Computers For The Blind
Published by: Codrut Nistor, in News
July21st2008
The fact that blind people can use computers is nothing new, but when you say "computers for the blind," it usually gets down to expensive screen-reader software, and so these people are somehow "tied up" to their home computers, since public PCs in hotels, libraries or Internet cafes don't have this kind of software installed. Well, that was true until a few days ago, when a free Web-based application for the blind was released, with the goal of making this world a better place for them. That's simply great, if you ask me, so let's find out more about it, shall we?
Developed by a computer science graduate student at the University of Washington, Jeffrey Bigham, WebAnywhere "requires no special software to be installed on the client machine and, therefore, enables blind people to access the web from any computer they happen to have access to that has a sound card."
The best part is that, according to its creator, this application is able to run on "on any machine, even heavily locked-down public terminals, regardless of what operating system it is running and regardless of what browsers are installed."<-125x125 Button - right->
In the end, this program may be only the beginning, but I found it extremely handy that, with its help, virtually all computers connected to the Internet can be turned into computers for the blind, and since WebAnywhere is open source, everything looks great, don't you think?
For now, there are still some keystrokes required to move around Web pages, but Jeffrey Bigham made a big step for the blind with his application. All I can hope is that others will step in and give him a hand, since professor Richard Ladner, his faculty adviser, is hoping for a commercial search engine to use WebAnywhere as a module.
All in all, we may move from computers for the blind to "webpages for the blind," and I must repeat this is simply great, making information easier for everyone to find. After all, computers can do so much, but interaction with those with visual impairments is still far from being perfect just yet.
Developed by a computer science graduate student at the University of Washington, Jeffrey Bigham, WebAnywhere "requires no special software to be installed on the client machine and, therefore, enables blind people to access the web from any computer they happen to have access to that has a sound card."
The best part is that, according to its creator, this application is able to run on "on any machine, even heavily locked-down public terminals, regardless of what operating system it is running and regardless of what browsers are installed."<-125x125 Button - right->
In the end, this program may be only the beginning, but I found it extremely handy that, with its help, virtually all computers connected to the Internet can be turned into computers for the blind, and since WebAnywhere is open source, everything looks great, don't you think?
For now, there are still some keystrokes required to move around Web pages, but Jeffrey Bigham made a big step for the blind with his application. All I can hope is that others will step in and give him a hand, since professor Richard Ladner, his faculty adviser, is hoping for a commercial search engine to use WebAnywhere as a module.
All in all, we may move from computers for the blind to "webpages for the blind," and I must repeat this is simply great, making information easier for everyone to find. After all, computers can do so much, but interaction with those with visual impairments is still far from being perfect just yet.










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