Touch Sight - Digital Camera for the Visually Impaired

Touch Sight is a digital camera for visually impaired people. Easy to use, it includes a unique feature which records sound for three seconds after pressing the shutter button. The user can then use the sound as reference when reviewing and managing the photos. Touch Sight does not have an LCD but instead has a lightweight, flexible Braille display sheet which displays a 3D image by embossing the surface, allowing the user to touch the image. The sound file and picture document combine to become a touchable photo that is saved in the device and can be uploaded to share with others--and downloaded to other Touch Sight cameras.

Source : Businessweek

Lighthouse International Develops Free, Innovative Web Browser Software For People Who Are Visually Impaired

Lighthouse International, a leader in advocating accessibility for people with low vision, is announcing an innovative new add-on software tool that will enable millions of people worldwide with low vision to access previously inaccessible web pages. While existing programs enable blind people to access the web effectively, LowBrowse™ is the first program to enable people with moderate or severe low vision to both view web pages as the original web author intended and read the text on those pages tailored to their own visual needs. The highly anticipated program, which runs in conjunction with the Mozilla Firefox browser, will be offered at no charge and is expected to be available to the public for download via the Firefox add-on site in late summer or early fall of 2008.

LowBrowse™ is part of a larger research project on low vision user interface design headed by Aries Arditi PhD, Senior Fellow in Vision Science at Lighthouse International, under a grant from the National Eye Institute. "This technology enables all the text on a website to be presented in the same readable format - size, color, font and spacing - regardless of which page is being viewed and without having to navigate to the next line," said Arditi, a vision scientist and an expert in web accessibility. Dr. Arditi, who is the current president of the International Society of Low-Vision Research and Rehabilitation, has written more than 80 scientific publications about vision and is the author of Lighthouse International's popular Color Contrast and Making Text Legible publications (available at www.lighthouse.org).

Arditi vision and an added, "LowBrowse™ emphasizes efficiency and accessibility for the unique needs of people with vision loss. This system further democratizes the Internet and empowers millions of people with low vision."

LowBrowse™ is important and useful for many reasons:

• Users spend a few moments configuring their preferences (using a very simple procedure) for font, text size, color contrast and letter spacing. Once the configuration is set, no further adjustments will be needed on any web pages - including pages with photos and graphics.
• LowBrowse™ makes searching and skimming web pages for specific information much easier than other accessible software.
• Semantic text features such as "link" color, italics and boldface are preserved in the special reading frame.
• Users can easily enlarge images simply by holding down a button and wiggling the mouse.
• Users with severe low vision can use LowBrowse's™ speech capability.
• Users can simultaneously view the web page as the web author intended it to be viewed and access the text (in a separate reading frame), enabling visually-impaired users to appreciate the very same view of the page that able-sighted users see.

The program performs these functions in a consistent manner for all pages on all websites. The program is very user-friendly, with few commands, making it perfect for computer novices as well as tech-savvy users.

The program is portable and can be installed in seconds on a flash drive and downloaded from anywhere. The program will eventually be available in multiple languages.

According to Tara A. Cortes, PhD, RN, President and CEO of Lighthouse International, "As a leader in the field of low vision and as strong advocates for accessible technology, we are very pleased to offer this innovative technology at no charge. Furthermore, as baby boomers age, diseases such as diabetes and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) will affect millions, resulting in vision loss. This new technology will become increasingly relevant." Diabetes affects some 24 million Americans, while macular degeneration affects some nine million. According to a national survey by Lighthouse International, 16.5 million people (or one in six) age 45+ self-report some form of vision impairment even when wearing glasses or contacts. By 2010, this figure will grow to 20 million.

Using open source technology, this browser add-on will be free to users through the Firefox Add-on site. It works with Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Lighthouse international

IBM Makes Web Accessibility For Visually Impaired Users a Social Effort

IBM has launched a new initiative that it hopes will vastly improve the web browsing experience for visually impaired users. The Social Accessibility Project is a service that aims to make web pages more accessible for screen readers without altering the code of the page, the software for which is available in beta form today through IBMs AlphaWorks. If enough people participate in the project, then IBMs software could become integral to blind users' everyday surfing. Typically, blind or visually impaired users who want to use the web need to use screen readers that run through each element of a page and read their descriptive elements aloud. Not every part of a web page is available in text form, however even simple things like menu items, buttons, other form elements, tables, and images can throw a screen reader for a loop. It's the developer's responsibility to ensure that the HTML of the page is as accessible as possible, usually by adding extra metadata to each element (like alt tags attached to images).

Unfortunately for most blind users, a majority of web developers in the world aren't quite so detail-oriented and leave out those elements either out of convenience or ignorance of their importance, which makes it even more difficult to get these things added later. The Social Accessibility Project hopes to circumvent the entire problem of dealing with developers by allowing users with screen readers to automatically report problems with various web pages back to IBM. Volunteers can then sort through IBM's database of accessibility issues and create their own metadata for each element. When users with screen readers return to that site, or go to other sites visited by project participants, they will simply load the latest information from the database and be able to navigate the web with greater ease.

For now, IBM's software is available for JAWS screen readers using Internet Explorer, and a Firefox plug-in (in English and Japanese) is available for volunteers adding data to the project. Eventually, researchers hope to expand the initiative to include those with other types of disabilities, like users who are deaf or have other motor problems. If you're interested in signing up as a volunteer to help add data to the project, IBM has a FAQ page that answers questions on what you need to do.

Visit IBM Sicial Accessibility Website

HumanWare introduces four new portable video magnifiers for low vision

HumanWare expands its low vision product line with the announcement of four new video magnifiers at Vision 2008, an international conference on low vision being held in Montreal this week. With these new products, HumanWare is better able to serve the needs of the growing number of people with low vision, those whose vision cannot be completely corrected even with the most powerful prescription glasses. HumanWare's new video magnifiers are designed to meet the needs of different environments and applications. Each product offers unique features to improve the user's independence.

The new products include:

• SmartView Pocket.
  an extremely lightweight handheld video magnifier that can be used in the home or around town, wherever things are too small to see. Large, intuitive buttons make the unit easy to use. The Pocket provides up to 9x magnification on its 3.6-inch LCD screen.
• SmartView Graduate.
  Ideally suited for helping low vision students fully participate in class by being able to see across the room and magnify items on their desk. The Graduate connects to a notebook computer via a USB interface to provide up to 50x magnification on the computer screen. The camera turns to view the desktop or distant objects. The unit easily fits into a computer bag and weighs only 2.5 pounds, which makes it extremely easy to carry between classes.
• SmartView Nano.
  The smallest video magnifier available at a very affordable price. The Nano magnifies objects from 5x to 20x, making it easy to read fine print on pill bottles, ingredients on product labels, or seat numbers on theater tickets.M/li>
• SmartView Mobile.
  A portable video magnifier with a 7-inch screen, providing up to 18x magnification. The Mobile is ideal for those who need a portable device but cannot compromise on magnification and screen size. Perfect for taking to the library, carrying around home or using at the office.

"With these new products, HumanWare has significantly increased its offering of portable devices," explains Ted Judge, Product Manager. "Users want to be able to read regular or small print wherever they are, and these new additions to the SmartView family help people see and read, whether at home, the store, the office, or out on the town."

The SmartView Graduate and Smartview Pocket video magnifiers are available now, and the SmartView Nano will be available at the end of July.

The SmartView Mobile will be available in Europe and Asia in August.

Complete info and photos are available at Humanware website