Tim

Carl Zeiss’ video headset, the Cinemizer Plus, has received the go-ahead from Apple for release as an iPhone accessory. This could be the most expensive accessible accessory for the iPhone yet (or ever). According to the web site, the Cinemizer Plus’ “image is optically tuned to appear as virtual 45-inch (diagonal) screen, as viewed...
Read More »

The iPhone’s built-in Calendar App is one of the more important features for a smart phone. Unfortunately, this program is very inaccessible. There are four accessibility features I look for in iPhone apps; zoom, landscape mode, adjustable color scheme, and adjustable font sizes. Calendar has none of these. As you can see in the...
Read More »

Today on Slashdot, Why the CAPTCHA Approach Is Doomed. Though CAPTCHA’s alleged doom is due to its technical limitations rather than its accessibility problems, the sooner its demise, the better. TechnoBabble Pro writes “The CAPTCHA idea sounds simple: prevent bots from massively abusing a website (e.g. to get many email or social network accounts,...
Read More »

Spotted on A Photo Editor, The American Craftsmen Project. This personal project shot by Tadd Myers seems pitch perfect for the economy right now. Photographs of people who make things one at a time by hand (visit here). There are some wonderful images here. A Photo Editor is right about how apropos this collection...
Read More »

I was us early Sunday morning to shoot a local duathlon. A duathlon is like a triathlon without the swimming, in case you, like me, did not know. Two images from the shoot made it into today’s paper in Carrboro Classic adds spring to the step. Staged at McDougle Middle School, the Carrboro Classic...
Read More »

A few weeks back in Fighting Fire with Photography, I talked about a shoot I did about a local firefighter training event. Today, the article and two of the photos make it to the paper in the article, ‘We ain’t gonna let you die’. Just call me a daredevil. Well, sort of one. I...
Read More »

Thanks to lodroridgzin, I ran acroos a web-based screen reader, WebAnywhere. WebAnywhere is a non-visual interface to the web that requires no new software to be downloaded or installed. It works right in the browser, which means you can access it from any computer, even locked-down public computer terminals. WebAnywhere enables you to interact...
Read More »

The Reading Rights coalition is organizing a protest today against the restrictions on the new Kindle’s text-to-speech feature. At noon in NYC, you can watch the event online. Please support us by joining our informational picket in front of the Authors Guild’s headquarters at 31 East 32nd Street in downtown Manhattan on April 7,...
Read More »

Following my earlier review of free Twitter apps on the iPhone, Accessing Twitter from the iPhone, a reader suggested I check out his favorite Twitter app, Tweetie. Tweetie is a feature-rich Twitter app that has added a couple of valuable accessibility features in its latest release, making Tweetie worth the $2.99 price tag. If...
Read More »

The first step to making a computer more accessible is to make everything on the screen bigger. This involves tricks like lowering the rsolution, zooming and using large fonts. These adjustments definitely increase readability and overall usability. There is a cost. Screen real estate becomes more valuable. Even larger monitors experience this problem. I...
Read More »

One of the most frustrating apps on the iPhone, from a readability point of view, is the App Store itself. Like it iTunes counterpart, the store uses unnecessarily tiny font.There is no workaround. You can’t zoom. You can’t go landscape. There is no font setting. You can’t even go to the mobile web site...
Read More »

According to Slashdot , there is now a Bionic Eye Telescope To Treat Macular Degeneration. This visual aid actually goes inside the eye. It sounds a bit frightening, actually, but exciting at the same time. External vision aids are bulky, often uncomfortable and easy to lose or break. This one avoids all those issue. If...
Read More »

I finally did it. Sick and tired of the unreliable flash triggers I bought on eBay, unable to fork over the cash for some Pocket Wizards, I went all DIY-strobist on the triggers. I did a shoot tonight for the paper. I got out my flash to try to fill the shadows from the...
Read More »

Here are the outtakes from the real estate assignment that I detailed in Mebane is Calling earlier. It was a rainy day! This portrait is my favorite shot from the day. I wish it had made the paper, but it does not show the subdivision at its best and the paper prefers more candid...
Read More »

Notes from a small field posted a neat idea for iPhone accessibility a couple of years back. He proposes an accessibility mode, where the iPhone (or any touch screen device) engages a very simple interface for the disabled. A while ago, I posted about a similar concept for the desktop computer, but that has...
Read More »