February 02, 2008, 10:12:04 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

The Accessibility Is a Right (AIR) Foundation has made available System Access To Go online screen Reader free on their web site. SA to Go is a limited screen reader with only speech support and works on most latest Windows versions.

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Cell Phone Can Read Documents for Blind

January 28, 2008, 04:51:03 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

The Nokia cell phone is loaded with software that turns text on photographed documents into speech. In addition to telling whether a bill is worth $1, $5, $10 or $20, it also allows users to read anything that is photographed, whether it's a restaurant menu, a phone book or a fax.

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OcuSource Announces Virtual Conference for Vision Impairment Industry

January 25, 2008, 11:08:25 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

Low vision and blindness portal, OcuSource.com, announces the OcuSource EXPO 2008, a year-long virtual conference for the visual impairment industry. Through the integration of accessible web-conferencing, visitors to this online event can participate in interactive online presentations, visit exhibit booths" and even attend online entertainment events, all from any sound-enabled computer with access to the internet.

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Clarity LLC Releases New Portable Magnifier Rio

January 16, 2008, 04:41:30 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

Clarity LLC, manufacturers of assistive technologies for the visually impaired is set to launch the Rio, the newest in its Next Generation product line. The latest in portable technology, the lightweight Rio magnifier offers incredible magnification for a multitude of functions. At only 1.5 pounds, the self contained Rio provides 7 inches of viewing space, and up to 5 hours of battery life.

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Watch Low Vision Aids in Action on YouTube

January 03, 2008, 07:44:10 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

Trying before buying is always a good advice, by getting a low vision device. A good alternative is watching a presentation on YouTube, also interesting for good sighted!

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Free Service To Listen To Wikipedia Articles Launched

December 26, 2007, 06:46:05 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

Pediaphon is a free service by Andreas Bischoff, which generates MP3 audio files from Wikipedia articles by speech synthesis. The service is operated at the University of Hagen, Germany. These files can be played immediately in the webbrowser or be downloaded for later use in a MP3-Player. A podcast will be generated for each inquiry.

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Screen Magnifier Magnifying Glass Pro 1.5 Reviewed

December 24, 2007, 09:22:56 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

Magnifying Glass Pro is one of the, what I mention, new generation intermediate screen magnifiers. It includes important features for visually impaired like support for full screen magnification and tracking of the input caret. Maybe most unique of Magnifying Glass Pro is the mix of features interesting for good sighted graphic editors and Website designers and features for people having low vision.
Peter Verhoeven of magnifiers.org reviewed.

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The Magnifier 1.5 Now Provides Full Screen Magnification

December 11, 2007, 05:41:23 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

Suited for home or business users, Magnifier v1.50 installs as normal Windows application, providing true full screen, incrementally scalable magnifier. Program creates tool to zoom in and identify pictures or read text, all accessible with keystrokes. Available with Insert and Run Anywhere USB license, software offers 400 different magnification levels and supports multiple monitors.

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Handheld talking translator on market in 2008

December 11, 2007, 04:09:53 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

A Korean company is using technology licensed from HP to develop a handheld translator that can read printed text in foreign languages, HP has announced.

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New Free Timer for your Computer

December 07, 2007, 02:45:10 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

7-128 Software has just released the FREE DarkTimer. This is a simple self-voicing timer you can use on your computer.

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New Accessible Word Game

December 07, 2007, 02:41:27 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

7-128 Software, Simply Entertainment, has just released, Synonyms and Antonyms a new game that is accessible to blind and visually impaired players. It speaks either Synonym or Antonym and a word, and then speaks a list of words. You pick the synonym or antonym from a menu.

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Software donation from IBM speeds accessibility options

December 06, 2007, 02:45:13 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

The Eclipse Foundation, an open source community, is getting Accessibility Tools Framework, a collection of tools and building blocks developed and contributed by IBM.

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Yahoo! browsing made easier for the disabled - Visually impaired users too can use Yahoo! Mail Classic with similar ease as other users

December 02, 2007, 08:02:32 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

Yahoo! browsing made easier for the disabled NEW DELHI: Yahoo! India Research and Development has announced that it has made its new Yahoo! Mail fully accessible, to bring a large community of people with various disabilities on to the Internet bandwagon. With this, visually impaired users too can use Yahoo! Mail Classic with similar ease as other users, making it one of the biggest web mail applications on earth with support for accessibility.

Full Story | | | 2096 views

Freedom Scientific Announces a December 2007 Release for OpenBook™ 8.0

November 15, 2007, 01:06:03 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

Freedom Scientific today announced that OpenBook 8.0, the latest version of the Companys powerful scanning and reading software that makes printed and electronic text accessible to people who are blind or who have low vision, will be released in December 2007.

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Victor Reader Stream First DAISY Book Reader and MP3 Player with Text-to-Speech

November 14, 2007, 01:56:33 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

HumanWare introduced its first compact DAISY player. Compaired with the Milestone 311 the Victor Reader Stream is large (4.6 x 2.6 x 0.9 inch) and weights 180 gram, which is too much for a portable device. On the other side the Victor Reader stream includes much more features than the Milestone. Most interesting is the possibility to read text files with the included text-to-speech software.

Full Story | | | 2465 views

Microsoft Word Plug-in for Daisy Format Will Aid Visually Impaired

November 14, 2007, 01:11:34 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

Microsoft and the Daisy Consortium are working together to create a text-to-audio translation plug-in for visually impaired users of Open XML-enabled Microsoft Word documents.

Full Story | | | 1966 views

ELIA Life to roll out tactile displays for the visually impaired

November 06, 2007, 02:33:43 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

A project that saw a prototype form some five years back is finally nearing commercialization, as ELIA Life Technology has recently been licensed to bring a tactile graphic display device and fingertip graphic reader to market. Originally developed by NIST researchers, the aforementioned screen enables individuals to feel an array of images on a reusable surface by raising around 3,600 actuator points into a certain pattern, each of which can be sent electronically to the reader.

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Zoomtext on YouTube

October 28, 2007, 09:10:19 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

On YouTube you can now view a demonstration of the professional screen magnifier Zoomtext. This kind of video product demonstrations can highly help people understand what a screen magnifier is and how it works. If you find a video or audio presentation of any assistive technology product for the visually impaired on the Internet, please let me know.

Full Story | | | 3235 views

Web Accessibility Could Be California Law

October 20, 2007, 10:56:52 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

Target is being targetted for allegedly forcing users to navigate the web blindly. A lawsuit filed in 2006 claims that Target has violated the California Disabilities Persons Act in that its website, Target.com, does not provide full and equal access to blind users.

Full Story | | | 1871 views

Computer Simulator Allows Visually-impaired To Drive

October 20, 2007, 10:45:14 AM by Peter Verhoeven in .

A team of researchers from the University of Granada, in collaboration with the University of Murcia, has developed a visual aid device which significantly improves the vision of sight impaired patients; especially those suffering from pathologies with a slow progression that can eventually lead to blindness (such as Macular Degeneration, cataracts, etc.).

Full Story | | | 2022 views

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