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Hey everyone. Once again I bring you some screen reader news. Just this morning I received an email forwarded by my brother. A German company called Baum--which currently offers a line of Braille displays--is in the process of developing COBRA, another screen reader. That's all the information I have at this point. There is supposedly a podcast about COBRA over on http://www.tandt-consultancy.com/blog_podcasts.html, but I couldn't find it. That website contains lots of other interesting blog entries and podcast episodes though. I will of course keep you all up to date on my findings regarding this latest screen reader. Speaking of screen readers, there's an issue I'd like to discuss regarding yet another lawsuit in the blindness community. This lawsuit is currently pending. It pits the Target chain of stores against the big, bad, Almighty National Federation of the Blind. Not too long ago the NFB took it upon themselves to sue Target for what they claim is website inaccessibility. Specifically the NFB has said that http://www.target.com does not perform well at all with screen readers. I had some time to kill a couple of days ago before my tutor came, so I decided to pay a visit to www.target.com with JAWS in memory. What I found clashes with what the NFB found. JAWS read all links correctly and everything performed as it should have done. Then I unloaded JAWS and loaded System Access to Go into memory, and it too passed the target.com test with flying colors. I have not yet tried out the website with any other screen reader, but I will assume for now that all is well. Target even says on their site that they accommodate users of assistive technology. What's more, I know of at least one friend with special needs who worked at Target for awhile. I've been there and I was always treated with respect and dignity by the staff. One has to wonder with all these lawsuits in the blindness "community," who will be next on the chopping block? Will ACB be pitted against NFB, or did that already happen years ago? Something is seriously not right with all this.

Hi everybody. I hope this entry goes through without a hitch. My Internet is playing games with me again. But anyway, I mentioned in a previous entry that there is another Internet-based screen reader. It is called Web Anywhere and is currently nearing the beta cycle. Yesterday when I tried it it was an alpha version. It can be accessed by typing the following into your address bar: wa.cs.washington.edu. I only tested it out with Internet Explorer version 7, but I do believe it works with at least a couple other Windows-based browsers. It will also work on Mac and Linux platforms. I had JAWS still loaded in memory when I tested out Web Anywhere and it turned out to be extremely sluggish, so I tried unloading JAWS from memory. It was still very slow but I was able to do some things with it. The speech synthesizer used is called Flite, and it is part of the Festival family of products. I used a voice called Cal, and he sounded rather dull and boring. Apparently this is the only voice available at least for now. I was able to get it to read several lines on this very website but the speech cut in and out. I'm sure as time passes Web Anywhere will evolve into a great product. A video of Web Anywhere in action may also be accessed on wa.cs.washington.edu. Like System Access to Go Web Anywhere doesn't need to be downloaded or installed.

Hey everyone. I want to let you know that Window-Eyes version 7.0 beta 2 has just been released. I missed the first beta, but that's okay I suppose. Although I probably can't afford the full copy right now, the demo version seems to be great and as an added bonus, it is fully functional. It runs for 30 minutes and then the user has to restart the computer in order to use the demo again. There's also a plan available from GW Micro which lets users try out Window-Eyes for 60 days at no charge. Check it out today if you haven't already done so! Just point your favorite browser to http://www.gwmicro.com. I still stand by what I said in earlier entries, i.e., that the Freedom Scientific vs. GW Micro lawsuit was petty and nothing but a huge waste of time, not to mention money. For now though I am stuck with JAWS, which really isn't all bad. I mean, I've been a JAWS user since the early days of that screen reader--back in the days of Henter-Joyce and no mergers in the assistive technology business were taking place. JAWS now has some truly innovative features, and the multi-lingual capabilities are excellent. I hope to eventually start using Non-Visual Desktop Access on a daily basis. I am also going to check out a new web-based screen reader called Web Anywhere. This program was recently released by some students at the University of Washington. At this time I am unsure of the URL where it may be accessed, but stay tuned and I'll post that as it becomes available to me.

Hi people. I'm going to try and squeeze out an entry for today and it looks as though I might succeed! My Internet finally seems to be working like I want it to again! I'm not exactly sure how it happened but I deleted some programs and did some other random things and stuff, and this morning the Windows service pack that was attempting to install itself finally was able to finish. It truly is amazing sometimes what these computers can do! The email problem still lingers on though. My tutor and I were going to do our regular Monday grocery run today but a T-storm seemed to be making its way across the area so we didn't go. And you never would've guessed it was our day to do grocery shopping because it is Monday! But seriously, grocery shopping for this week has been postponed. Today was also my laundry shift so I did that. And now...Regarding the Freedom Scientific vs. GW Micro lawsuit of a few weeks ago. There is now a third blog which covers the lawsuit in detail, among other things. It is linked to in the comments section on GW Micro's blog entry concerning the same thing. The address of this other website is http://wil.wilanddenise.com.

Yes you did read that right, I have been given another volunteer opportunity. Yesterday I met with two staff members of Center for Independent Futures and a lady who is starting a website for the special-needs community. This website will be for people with special needs to tell their stories. One aspect of the site which I find really cool is that people with special needs will be able to relate our experiences--good or bad--with various places of business such as restaurants and stores. Those without special needs will of course be welcome too. I know a lot of people in this community who have had bad experiences at certain places, be that physical or attitudinal barriers. Fortunately though, that doesn't seem to happen much at least where I live. But when it does happen things need to be done in an attempt to correct the situation. I'm very much looking forward to this venture and I think a lot of good will come out of it.