Listen to SeroTalk Podcast 85: I Want Food!
This week, Jamie Pauls, Ricky Enger, and Joe Steinkamp discuss the top news stories of the week. Stories covered in this episode include:
Browsing
AOL still has 3.5 million dial-up subscribers
Adobe Stops Development of Mobile Browser Flash [REPORT]
Will there be a Silverlight 6 and does it matter?
The end of plug ins?
Firefox 8.0 released
New extension for Liber and Open Office
What’s new in accessibility in the Firefox 8 update?
Kindle Cloud Reader Comes to Firefox
Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 to add spell checking, auto-correct
Which of the big five Web Browsers is the Best? (Review)
General Tech
RIM can’t catch a break. New troubles push PlayBook OS 2.0 to February.
Google to end support for Gmail on Blackberries
Apple
Oregon Puts iPad Voting on the Map
Apple App Store Hack Makes Good Apps Go Bad
Unlike iPhone 4, Consumer Reports recommends iPhone 4S | The Digital Home – CNET News –
iPhone 4S speakers don’t play stereo correctly, tests show
TA Daily Tip 330: iOS 5.0.1 Over the Air Update
Five other fixes I want in iOS 5.0.1 | iPhone Atlas – CNET Reviews –
SiriSpective
Apple confirms Siri isn’t coming to any other devices as of now
Want To Use Siri To Control Your Mac? Now You Can!
How to Quickly Launch Apps With Siri
Braille
Type in Braille on your iOS device – EveryWare Technologies:
If you use Braille with your iPhone, iPad or iPod, there’s a Braille User Group on AppleVis to connect with others:
Top Braille
More information on Top Braille
The UK adopts standard for English Braille
AT
Why We’re All Wrong About the Future of User Interfaces
blastbay: audio demo of our upcoming game, Perilous Hearts!
OCR plugin for NVDA:
NEW FAQ on Code Factory’s Noke Screen Reader
Amazon buys a voice recognition company to add Siri functions to Kindle?
Mailbag
iReport from Edward Alonzo on GW Micro OCR device and the Blind iPhone
From Michael Bryant, we are promoting the show notes at serotalk.com here.
Hello all,
I am interested in the free download of the Jaws 12 and the Windows 7 downloads. Both by Kathy Ann Mertha.
It has be difficult to find it. Would you forward me thelinks?
My name is michael Bryant
Thanks so much
Best regards and love your podcasts.
From Ben King
Dear serotalk team,
You did an excellent job with the show. My question is to you. Is the windows seven book using system access going to be in Braille? Please let me know.
Keep up the great work! Look forward to the next show.
Blessings,
Ben
From Gary, no last name given on the Twitter and iPhone
Hey all. Great podcast. Another good twitter app for the iPhone is twitterific. I use that one.
Another one from Dan about NLS
Hello,
Thank you for your interest in what we are thinking about!
I received my NLS digital Talking Book player about a year ago. In 2009 and 2010, there were quarterly reports about it in the News; I live in Northern California and receive the Talking Book Lending Library News in both print and Braille. I’ll admit not using the player much for NLS reading material. I have received a few cartridges from the library in Sacramento, but more from Christian Record Services library, and I bought a personal 2 gig cartridge from Perkins School for the Blind. I use it mainly for Librivox books and for playing high fidelity music in jam situations and at church, where mp3s and wma files come in handy. 2 Gigs is a lot of space and I only occasionally have to use compression to reduce the size of movie files or larger music files. I have the upgrade for the new player, and I have found it easy when necessary to download the upgrade software and install it from the cartridge.
So I don’t know about the claim that the digital players are not distributed well in Northern California or how accurate it is. I think it might be more fair to say that there may be a yawning disinterest on the part of some of the qualified blind people who could, if they wished, receive it. Many of them seem to think the tapes they want are simply more widely available than good books on cartridges. What good is the player if you can’t get the books or magazines you want to play on it? As books on cartridge and thumb drive become more widely available, the player may become more popular. I would love it if you keep commenting regarding thoughts regarding your use of digital talking book players, distributions, other applications of said technology, and the BARD Web site. Mentioning some of the lesser known libraries would help, too.
Oh, by the way, my friend Sheila in Philadelphia bought a cartridge, too, and she likes having Librivox books and music on it, too, and we have also been reading some recordings from http://www.fcbh.org
Sincerely,
Dan Shelley
More on NLS, this time from Beth.
Hi, way to go on podcast 84! Mike’s thoughts about book-writing are great and I have a site which may make future publishing and writing easier, here is the link for more info and you guys can explore the whole site at your leisure and as you prefer:
http://www.hyperink.com/platform
I love my NLS player, the sound is exemplary, hope the Stratus is that good too! Regarding the new Read Easy Plus: I see a couple of genuine markets. Sometimes, blind tech users just want simplicity and, in this case, portability, with just one machine, no lugging around a laptop, camera, plus your material to scan. Some seniors would also definitely benefit. You discussed Facebook, a funny thing happened on Skype the other night. I got one call announcing some kind of I.D. number, what was that? I also got 2 requests to be added to my contacts from people I never heard of and I blocked those and found the list of status indicators and I now am invisible on Skype, except if I know I have a call scheduled. How did those people get my Skype name? Keep up the terrific work, guys! Beth
From Mike Arigo
Just listened to pod cast 84, a few comments. I like the android shoes idea. Hopefully they would have a speaker, this would allow you to have spoken directions as well. That GW Micro reading thing is silly, I would also like to know who would waste money on that, notice I said waste, not spend, because that’s what it is. You could get a nice computer, scanning software and a scanner or camera for so much less.
Why pay more for a device that only does one thing, even for someone who doesn’t want to do anything else, get a computer and put the scanning software in their start up folder in windows, or log in items on the mac and it will automatically start when you turn on the computer. I cannot think of any reason to get that at all. This new version of keysoft is another example, charging for an update and the main new feature is PDF support. Let’s see, I’ve been able to read PDF files since 2001 when Adobe made acrobat reader accessible in Windows, and on the mac, the preview application which comes with the mac reads PDF files and is very accessible. Another example of how these specialty note takers are way behind the times, cost too much and need to be replaced by main stream products that are now available, again, there’s really no reason to buy one of those when you can get all of that functionality and more much cheaper.
SeroSpectives from October 20th Email from Laney
I put up a post about the the U.S. Department of Transportation’s proposed regulations on airline web and check-in kiosk accessibility. Information on how to comment and areas where I think the regulations need to be strengthened, is included. (Comments due November 25, 2011).
The direct link is: http://lflegal.com/2011/11/dot-proposed-regs-2/
Kickers
Japanese Company Develops Robot Guide Dog
arwin Reader Website:
Folks who are visually impaired aren’t known to use smartphones mainly due to the lack of physical buttons to provide the tactile feedback that they need. When you don’t know what you’re pressing or whether you’re pressing the right button, it’s hard to know what you’re doing. Well, it looks like Google has been trying to address this issue with a new accessibility feature for Android Ice Cream Sandwich.