San Francisco is considering a law that would require TVs in public locations (lobbies, restaurants, airports, etc.) to display captions at all times. What a great idea, and why not? The capability is already built in, and this would provide a robust channel for communicating with deaf and hard of hearing people about emergencies, at the very least. But don’t fine the scofflaws; make them wear a scarlet ASL instead!
A British ICT designer has come up with an interesting blend of technology and elder market awareness. “jive” has a router that’s configured at the point of sale, and a mouseless interface for information retrieval and communication. Each of your friends or family members is represented by a little plastic square, and you just place the square on the screen to see what that person is up to, or to send a message. When you’re not using it, the screen automatically updates you with their doings and whereabouts. This simple, tangible interface may point the way to more inclusive ICT designs.
An online searchable database contains all the keyboard shortcuts from all the key applications on all the key operating systems. Having those shortcuts is only half the solution — the rest is knowing about them!
KeyXL keyboard shortcuts
Here’s an excellent article about a terrifying reality: alternative smoke alarms are a massive failure for deaf and hard of hearing people. For example, only 27% of test subjects were awakened by strobe lights, the most common alternative to audible alarms in public environments. And a low frequency tone works better than the more common high frequency tone. The article is based on a report from the National Fire Protection Research Foundation.
Hearing Mojo: Sleeping Through Smoke Detector Alarm Can Get Hard-Of-Hearing Killed
For its players, Second Life provides a virtual world for social interaction and entertainment. It’s even being used for conferences and college education. But you’ve got to see and work a mouse pretty well to use it. Now a clever programmer has developed another way to access Second Life, via text instead. It uses AJAX, so it may not be completely accessible; that wasn’t her goal in writing the text interface — she did it to eliminate the long delays caused by the graphics-rich standard interface. But here’s the point: Second Life opened its software environment so thousands could write kool kode; among those thousands at least one person did at least one thing that makes the whole experience more accessible. Is such an approach to accessibility sufficient? Can we rely on happenstance to eliminate any and all barriers? If not, where can we expect accessibility to pop up on its own, and where must we make other plans?
AjaxLife - Second Life In Your Web Browser | Metaversed
Stockholm now has a navigational aid for blind cell phone users. It can help you find your way by announcing upcoming turns you should take. But there real news here is not gee-whiz special tech, but the use of underlying mainstream technologies: regular Nokia phone, regular GPS unit, regular Bluetooth connection between the two, and all the geographical data comes from the city’s municipal infrastructure map, used for traffic control, etc. Also, the users can enter their own information, warning others of sidewalks under repair, for example.
Cell Phones Now Helping to Guide the Blind