Pranay Jain and Anshul Singhal, two graduate level students at MIT have founded Squirrel Devices, a company which provides measuring and drawing tools for Blind students in STEM courses.
The Tactile Caliper allows students to measure and draw straight lines with an accuracy of 1/16 of an inch. The Caliper is 12 inches, or 30 Centimeters, and is a mechanical device with no battery or electrical source. Amazingly, when locked in place, the device displays the measurement in braille.
There is also a Tactile Protractor, which is also mechanical. When opening it, it clicks each time you reach a degree. This makes it remarkably easy to measure an angle, or draw one as well.
New Features in Android O First Developer Preview.
Android enthusiasts, this is a great time for you. Android O first developer preview is now available for installation via flashing to your device. The Pixel, PixelXL, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus Player, and Pixel C tablet are the devices that are eligible to begin testing the first preview of Android O. The over the air Android Beta version of Android O should be available for the second preview coming in May.
Apple Announces Spring Time Refresh to its Lineup.
Its Spring, and everyone is cleaning out the clutter and adding a little refresh to their home. Apple has the same idea. They didn’t hold an event, but there were several changes and discontinuations announced today.
SAS Graphics Accelerator Allows Blind People to See Graphs.
The SAS Graphics Accelerator is a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that lets blind people discover and explore graphics in a variety of ways. First, you are notified by a distinctive sound that graphs are present on the webpage. Next, you can choose to get a description of the graph that will be read by your screen reader, or you can convert the graph into an easy to read table, or you can get a sonic representation of the graph. The sonic representation travels along the X-axis; data points that are higher on the Y-axis will have a higher pitch sound than data points that are lower on the Y-axis. Watch the video below for a demonstration of these features.
SAS Graphics Accelerator is free to install. It works with most major screen readers on PC and Mac.
How to Back up a Pixel Phone and Enroll it in the Android Beta Program
Google is offering some users the opportunity to get a sneak preview of Android Nougat 7.1.2. To take advantage of this offer, you must enroll in the Android Beta program and have an eligible device.
To enroll, just visit android.com/beta and provide your Google sign in credentials.
The following devices are eligible at this time.
Microsoft’s Game Chat Transcription Provides Text to Speech and Speech to Text Transcription.
Microsoft announced a new accessibility feature for Xbox and PC gamers. This new feature allows a person to have their spoken game chat transmissions transcribe to text for those who cannot hear, and it also allows people to have their text chat transmissions converted to speech for those who are blind and cannot read the screen.
Blind People Can Now Read Kindle Books on Windows PC’s.
Thanks to the efforts of Amazon and the developers of the popular NVDA open source screen reader, Kindle books are now accessible to blind people using a Windows 10, Windows 8, or Windows 7 computer. First download the Kindle app on your computer, and make sure you have the latest version of NVDA installed.
Microsoft Creates Physical Programming Language Inclusive of Children with Visual Impairments.
Microsoft has created, Project Torino, a new way of teaching computational thinking skills and basic programming concepts to children age 7 to 11. The program is inclusive of children who are blind or visually impaired, but sighted children also benefit from the program. It was Microsoft’s intent to make sure that blind children could participate with sighted children without being isolated from them.
Project Torino uses physical beads that link together to form music, stories, and computer programming code. The physical language can then be transferred to a digital platform so that blind and visually impaired children can feel comfortable writing stories, music, and computer software.
There are many jobs that require computer programming skills, and there are not enough people to fill those jobs. There are also an enormous number of blind people who are unemployed. It only makes sense to make sure that these children develop the skills to compete in the job market of today.
Macaron by Oseyeris: A Measuring and Navigation Device for the Blind.
Oseyeris has developed the Macaron, which is a handheld device that pairs with an app on your iPhone. The Macaron can measure almost anything using its tape measure feature or long range feature. Not only can you measure your refrigerator, window, or bookshelf, but you can also measure the dimensions of a room, and you can even take your body measurements.
Measurements are spoken to the blind user, and can also be saved to a folder on a cloud service, like Dropbox or iCloud, for future reference.
The Macaron also has a navigation feature that detects objects in your path. The navigation feature provides audio and haptic feedback that allows a blind person to tell what objects are in their path, and what direction the object is in, and how far away it is.
Future versions of the Macaron will allow the user to leave breadcrumbs while navigating. This will make it easier to find points of interest.
You can find out more by visiting the Oseyeris website. There you can listen to audio recordings explaining all the Macaron’s features and register as a tester of the device.
Blackboard Tackles Accessibility Barriers in Higher Education with Blackboard Ally.
One of the biggest and most unacceptable problems that face students with disabilities is the lack of access to digital course content. All colleges and universities now require some form of participation on a digital platform. The amount of work that a student must perform on these digital platforms varies from school to school, and professor to professor. In some classes, a student might have to access the course syllabus, assignments, worksheets, downloads, and they might even have to submit course work and consult online with their professors using these digital platforms. It is shocking how many students with disabilities have been denied access to a proper education on account of these platforms not being accessible.
Blackboard, one of the larger providers of digital content in higher education, is finally tackling this issue. They have developed a program called, Blackboard Ally, which takes digital content and makes it accessible within minutes. Students no longer must go through the long and often fruitless process of trying to get their professor to make their material accessible to a student with a special need. The software also generates a report that informs the professor and the school of what changes need to be made to content so that it will be accessible in the future.
You must be logged in to post a comment.