Google’s iPhone app brings most of Google’s many applications under one roof. It refers most features to that application’s mobile web site. Google Talk is one of these applications. Since my wife and I are one of those couples that instant message each from one room to the other, I wanted to test this...
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All Access Blogging has some great Tips for Your Blog. All Access Blogging focuses on making the blogosphere accessible, a goal close to my heart as well. Tips include: Fix Your Feed Icon What’s In Your Blog’s Title Bar? Text and Background Colors On Your Blog Can Help or Hurt Your Readers Blog Quizzes: Make Them Work For...
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To keep track of all the blogs I like to follow, I use Google Reader. It has a nice clean interface and works in any browser from anywhere. So, I naturally wanted to check this out for the iPhone. Like most of Google’s online applications, access to Google Reader is through its mobile web...
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Apple has worked hard to make progress towards giving blind people access to the iPod system. The big move for Apple is the 4th generation iPod nano, which offers spoken menus and large font with high contrast screen and backlight. Unfortunately for me, this came out just before my last iPod upgrade. Apple paired this...
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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...
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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...
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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, and...
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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 with...
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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, 2009...
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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 you...
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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 use...
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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...
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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 you...
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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...
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It has been a while since I have posted about my campaign for more unabridged audiobooks. I have not abandoned my quest, but I have not made much progress either. I did hear back this week from one of my favorite new fantasy authors, Joe Abercrombie, about the bogged down negotiations for the audio...
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