If you are anything like me, you believe that March Madness should be declared a national holiday. It is so much fun to sit around and watch 68 teams battle it out for the national championship, cheer for your favorite team, and make friendly wagers with your friends and work colleagues.
However, if you are blind, it can be difficult to deal with the fact that none of the online tournament brackets are accessible. Finally, there is now an easy to use, and completely accessible tournament bracket available.
Check it out here, and remember that the North Carolina Tar Heels will win it all!
InsideOne: A Windows 10 Tablet with a Built-in Braille Display.
Inside Vision has created one of the coolest products for people who are blind. The InsideOne is a full size Windows 10 tablet with 32cells of refreshable braille located along the bottom of the screen. This device also allows a person to type in braille on the screen, but there is no longer a need to make sure that your fingers are perfectly allied to be recognized. There are indentations in the glass, and this is where you place your fingers when typing in braille. I think this is a much better design than trying to add a Perkins style physical keyboard in addition to the 32cell line of refreshable braille. It also makes it feel more in line with a traditional Windows tablet. You don’t have to use braille input. There is an option for a virtual on screen keyboard. In addition, you could use a Bluetooth connected keyboard or a USB connected keyboard. The tablet still has a touch sensitive glass screen that responds to Windows 10 gestures.
Spotlight with Grapheel: Making STEM Education Accessible for Blind Students
In this exciting Spotlight interview, James Oates sits down with the highly intelligent team at Grapheel Innovation. The team consists of:
• Daniel Hajas: Blind, theoretical physics student with PhD in Informatics, special research interest on accessible STEM.
• Tim Lingard: Programmer and physicist, PhD student at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (Portsmouth), Head of Information Systems and online services.
• David Turner: Physics student at Sussex, Head of R&D at Grapheel, researching engineering solutions for the Tactile Graphics Display.
The team discusses the enormous problem that exist in providing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics education to people who are blind or visually impaired. They explained the three-pronged approach that they have devised to conquer this problem.
Step one is called “Iris,” which is a science community based image description service specifically for STEM graphical content used as teaching material. The student uploads an image, and receives a detailed description from a volunteer who is a professional in that field of study.
The second is a consultancy scheme where they will advise on solutions that are in existence for accessible science. Various assistive software, hardware, teaching resources, good practice in science accessibility and so on.
The third is the development of a Tactile Graphics Display. They wish to carry out hardware research and development and concentrate on materials science for developing cost and performance efficient actuators. They also wish to collaborate with the various initiatives developing their own tactile displays and open their operating system for third party developers. This way Grapheel could develop STEM specific applications for already existing tactile graphics display devices, since there are organizations like the American Printing House for the Blind, doing a great job in the hardware development front.
Visit Grapheel’s website to learn more or get involved in helping in this remarkable effort.
You can also follow Grapheel on Twitter.
WordPress Add-On for Google Docs Lets You Post Directly to WordPress From Google Docs.
Autommatic has developed a useful add-on for Google Docs that allows you to post directly to your WordPress site from Google Docs.
If you are collaborating on a post with another author, you can both work on the same document in Google Docs before posting to your website. Images and formatting of your document will easily transfer to WordPress.
The add-on can be found on the Google Web Store page and you just must click to install it. Then, you’ll have to give the plugin access to post on your behalf. That’s it. You can now use Google Docs to write your next WordPress blog post with your colleagues.
Once you are ready to save the Google Docs draft as a blog post, you can go to the add-on’s menu and open WordPress.com for Google Docs. The sidebar that shows up is the place where you can add WordPress.com or Jetpack-connected sites, from which you’ll later choose.
Save the draft and when that process is done, a preview link will appear so you can see what it looks like on the site. Any additional tweaks can be made directly into the WordPress.com editor.
From Microsoft Garage: Hearing AI: Connecting Deaf People to a World of Sound.
Microsoft Garage is developing another really cool iOS app called Hearing AI. This app runs on an iOS device. It shows the intensity of sounds around you, and it also uses real-time speech-to-text technology to display a written transcription of conversations picked up by your phone’s microphone. Not only can you read what someone is saying to you, but you can also see a display of how loud and soft their voice is while they are speaking.
BrailleEasy: A One-Handed Braille Keyboard for the Visually Impaired.
Qatar Computing Research Institute developed a virtual on-screen one-handed braille keyboard for those who are blind and have motor impairments that make two-handed braille typing difficult to perform. This app is free to download from the iOS app store, but is currently not available for Android devices. You are able to use it as your default keyboard, or just switch to it when you want. It divides a braille cell into two columns. You enter the dots for the first column, followed by the dots for the second column. I gave it a try, and once I got used to the gestures that accompany one-handed typing, I found it quite easy to use.
Microsoft Releases Visual Studio 2017 with Accessibility Improvements.
Tomorrow, March 7, Microsoft is holding a live session to announce the same day release of Visual Studio 2017.
Microsoft is holding a two-day virtual event to present the latest integrated development environment (IDE) in detail, and all developers will be able to follow the live stream and learn how to get started with interactive technical demos.
The event will kick off tomorrow at 8AM PST with a keynote introducing the latest innovations in Visual Studio, .NET, Xamarin, Azure, and more. If this is too early for you, you’re still welcome to watch the following Q&A sessions and demos that will cover native Android, iOS, and Windows Development in C# with Xamarin, Azure Development in Visual Studio 2017 and more.
On Wednesday, March 8, get ready for a full-day of live interacting trainings covering mobile, desktop and web development with the latest IDE. All sessions will be live streamed on the dedicated website.
WearWorks Creates Haptic Wristband That Helps Blind People Navigate.
There are so many apps and devices that can help a blind person navigate, but most of them require that you listen for auditory feedback. Many people, myself included, feel that method distracts them from observing and interacting with their surroundings. It is difficult to listen for cars, bicyclists, and pedestrians while listening to your audio navigation device. It is also difficult to participate in a conversation with a companion while your phone is constantly telling you where you are, and where to go.
WearWorks has developed a haptic wristband that pairs with your phone and uses information from Google Maps to help guide you. You must first tell Google Maps where you are going, and then the wristband will buzz if you are going the wrong way, provide gentle haptic nudges if you need to go left or right, and give no feedback if you are headed in the correct direction.
The device is currently in development, and should be available in 2018.
Spotlight with Suman Kanuganti: Cofounder and CEO of Aira.
In this CBT Spotlight interview, James Oates sits down with Suman Kanuganti, the cofounder and CEO of Aira Visual Interpreter for the Blind, to discuss a life changing new service for those who are blind or visually impaired.
Aira takes advantage of the technology found in advanced smart glasses, like Google Glass, to connect blind people with sighted agents who can use the information transmitted by those glasses to help them with anything that might require visual feedback. That could be anything the user would like an extra pair of eyes for.
Smart glasses not only have a camera that transmits visual information to the agent, but also other sensors that send detailed information to the agent’s dashboard, such as GPS information that is incorporated into Google Maps.
For now, the glasses will need to be paired with a smart phone, but you should listen to this podcast to hear all the spectacular improvements that Suman is planning.
You can visit their website, email Aira, or email Suman directly for more information. You can also call Aira at: (858) 876-2472.
Nokia Announces 360° Audio for Cameras and Smart Phones.
Virtual reality has strived to take advantage of 360° video technology, but Nokia believes that 3D audio must also be a part of the experience to make it feel as real as possible. That is why Nokia developed their OZO Audio technology to work with their OZO camera which can not only create 3D images, but thanks to the audio software and 8 built in microphones, it can also record 3D audio.
But wait, you don’t need to run out and buy a OZO camera. Nokia is now offering their OZO Audio technology to anyone who has a camera or smart phone with at least two microphones. The microphones don’t have to be built in to the device. They can be add-ons. Nokia says that the software works best with three or four microphones.
For people who are blind, this is important because, for us, 3D audio is our version of virtual reality.
Warning, there is a 10 to 15 second delay before the video below begins to play.
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