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!