Braille Live

ClickAndGo Wayfinding Maps
A cutting edge navigation tool that promises to make travel much easier and offer a lot more independence for blind and deaf-blind travelers was launched at the Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) conference October 29 through 31 in Chicago, Ill.
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Web Accessibility No Longer An Afterthought
Web accessibility no longer an afterthought by Tom Krazit CNET News, Dec. 14, 2009
Yahoo’s Victor Tsaran knows how much time Web designers spend agonizing over color and font-width choices when laying out an application. So when he started Yahoo’s accessibility push two years ago, he had a tough time arousing sympathy for engineers grousing about how much extra time was needed to create accessibility features.
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Smart Phones Give Disabled Users Help On The Go
Smart phones give disabled help on the go
Omar El Akkad Globe and Mail, Dec. 3, 2009
T.V. Raman is a researcher for Google Inc. He lives in Mountain View, Calif. Every day, he takes the company shuttle bus home. Every day, the shuttle driver drops him off at the same intersection. One day, a new driver dropped him off on the opposite side of the street. This made it difficult for Mr. Raman to get to his home, because he is blind.
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IBill Currency Identifier
Press Release: WILMINGTON, Del., Oct. 19
PRNewswire/ — Orbit Research today announced the introduction of the iBill, the world’s first affordable Talking Banknote Identifier for the blind and the visually impaired. Read the rest of this entry »

Apple IPhone Model 3GS
This page contains information from Apple and also the personal ovservations of a brand new blind IPhone 3GS user.

Apple Product Information
The revolutionary iPhone also includes an equally revolutionary screen reader, and other innovative accessibility features that make it easier to use for those with impaired vision.
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Digital TV Software Provides Talking Menus For The Visually Impaired
When reading this article keep in mind that it’s talking about the U.K. It may be some time before this technology will make it to the United States. However, at least there is finally some movement in the right direction.
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Computer Scientists At Freie Universität Berlin Develop New Information System For Blind And Visually Impaired
Article Date: 19 Sep 2009 – 1:00 PDT
The artificial intelligence group at Freie Universität Berlin, under the direction of the computer science professor Raúl Rojas, has developed a new type of information system for blind and visually impaired individuals. Field trials are being carried out to optimize the device for future users. During the next six months it will be tested by 25 persons. The artificial intelligence group at Freie Universität is collaborating with a research group at the Telekom Laboratories headed by Dr. Pablo Vidales and the Berlin Association for the Education of the Blind and Visually Impaired e.V. The joint project is called InformA.
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BlindAid: Virtual Maps For The Blind
BlindAid: Virtual Maps For The Blind
Article Date: 11 Sep 2009 – 5:00 PDT
The blind and visually impaired often rely on others to provide cues and information on navigating through their environments. The problem with this method is that it doesn’t give them the tools to venture out on their own, says Dr. Orly Lahav of Tel Aviv University’s School of Education and Porter School for Environmental Studies.

To give navigational “sight” to the blind, Dr. Lahav has invented a new software tool to help the blind navigate through unfamiliar places. It is connected to an existing joystick, a 3-D haptic device, that interfaces with the user through the sense of touch. People can feel tension beneath their fingertips as a physical sensation through the joystick as they navigate around a virtual environment which they cannot see, only feel: the joystick stiffens when the user meets a virtual wall or barrier.
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As Internet Turns 40 Barriers Threaten Its Growth
NEW YORK
Goofy videos weren’t on the minds of Len Kleinrock and his team at UCLA when they began tests 40 years ago on what would become the Internet. Neither was social networking, for that matter, nor were most of the other easy-to-use applications that have drawn more than a billion people online.

Instead the researchers sought to create an open network for freely exchanging information, an openness that ultimately spurred the innovation that would later spawn the likes of YouTube, Facebook and the World Wide Web.
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Computer Agents Take To The Web
BBC NEWS
Computer “agents” take to the web By Zoe Kleinman
Technology reporter, BBC News

Artificial intelligence technology could soon make the internet an even bigger haven for bargain-hunters. Software “agents” that automatically negotiate on behalf of shoppers and sellers are about to be set free on the web for the first time.

The “Negotiation Ninjas”, as they are known, will be trialled on a shopping website called Aroxo in the autumn.
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