Silicone Touch: an iPhone case for the visually impaired

A colleague saw this on Engadget.com recently and thought it was interesting. Basically, it is a sleeve that fits over the iPhone and has tactile buttons for controlling custom iPhone applications. While totally conceptual right now and extremely limited in its actual functionality (i.e., apps would need to be customized), it would be interesting if the basic interface could change by enabling an "access mode" such that the tactile sleeve could be functional.

A similar concept was presented in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager for a computer terminal that adapted to a visually impaired crew member -- "Year of Hell" - season 4 - episodes 8 and 9.

Anyway, the approach seems conceptually similar to the VisuAide Maestro, which is essentially a tactile-button sleeve that slips over a touchscreen PDA, plus accompanying software.

The Green and Mean and Lighter and Better Perkins Brailler

New and imprtoved with less weight, less noise, and less force - it will be with you wherever you go.

The Boston Globe has a story this morning on the new and improved Perkins Brailler. Anyone who has used one of these stalwarts of access knows they are not the most user friendly for our 21st century ultra portable ideal of communication. While others have been mucking about with trying to add text to speech to cell phones, or make DAISY players that are unplugged on the go, or even tactile electronic paper, the engineers over at Perkins have been quietly redesigning and improving the most solid, most reliable, and most fundamental access tool of them all.

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The Amazon Kindle E-Book Reader

I was not planning to post anything about the new Amazon E-Book reader due to its (what I consider to be) lack of accessibility for individuals with most print impairments. I am not laying blame -- I can't -- because like the SonyReader before it, the Amazon unit is not and was never designed to be accessible in the manner that we in the ATHEN community think of accessible. That being noted -- a member of one of the professional listservs I frequent posted the following:

Can't help but wonder how this kind of device might be used by students with disabilities. It claims to have the capability of handling audiobooks, but I wonder how it might interface with other assistivetechnology such as DAISY?

Well -- since the subject has been broached -- I respond with the following:

Please note that the Kindle - like other e-book readers on the market - is NOT designed to be accessible in the manner in which we in the disabilities community define accessibility. Just because it is digital does not make it accessible.

The "audio books" it supports are merely audio files of the type you would purchase from Audible.com or Amazon.com. They are "e-books" as opposed to "E-Text". Though I understand the unit will also handle MP3 files such as music and podcasts.This item is not designed to be used with any sort of assistive technology or formats such as DAISY. In fact, the Kindle supports something called MOBI files. These are not in the same as PDF files (but a simple downloadable 'patch' will convert PDF to MOBI). It will apparently handle Word and RTF documents but how they get loaded on the unit I do not know.

How this may be used by SWD's depends upon the SWD. I could see students with mobility impairments not having to lug so many heavy tomes around and students with ADD being more organized by having everything in one place. Keep in mind, however, that this unit is not designed for academic reading -- don't try to take notes on this or use it to study in-depth technical books in color. Don't expect textbook publishers to jump on the bandwagon anytime soon.I believe it has the ability to adjust the text size but this is NOT the same as magnifying the screen image. The unit is not specifically designed for low-vision users.

Now that I have all but bashed the poor thing -- who is going to buy me one for Chrismukkah? Speaking of which -- I believe a better use of your money at this holiday time would be the "buy one - give one" promotion going on at the OLPC program.

Disk Drive Failures Worse Than You Realize ...

Speaking of Carnegie Mellon --

"A Carnegie Mellon University study indicates that customers are replacing disk drives more frequently than vendor estimates of mean time to failure (MTTF) would require. The study examined large production systems, including high-performance computing sites and Internet services sites running SCSI, FC and SATA drives. The data sheets for the drives indicated MTTF between 1 and 1.5 million hours. That should mean annual failure rates of 0.88%, annual replacement rates were between 2% and 4%. The study also shows no evidence that Fibre Channel drives are any more reliable than SATA drives."

What does this mean the ATHEN membership --- back up , Back Up!, BACK UP!!. Not only that -- but invest in the best that your dollar can buy. The higher the quality, the better the survival rate. How much do we rely upon internal and external disck drives for E-Text production, DNS voice files, server based AT, student files, and more? Think about it.

The study (presented at 5th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies) does note that the spike in failure rates occurs early in drive life. If a drive does not fail withn the first 6-9 months of operation it is quite likely you will get a good 5+ years out of it - but there are no guarantees. Any drive older than 7 years is likely going to fail and just like anything else in life - you get what you pay for. the cheap drive your Dean makes you buy today may end up costing you much more in time, money and lost productivity in the nearer rather than later future.

SSD Drives showing up in laptops

InfoWorld brings news that both Sony and Dell have added solid state drives (SSD) as optional for their respective lines of laptops. For those of you not in the know -- SSD's are essentially large flash drives configured to work within a computer as opposed to simply an outside peripheral device. InfoWorld has a nice description:

As opposed to the traditional HDD (hard disk drive), which relies on spinning discs and read/write heads, the SSD is a flash-based drive that requires no moving parts. As such, it can withstand twice as much force as an HDD, according to Dell impact testing, which also showed that notebook hardware breaks before the drive does.

Those in this professional field likely already have experience with the ruggedness of SSD because AlphaSmart keyboards have been working just fine without hard disk drives for many years. Though AlphaSmarts do not exactly use SSD, they do store all of their programming and applications within system memory and, being bult out of ABS plastic, are extremely rugged. My AlphaSmart 2000 is almost 10 years old and has spent most of that time as a plaything for my rambunctious offspring.

PC Magazine Best-Worst ('06) and Predictions ('07)

Time for me to get off my backside and get the blog rolling again as the "draft" folder is getting out of hand and I am awaiting a message from Google-Central asking if I am everr going to use any of this stuff [kinda like when I look thru Grandma's pantry and wonder when the great tin-foil drought will strike].

First up from PC World - The 20 Most Innovative Products of the Year.
I appreciate MS Office 2007 being at the top of the list as I have been using it for a couple of months now and really like it. The trial period is ending soon but I have a chance to get a full copy (and all it may cost me is a platter and frappe at UBurger). Intels CoreDuo comes in at #2 but in my mind should be tops - except fo rthe liklihood that it will be surpassed soon enough. I had my hands on a Sony Reader (#6) not long ago and really like it but want to see more features and accessibility of some sort. No ... wait ... not "of some sort" .. I want it to handle DTB 's.

The PC-Mag list winds up with their call on the top-5 innovations upcoming for this year. The top spot being held by the hybrid (flashbased) harddrives we will be seeing on the market soon (hopefully).

Samsung introduces working prototype of PRAM

For the Uber-Geeks out there and this ties in nicely with my Flash-Drive addiction!

Samsung introduces working prototype of PRAM
Sean Shim
EE Times
(09/11/2006 5:02 AM EDT)

SEOUL, South Korea — Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. announced Monday (Sept. 11) it has completed the industry's first fully working prototype of a 512-Mbit Phase-change Random Access Memory (PRAM), what the company claims is expected to become the main memory device to replace high-density NOR flash memories within the next decade.

Samsung said at a news conference here that its PRAM has been developed by adopting the use of vertical diodes with the three'dimensional transistor structure that it now uses to produce a DRAM. The PRAM has the smallest cell size of any working memory that is free of inter-cell noise, allowing virtually unlimited scalability, the company said. The PRAM features the fast processing speed of RAM for its operating functions combined with the nonvolatile features of flash memory for storage, giving it the nickname of 'Perfect RAM', Samsung said.

As the PRAM can rewrite data without having to first erase data previously accumulated, it is effectively 30-times faster than conventional flash memory. It is also expected to have at least 10-times the endurance of the conventional flash memory, Samsung added. Samsung claimed the PRAM would become a competitive choice over NOR flash, with availability beginning sometime in 2008.

Samsung also said the PRAM's cell size is only half the size of NOR flash memory. In addition, its PRAM requires 20 percent fewer process steps than those for the manufacturing of NOR flash, making it cheaper to produce. Adoption of PRAM is expected to be more popular in the future designs of multi-function handsets and for other mobile applications, where faster speeds translate into immediately noticeable boosts in performance. High-density versions will be produced first, starting with 512 Mbit, according to Samsung.

The TEMO Talking Microwave

With students moving into dorms and apartments for the coming year, here is a post courtesy of [cut 'n pasted from] the National Association of Blind Students listserv:

Our microwave just died so we had to go out and buy a new one. We just happened to find one at Best Buy that talks, and it is great. It is a HamiltonBeach TEMO. It was only $94, which is less than a talking one we thought we were going to end up getting from Maxi Aids. But so far we're loving it. Its apparently a brand new model with unique features that include:

• Instructive Talking Programmable Feature
• Interchangeable Voice Language Feature (English/Spanish)
• Eight Instant Settings for Common Foods
• Five Express Cook One-Touch Settings
• Five Memory Setting Buttons
• Remind Signal

The buttons are totally accessible. They're easy to feel, and are much like the buttons on any other appliance or remote control. It also has a little knob that you turn to set the cook times, with a little notch you feel [tactile] each time you turn it so you can easily tell how far to turn it.

You push a button on the knob and it'll ask you to set the minutes, then when you set the minutes you push the button again and it'll ask you to set the seconds. After you do that you push the button again and it starts. It is really easy to use.

The student who posted this to the listserv commented that they were planning to purchase a second one for reserve as it seems that everytime something like this comes on the market it does not sell well and it quickly unavailable. Something tells me that won't be the case here - and into the future for products such as this. With the boomers getting older we are seeing an emerging market for standard applaines with accessibility features. Even if this particular items does not sell well, others will surely follow.

Braille Mobile Phone from Samsung

SAMSUNG’s Braille Mobile Phone Wins Gold Award at the IDEA 2006 Awards -- that's the Industrial Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) and not the other IDEA that those of us in disability and education are familiar with.

Ai2 ZoomText Keyboard

Here's a product I am hoping will be in the vendor area at the AHEAD conference. From the promotional eMail:

In just a few short weeks, Ai Squared will begin shipping the new ZoomText Large-Print Keyboard (US English version), featuring easy-to-read keycaps and fast "one-touch" access to essential ZoomText 9.0 features. Designed for the ZoomText user, the new ZoomText keyboard will make typing and using ZoomText faster and easier than ever before.With the ZoomText Large-Print Keyboard, each key and button label is easy to see, even in low light, thanks to its 36-point text and high-contrast black on yellow color scheme. The ZoomText keyboard also provides quick access to ZoomText 9.0 features. Sixteen dedicated buttons will allow you to instantly start ZoomText, change magnification levels, toggle screen enhancements, launch AppReader and DocReader, and more, all without having to memorize hotkeys. You can even reassign each feature key to your choice of ZoomText commands, Internet and multimedia commands, or to open an application, document or web page.

Handheld device will help the blind read

Kurzweil National Federation of the Blind Reader has gotten quite a bit of ink on the listservs. Though a bit pricey at $3,500 - the price is sure to come down as popularity grows. Several ATHEN members and others on the listservs are doing some Beta testing on this and other products.

Build your own Fullauto Bookscanner - Engadget

Amazing - two items on automatic books scanners in almost as many days. The builders are thousands of miles [and thousands of dollars] apart but these two machines probably perform about the same...but this one let's you play with Lego's.

ATIZ BookDrive Automatic Book Scanner

Obviously this one has gotten past us somehow. The CNN video [item #2]* is from the Consumer Electronic Show in early January, but until it appeared on Gizmodo it had been off my radar screen. The price is a bit heavy [$35K] but the company anticipates that by providing a lovely cost comparison study [pdf]. Even before reading this I was sold as we currently outsource our scanning and because of that [and how long it takes] we usually purchase the books that are being de-spined and scanned. I have been trying to get in-house scanning for some time now and could see us paying-off in savings a typical duplex within one semester and this thing in about three years (or less) - this does take into account wages for bookscanning staff, ongoing costs, speed, etc.

*Item #5 in this segment is the Imation USB wristband in basic black - now that I have actually seen someone wearing one it seems kinds dorky [but i still want ie if only I could find it].