Indiana Assistive Technology Blog

VictorReader Stream

The VictorReader Stream is a portable DAISY player about the size of a pack of playing cards.  It has an SD card for storing books, files, music, voice recordings, and podcasts.  You can download your books and MP3s or transport them via USB.  The Stream is completely voice-guided for the visually impaired.

Sounds great!  Let’s test out some basic functions.

The Stream holds a charge of approximately 15 hours.  However, if it isn’t charged you can simply plug it into a socket and use it from there.  To turn it on, you need to locate the power button on the left side of the device and hold it down for a couple of seconds.  The green light on the front will come on and you will hear a “Beep” followed by a voice greeting.  To adjust the volume, use the arrows on the left side, below the power button.

VictorReader Stream side view

To access the User guide, hold down on the 1 button.  This guide is helpful in getting started (especially if you cannot see the manual).  You can skip through the manual by using the right arrow key, or the 6 button.

Normally you’d press 1 to access the Bookshelf, but since I don’t have any books saved on this device, I’m going to instead learn how to create notes for myself.  On the right side of the device, you will notice a button with a red dot (similar to a “Record” button you might see on a VCR or video camera).  When you hold down on this button, a voice will say,”Start recording.”  You can then record a voice message.  When you are finished, you release the button and a voice will say,”Stop recording.  Note 1 created.”  Each note is given a number which you can find using the 4 and 6 buttons.

If you had a book saved on the device, you can access bookmarks you’ve placed by pressing the little check-mark button on the front of the device.  The button with the moon symbol will activate “Sleep” mode, and it will offer to sleep longer the more you press it.

These are just a couple of basic features the VictorReader Stream contains.  It is very easy to use once you’ve played around with it a little.  I also found this guide to be very helpful.

Try it out for yourself by signing up at our INDATA Loan Library!

Ball State University bell tower

As a follow-up to our November post Accessible Education in Indiana, INDATA wanted to recognize Ball State University.  Disability Friendly Colleges recently included Ball State in their list of 75 colleges to exceed beyond the American with Disabilities Act guidelines.

Ball State earned this acknowledgement for its exceptional student disability services, which include accessible residential housing, adaptive PE classes, wheelchair repair, and accessible shuttle service.  They uphold their reputation for being disability friendly with programs like Power Soccer, a soccer team for wheelchair users, and their faculty mentor program, which matches students with disabilities with faculty members in their major for personal support and guidance in their transition to college.

We would like to congratulate Ball State University for their outstanding efforts and look forward to keeping up with further developments in accommodating students with disabilities.

To learn more about Ball State’s disability services, check out their Disabled Student Development page, or contact their office at 765.285.5293.

WHAT: Webinar “What you need to know before purchasing and successfully Eyes-Free and/or Screenreader Enabling an Android Smartphone”

WHEN: January 20, 2010 at 2 PM Eastern

WHO: Presented by Steve Jacobs, CEO of Apps4Android and President of IDEAL Group, Inc.

COST: Free! To register, visit this EASI Webinar form.

Why: Apps4Android  is an IDEAL Group subsidiary corporation dedicated to developing free/low-cost, high-quality, Android applications that enhance the quality-of-life, independence, and employability of individuals with disabilities.

In November, Apps4Android became the world’s largest user of Google’s Text-to-Speech Library. Google developer’s use Apps4Android’s Speaking Pad application to test their new voices before releasing them to market. Since its inception on January 17, 2009, Apps4Android has built a customer-base of over 400,000 users in 30+ countries.

Apps4Android’s Assistive Technology Applications include:
iAugcomm: $4.99 IDEAL Group’s Augmentative Communication application
is designed to enhance the communications abilities of people who are
unable to speak. iAugComm provides a symbol-based method of communication
that uses the Text-To-Speech (TTS) library for Android.
Ask Eindroid: $0.99 A speech recognition, text-to-speech-based
applications that enables its users to ask and get answers to questions
about stocks, sports, the news, math, airline flights, restaurants and much
more with no more effort from you than simply speaking to it.
Better Voices For Cupcake: $0.99 Provides higher quality voices for
user of Android smartphones running version 1.5 of Android (Cupcake). This
makes all of a users talking applications sound better in English (US &
UK), Italian, German, French, and Spanish.
SMSpeaker and Talking caller ID Bundle: $0.99 Automatically announces the
number calling you, the name of the caller (if entered into your address
book) as well as SMS messages. Many features.
The IDEAL Android Accessibility Wizard: Free The objective of IDEAL’s
Android Accessibility Wizard project is to eliminate the complexity of
working through the variables, described on
http://accessibility-android.info to enable end-users and retail store
personnel to quickly, easily and successfully activate and install
eyes-free and screenreading capabilities on any Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile
and possibly AT&T (not yet decided) Android smartphones manufactured by
Samsung, HTC, Motorola and others.

iPhone 3GS

Recently I’ve noticed that large businesses have been adding accessibility or disability sections to their websites.  One really good example is AT&T’s commitment to disabilities page. Here you can see that AT&T has put some time and effort into making sure that they offer communication services such as phone and Internet to people that might experience it differently than you or I.

As an iPhone user I was particularly interested in the iPhone accessibility details page.  The link on AT&T’s site is a redirect to Apple’s website on iPhone accessibility.

Vision: If you have a vision impairment, you might think that a touch screen cellphone would be the last thing you wanted.  Apple assures you that this is not a problem. The iPhone 3GS (the most recent version of the phone) offers a screen reader called VoiceOver.  Touch the screen and it will read what’s under your finger, “then gesture with a double-tap, drag, or flick to control the phone.”

Apple suggests that this screen reader works differently compared to the one you might use on your computer.  Here’s what they have to say about that:

Because VoiceOver works with iPhone’s touchscreen, you interact directly with objects on the screen and can naturally understand their location and context. So, when you touch the upper-left corner of the screen, you’ll hear what’s in the upper left corner of a web page, and as you drag your finger around the screen, you’ll learn what’s nearby, providing an amazing new sense of context and relationship between the items you hear. For many, VoiceOver on iPhone will provide, perhaps for the first time, a true sense of how things appear on screen, not just descriptions of what they are.

Now if you’ve seen an iPhone in action, you’re probably starting to wonder how a person would enter text off the on-screen keyboard.  Put your finger on the keyboard and VoiceOver will tell you what that key is.  You can also set it up to echo each word that you type to ensure it is spelled correctly.  If this seems like a daunting task, turn on the word prediction.  This is when you start typing a word and the phone will attempt to figure out what word you are starting to write.

VoiceOver works with all standard apps that come on the iPhone: Maps, Safari, Mail, Notes, Stocks, Weather, Calendar, and more.

Want to make a phone call without searching through all of your contacts?  Simply hold the home button down and Voice Control will prompt you to speak the name of the person you want to call.  You can also use this feature when searching for music in iTunes.

It will take some time to get used to the VoiceOver screen reader.  I tried to use this on my iPhone, but I found the finger taps and commands slightly difficult to understand and manipulate.  Have you used this feature? Let us know what you think in the comments. For more information about iPhone accessibility for vision, visit their web site.

Check back for future posts on other accessibility aspects of the Apple iPhone.

Museums are great place to hit up when vacationing in a large city or when you want something to do within your own community (and you can visit a lot of them for free!)   They are a wonderful resource for history, art, science, and more.  Schools will often take field trips to museums as a fun and educational break from the classroom that gives their students a unique perspective.

Museum patrons studying artwork

I’ve researched some popular museums in Indiana and dug up what information I could find on their accessibility.  It’s always a good idea to know what is available to you before making the trip!

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