with how the browsers define the accessibility layer for access.

Grace iPhone App

An iPhone application designed to facilitate communication for autistic children.

Priced at $37.99

Article link at:

http://www.psfk.com/2010/04/grace-iphone-app-gives-autism-a-voice.html

GPS Device for the Blind

Tactile GPS Device developed as a concept.  Will also accept voice commands

Article here:  http://www.psfk.com/2010/04/a-gps-device-for-the-blind.html

New AAC Device

Speaks4Me, a "drag and drop" communication device Developed by a father for his austic son.

Demo'd at Naidex 2010, the annual disability exhibition in Birmingham, UK.

Priced at $3000.  Windows based and easy to learn.

Article here  http://www.psfk.com/2010/04/dad-develops-technology-to-help-his-autistic-son-communicate.html

A Foot Controlled Mouse

Concept mouse designed like a flip flop.  Wireless, uses the big toe for right clicks and the second toe for left clicks  Yanko Design - Liu Yi

YouTube Auto Captioning

YouTube adds auto captioning  to uploaded videos as a new service.
  
Captioning has been available for YouTube for a long time, but required the uploader to do a manual transcripton and manual time coding.

In November of ‘09, YouTube announced an auto captioning feature using the Google Speech Recognition engine.  It was restricted to a few “beta” testers.  The auto captioning feature is now available for all YouTube uploads.

To activate closed captioning, look in the bottom right hand corner of the video screen.  Clicking on the up arrow will show three buttons.  The middle button is labeled CC .  Clicking this will turn on closed captioning if it is available.

Disablity and Employment

13 percent of the adult population has some type of disability according to the ACS survey. One out of three people with a disability are employed (37 percent).

As with any other population, more education equals more employment. With a four year degree the percentage of the disabled employed is 54 percent.

Source: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/edi/DisabilityStatistics/acs.cfm

Lifelong learning Works.

Brian McKeever

The Canadian Cross Country team decided at the last minute not to use Brian Mckeever, who is legally blind. in the 50KM Cross Country event at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Brian tweeted: “Olympic dream over. Don’t think I’ve ever been so sad.”

Canada's push to "Own The Podium" seemed to override the PR of having an Paralympian compete in the regular Olympics as well.

Brian will be competing in the Paralympics which starts March 12, 2010.

The team by the way finished 5th, 18th, 32nd and 33rd.

New AAC Device

Found this device in the exhibit hall at the LDA National Conference in Baltimore. It's simple to work with, easy to use and durable. And it has a reasonable price.

Glen, the president of the company, said his son had chunked the device for the car at least once and it still worked.

http://proxtalker.com/