Saturday

I'm doing this on the plane from Dallas to Tyler which means it's really cramped and not fun, but I wanted to at least get a comment kin tonight as I probably won't post tomorrow. Yes, Bryan and I got off today and there were people everywhere at LAX. They just kept coming by the droves! DFW wasn't bad though so that was a relief. My plane left LA at 2:00 and Bryan's left around 3:30.

 

I don't have my notes here from the two sessions with me so I'll try to post that Monday but will say that we did get a chance to see the Topaz 22" This stand alone CCTV is pretty much like the 17" and 19" but now has a 22: screen and the magnification can go up to around 80x.

 

We also got to play a little with the Zoom-EX and Zoom-Twix that I mentioned in the recent post. The Eye-Pal also belongs in this family but is the scanning option for those who can't read print. The PC is still involved but you don't have the large scanner sitting on the desk and it's really much, much faster. This is a great option for workplaces that are limited on room, especially when needing to scan and read materials.

 

We also saw the Magnisight people and were shown a new magnifying glass with a light that turns on when you grip the handle. It turns off when you let go and the battery can be charged. It can magnify up to 9x. The price is around $70.00.

 

I will remark about one session I attending done by Bill McCann from Dancing Dots – www.dancingdots.com. This was a panel discussion regarding getting high school students who want to major in music in college ready. I'll have more on this but it is important that they learn braille music while in junior high or high school if they can't read the printed scores. Many drop out because they don't know how to read music.

 

Well, I'm posting this now at home…home sweet home. We both are very thankful for the experience and have lots of information to give out. I'll post more here and Bryan will be doing so as well. I've changed the settings so anyone can comment and they will be displayed.

 

 

 

This is the last full day of the conference, or show as I really call it because it show cases so many products and services that are available. Tomorrow sessions will last till 12:30 but I’ll have to be out a little early in order to catch the plane at 2:00.

First off, Bryan and I both attended a session called “Dueling Operating Systems.” This was quite interesting in that there were three people who were operating three different systems but were supposed to perform the same tasks. This was not timed nor really judged but it was interesting to see how it came out. The systems were the following:

Windows Vista with JAWS, Internet Explorer 7, MS Word 2003
Leopard from the Mac using the VoiceOver built in screen reader, Firefox 3.0 beta, and their word processor.
Linux using ORCA screen reader, Open Office, and Safari as the web browser – all open source.

I’m not going to go into the play-by-play but I came away from there with several thoughts.
1. Linux is not for the faint-hearted. While Mike Peterson from Sun Microsystems performed well it was evident that it was not as streamlined.
2. Leopard with it’s VoiceOver did well but it is not as comprehensive as many may think. Yes, the job can get done but not quite as easily.
3. Windows offers a little more streamlined approach, in my opinion and I felt that overall it was the smoothest. The guy using the Mac had a hard time subscribing to the rss feed while it was very easy in the Internet Explorer browser. I will say that Linux booted faster and I think even the Mac did as well. It seemed that the Windows and JAWS use didn’t have quite as much to go through in order to perform the necessary word processor functions which were to type the sentence, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” center some text at the top, and alter the fonts in various words such as one word being itilics, one bold, and so on.

I think I’ll stick to Windows even with some of it’s problems.

New Product: GW Micro and HIMS now has the SenseBraille B32 which is the temporary name. It is lighter and smaller than the BrailleSense. It has 8 gig of memory while the BrailleSens has 4, has an FM radio, built in wireless Internet, high speed Internet connection in the back, Bluetooth as the BrailleSense does and has controls on the front which allow for playing multimedia files without actually getting into the system. There is a little monitor that can be used to communicate with individuals who can read print such as someone who is deaf. This is also a tool that a teacher could use when a student is using the system to see what he/she is writing.
It has a place for an SD card and it has been said that one as high as 16 GB has been used in the BrailleSense so I’m sure it is the same or better with the B32 unit. It also has a connection for a monitor and a serial port. The release date will be in June. We asked if they were going to come out with a unit using a QWERTY keyboard and they could not say.

I then went to a session by ABISee who produce the Zoom-Ex, Zoom-Twix, and the Eye-Pal. The Eye-Pal is a scanning and reading product that allows for scanning and reading printed materials. Books can be scanned easily simply by the making the appropriate setting and then allowing the camera to take a picture of the page or both pages after which time they can be turned. This can go on until the book is completely scanned. With this process books can be scanned much quicker. It is used with a PC and connect via USB port. Newspapers and other documents can be save in MS Word format and then the files can be changed into almost any form including MP3. The click of the camera is very audible so is easily heard. Various voices can be used including SAPI voices which may be on the PC.
The Zoom-Twix is a low vision product and can be used like a CCTV but it also has distance magnification. One can write under the camera with this unit as well. The Zoom-Ex lacks the capability of the distance viewing nor can one write under the camera. For more information see http://www.abisee.com/html/zoomex_products.htm. There is a good review on the Zoom-Ex and Zoom-Twix in the March Edition of AccessWorld at http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw090205.

I visited Ia Squared who had their duel video configuration set up. When the monitors were set side by side, they both being LCD"s one could magnify up to 5 and 6x and see a much larger portion of the document. Most people aren't going to have two monitors on their desk though but it could be a help for some. They now have their Zoom Text flash drive so that you can insert the flash drive in a PC and it will install Zoom Text as a fully functional product with a serial number which is tied to the users. When the flash drive is removed, the software turns into a demo and then into a pumpkin after 60 days. There are a few advantages to this but I asked them when they were going to have it run on a u3 drive. I was told that I wanted my cake and to eat it too. Why not I ribbed him some more in a nice way and he admitted it was too technical at this time. Well, if you can't do it, just say so instead of making a remark like the above.

Here are some stats I got from one session.

The poverty rate in 2006 was 8% for the general population, 11% for those with some disability and 26% for those with a significant disability. A study was done in 2003 that determined, as the result of the aging population, 76% of the population will benefit from some type of accessible technology. This section dealt with creating accessible PDF documents. This is done through their software's wizard and the changes are saved in an xml document which would be The name of the product was Pal and was less than $100.

The last session was on making eBooks accessible by Bridge Multimedia Corp. It was more of an idea and show of tools that were available to help make eBooks for children accessible. He showed various ways this could happen such as the following:
Text left the same but blocked as read with music background.
Text enlarged to medium size, text to speech voice and highlighted with a person on the right doing sign language with no music.
Larger type size, signed English, highlighted as read
Regular font but output to braille printer or refreshable braille, human voice with highlight and music
Regular font, alternative communication symbols or pictorial symbols, read again by human voice
Can be done in other languages such as Spanish which was done here. Can toggle back and forth between two language.
Dictionary can be brought up which gives more information on a word or subject.
The dictionary is descriptive of anything such as a type of animal.
Pictures are described and than text read
Output to a tactual printer
These are just concepts and standards need to be agreed to for publishing them on the web.
A children's book called Bugs for Lunch as the example. There is no tool that will perform all of the above yet but the individual concepts and tools are there.

Serotek now has the magnification product available for those who have the System Access. It is downloaded automatically with the updates. I tried it with the free version and magnification works there as well. The magnification is a little jerky on our notebooks as Bryan and I both agreed but it's still there. The free version can be had at www.satogo.com.

Thursday

We hit the booths first since the first session didn't start until 10:40. I guess the biggest hit to us was the mobile KNFB reader that uses the cell phone with the Symbian operating system such as some of the Nokia phones. We saw him use it and it was pretty cool. While it told where the scanner was taking the picture, he had some difficulty squaring to the page so the right column was cut off. This could be a problem for those who cannot see the paper. We had the pleasure at the breakfast yesterday of sitting by one of my old classmates from Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School (IBSSS), Jim Gashiel. He was six years ahead of me but we still knew each other. I told you that to tell you this, that he is working for the company that sells the mobile KNFB reader. I suggested to him that he try a menu that has a darker paper with black text such as one from the Cracker Barrel. He was curious about that one himself. Anyway, when it reads the text back, it can also be seen in fairly large print on the phone and the words being read are highlighted. I thought that was great! It can be stored in the phone and easily transferred to a computer but it is saved as a jpeg file so you’d need Kurzweil 1000 or something else to transfer that into text. While we probably won’t be getting something like that for our consumers, we are seeing the “accessibility for all” played out although it has a ways to go. The whole thing is about $2,100 now.

We say Ed Christal and his group. It was good to see him. Another product that was pretty good was the Magnilink Student Edition. This is meant to interface with a notebook PC and the camera can be used for reading documents or things far off. I think it does pretty well. It even has it’s own xy tray if you don’t need to be so mobile.

In one of the sessions we both attended we saw the new SenseView Duel which is a new product that GW Micro is releasing. Chris Park and Jeremy Kurry had the session. They first showed the SenseView with the hand writing camera that the Duel. The SenseView only weighs 7.8 ounces and magnifies up to 22x which is the highest magnification that any hand held device magnifies as far as I know and according to them. The screen is 4.3” wide and was the first unit to incorporate the freeze option. It has a battery status light and can last up to 5 hours before re-charging. It also has six different color modes and 4 brightness modes. Many of our consumers have picked this one and it is a good unit. The SenseView Duel takes the SenseView one step farther as they put it in that the handwriting camera is now connected and it can be used for distance viewing as well as close up, although the distance view didn’t look that impressive to me as everything had a pink tint to it and when I tried to change color modes, that made things even worse. He said there would be improvements on that which is a good thing as it wouldn’t be of much use without them. Another cool thing about the SenseView Duel is that you can store 20 pictures or items that have been captured in the freeze frame. You can also zoom them up to 12x. These cannot be transferred to a computer for the reason that students may get the idea of taking a picture of a test and then later selling the answers over the Internet….not that anyone would do that, of course. Magnification on this one goes from 3x to 12x while the plain SenseView goes from 4.3x to 22x. Battery life is about 4.5 hours and it has a 4.3” wide screen. The price will be around $1,299.00 and will be released for market in May.

The other item that stands out is the Bookshare.org session. Bookshare now has about 36,000 titles and is now a free service for students. Anyone taking two hours from a college on up is considered a student. The user must be print disabled and have a signed document from a professional. They are working to have available text books for those in K-12 and college. Already they have books for K-2 with description of the pictures. The Victor Reader software is given to all users so the books can be read in the DAISY format They can be in many other formats as well. Subscription for non-students is $50.00 with a $25.00 signup fee. Books are gotten each month that are on the New York Times best seller list (up to the first ten). If you’re a volunteer you get $2.50 off per book you work on. There is a form that can be downloaded the certified professionals can sign for proof of disability. Many newspapers are on there as well. With the new equipment they now have, a 2” thick book can be scanned in around 5 minutes. That’s fast! They now have 16,000 students from 3,000 when they received the grant on October of 2007. Bookshare can get many of their text books from NIMAC which is a textbook repository. The NIMAC Repository is searchable. Books can be tagged as "adult" content and only 18 and up can download those. They are working on clarification for status for private schools. Images will be included which will be in low resolution by the end of 2008 for text books.
Lisa.f@benitech.org is the presenter’s email address if you have more questions and visit www.bookshare.org for more information.

I also attended a session on scripting for Supernova but most of that was way over my head. I will give a few details for those who may be interested. The scripting program that they use is Lua which is an open source program from Brazil. It is portable so can work on any system. These are really text files with .lua extension. The scripts must be tied to the map files but according to the presenters, about anything you want to script can be scripted.
While it is in the 9.0 version of Supernova on a limited basis, the upgrade which will come in June will be complete with better documentation.

I attended a session by Job Access Network but I’ll include their materials when I get them.

There are so many solutions here that it boggles the mind. We’re collecting lots of material and will do our best to get the material into the hands of those who may want or need it. It’s time to call it a day!

Well today was the day. We left the hotel at around 6:30 and walk the quarter mile walk to the Marriott where I picked up my packet and badge so I could get into the breakfast which was at 7:30. The walk isn’t bad though as there are palm trees all along the way and it is a lovely site.

The speaker at the breakfast was Jim Fruchterman from Benitech. The overview of what he said was this: that accessibility should be for everyone. In order to make this happen, a device needs to be used that everyone has. Since 3 billion people on the planet have cell phones this seems to be the most probable vehicle that will be used He gave a recap of his work in technology from being a rocket scientist, AT provider, and now producer of software that helps human rights groups throughout the world keep track of the human injustices that are done to various groups of people. You’ll recall, he once had the Arkanstone company which was the first producer of OCR software that could read documents using a PC. While Ray Kurzweil had already invented a chip that allowed for documents to be read, it had not been converted for scanning using a PC. He is also involved in www.bookshare.org which is a company which allows legally blind users to download scanned books for a small monthly fee. Presently has 35,000 books that have been scanned and proofed by volunteers. They are in the process of working with other governments to make it available in other countries. With Serotek offering free screen reading software at www.satogo.com, the reality of accessibility for all is becoming more of a fact.

Five sessions were attended by both of us and while some had handouts, many did not. I took notes on all but will give you a better rundown later on some of them. In summary though, the two highlights were being in the Window-Eyes session and finding out that there will be three new products being unveiled this CSUN. They were supposed to have done it this evening but we didn’t get to RSVP their reception so we’ll hit their booth tomorrow and find out what they are. They showed the advantages of the BrailleSense and VoiceSense from HIMS which is partnered with GW Micro. It uses Pocket PC which is something I had forgotten. It’s GPS is pretty cool too. Oh and did I hear him say that they broke the driver so JAWS won’t work on it? Hmmm.

The last session was done by Larry Lewis from Flying Blind, a technology trainer from Ohio. He puts out a newsletter each week via email and I always enjoy reading it. Being able to meet the one that you have read from for the past year or so puts a new prospective on it all. He showed how braille could be used in the employment setting. One thing that stuck out to me is that only 12% of people who could benefit from braille – we’re talking adults now – can read it effectively. But out of those, 90% are employed.

Well, I’m tired so enough for tonight. I’ll try to have more specific info later and I’m sure Bryan can add more too. Tomorrow the exhibits open up so then things really get moving. Can’t wait!

We made it. Bryan was able to check in this afternoon and all I had to do was make it to the hotel and go to the room. Wonderful! The trip out here wasn’t bad. If you’ve never rode in a prop plane, you should just so you can get the experience. Most of the flight was fine until we came down at Dallas and then it got bumpy. Good thing I didn’t eat too much for lunch. I’ve never been to our Tyler airport. It’s nice yet it’s still like that small town airport that’s so pleasant. I arrived for what I thought was a 2:50 flight but when I got to the counter, the lady said that they had one going in 20 minutes and she was going to put me on it. Fine with me. I had a little more time in Dallas so I wouldn’t have to run to catch the one to LAX. Speaking of LAX, outside our window we can see these lit up pillars just sticking up in the air. Bryan said they are clear during the day. By them, in big letters is LAX. Tomorrow will be an early day since I have to go to pick up my packet than make it to the breakfast that kicks the whole thing off by 7:30. Bryan tried to get my packet for me today but they wouldn’t give it to him. Well, we’re in CA not Texas. The people here have been pretty nice though.

The Night Before

Well, I said that CSUN was from March 10 to 15, but really the general sessions start on the 12^th which is when we'll be there. We're ready, at least I think. The last time I was at this conference was in 1999 and then I had no cell phone, no way to access the Internet unless I wanted to use web TV and pay around $9.00 a day, no notetaker, no hand held CCTV, and little experience. Now I have a cell phone, the Radisson has Internet access in the room and it's free, I have a QWERTY notetaker, and even a hand-held CCTV. The experience thing…..well, I guess a little more now but every day is a new day in the AT world as it is everywhere else now days.

We're signed up for the sessions that we felt were feasible and would benefit the most although we didn't get to sign up for some of the ones we really wanted but we'll catch them at their booths. We're looking forward to talking to the Serotek folks, the ones who are now offering free web access with speech at www.satogo.com. They have a beta magnification program and we're really looking forward to seeing that.

Bryan leaves San Antonio around 12:00 and gets in LA around 1:30 (we gain two hours). He goes nonstop. It's another thing for me. I leave Tyler on a puddle-jumper to Dallas at around 2:50 with Rose waving me good-bye. I leave on another plane in Dallas a couple of hours later and get in LA around 6:15 PM. My body will be saying it's 8:15 instead and since there's no real food on the plane, I'll be ready for dinner.

Introduction

This blog is being set up for the purpose of passing along information we, EAS Bryan Baldwin and myself, obtain from the 2008 CSUN Conference in Los Angeles which is being held March 10-15. See http://www.csun.edu/cod/conf/2008/ for more info.

Hopefully we can post each day but it will depend on the availability of the Internet. Anyway, we’re set and ready to go!