Apocalyptic Accessibility Predictions for 2012

Happy New Year, everyone!

As we begin our first steps of the new year, the last one - full of accomplishment, tragedy, comedy, and conflict - leaves us with a legacy of accessibility that we must fulfill. Issues with Ubuntu's new Unity environment, GNOME 3 difficulties, Twitter being embraced as a viable and accessible social network, new research being done on brainwave-reading interfaces for use with consumer electronics, COICA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combating_Online_Infringement_and_Counterfeits_Act) and SOPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act) both threatening accessibility on the information superhighway, Microsoft threatening vendor lock-in even more with its UEFI Secure Boot (http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/10/the-right-to-dual-boot-linux-groups-plead-case-prior-to-windows-8-launch.ars), and the ever-growing number of Android smartphone users all made 2011 a very significant year in assistive technology and accessibility.

There are improvements to be made. As IPv6 and HTML5 slowly grow in usage, accessibility must be taken into account for all websites. Smartphones, netbooks, laptops, desktops, tablets, and cloud-based devices are on the rise. So much so, in fact, that America's 16-year-olds seem to be breaking off the love affair with the car (http://adage.com/article/digital/digital-revolution-driving-decline-u-s-car-culture/144155/), trading it for mass transit and high-quality digital technology.

I made some good predictions last year - thankfully, only a few came true. Smartphone assistive technology indeed did grow and develop. One excellent example was the rise of digital personal assistants like Vlingo (http://www.vlingo.com/) and Apple's Siri. Open-Source, Linux, and community-driven development drove new assistive/accessible technology software and apps, such as Wheelmap (wheelmap.org).
Unfortunately, closed-source assistive technology did not drop in price, and did indeed rise in some cases. Hardware and software costs were barely contained on the closed-source side, with costs being out of reach for most. Cognitive web accessibility became a more prominent issue within the disability community, but not in the way that many wanted it to become, due to many factors in the disability and techonology communities.
Thankfully, Net Neutrality was NOT killed off by Congress, although they certainly tried through COICA and SOPA. Net Neutrality on cell phone internet traffic, however, has been curtailed almost completely.
And finally, on a very pleasant note, more people with disabilities joined cyberspace online. Communities for people with disabilities have bloomed across social networks, forums, e-mail listservs, and more. As it is said, in cyberspace, no one can see your race, color, creed, gender, religion, or disability.

So what does 2012 hold?

In 2012, the year of the mayan apocalypse, I predict (with reservation) the following - in no particular order:

Why The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is Bad News for People With Disabilities

I'm going to be quite blunt about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Not only will it stifle innovation, create untold amounts of bureaucratic red tape and threaten personal privacy and security on a gigantic scale, it will also cripple communications for people with disabilties as they know it.

(Not familiar with the SOPA Act? Read here and get updated: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57329001-281/how-sopa-would-affect-you-faq/)

If you're skeptical of my analysis, look at the facts. SOPA will likely demand a complete re-structuring of DNS (Domain Name System), heavy monitoring of customer traffic by Internet Service Providers (AT&T, Verizon, etc), deep packet inspection (meaning forcing an Internet provider to intercept and analyze customers' web traffic), and allow broad interpretation of what constitutes copyright infringement.

To put it simply, if any website you visit casually links to another site that hosts infringed content, both sites could be completely blocked via court order. For example, a 12-year-old with their own blog that hosts videos of them singing current pop hits would be taken down with extreme prejudice, since even posting such video violates copyright. Oh, and the blogging site itself would be taken down for linking to such content, too.

While at first it doesn't seem to really affect people with disabilities, if you look under the surface, it's clear to see the damage that could be done.

Take, for example, social networking - specifically, twitter. The 140-character-per-tweet service is a welcome communication method for people with disabilities, due to its accessibility and simplicity.

Under SOPA, if one of your friends posts a link to a site that hosts infringed content, the whole site is taken down.

 

Not just your account - or your friends' account - the whole site, Twitter.com, is blocked.

 

If you're a regular commenter on a forum for people with disabilities - and someone posts a video/picture/audio clip from a movie, TV show, or other form of media - that forum can be blocked. 

Those are just a couple of examples. Let's be clear, though - the internet, as users with disabilities know it - would change drastically, at the very least disrupting, and at the worst eliminating methods of communication they use.

Gutting online piracy at the expense of online communication and socialization for people with disabilities is absolutely reprehensible.

 

Join the fight against SOPA here: (https://wfc2.wiredforchange.com/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173)

 

Polishing Chrome With Accessibility

It used to be that the choice of web browser was painfully limited; Internet Explorer topped the list, followed by those who used Safari on their Macs, and whatever those odd Linux users had picked (I'm a Linux user by the way). Fortunately, this is no longer the case, and consumers have a wide variety to fit their own unique preference, taste and needs.

Many of you have heard of Internet Explorer (after all, it's pre-packaged in all current Microsoft Windows operating systems), Safari (pre-packaged in Macs), and possibly Firefox (one of the most popular browsers in the world). Google has also released a browser as well, dubbed 'Chrome'.

Chrome is a very fast browser utilizing tabs for its interface, along with a simplified window to improve the visual experience. However, users with disabilities seemed to not be at the top of the list, as many in the assistive technology world noted it to be a "virtual black hole" of accessibility. In the past few months though, this may have started to change, with the introduction of themes, extensions and apps that enabled better access to Chrome for people with disabilities. Not only that, but Google added their Voice Search (standard in their Android mobile operating system) to Chrome, a notable nod in the direction of accessibility and convenience. 

Google began rolling out their Voice Search for their Chrome/Chromium browser as a way to quicken up the foraging experience. It's quite nice, to be honest - just click the microphone in the search bar and say what you want to find (example: brownie recipes); your query is typed in and Google's search engine starts scanning for your content. You don't need to have a special microphone or other customized equipment, either - I was able to use my laptop's built-in microphone (usually nothing more than a tiny hole near either the webcam at the top of the screen or near the speakers in the base) with no problems. From simple words with few syllables to more complex ones with many syllables, it was quite impressive.

But for me, that's not enough - I wanted to see if it could handle more, and if Google had actually taken into account the issue of accessibility rather than just doing a copy & paste job on a feature from Android. So I threw it a curve ball - I activated Orca Screen Reader, enabled it so that it would read whatever I moused over, and tried my hardest to confuse the Voice Search.

The result was much more impressive than I would have imagined; Google's Voice Search handled Orca as if it was a native application. At no time did Orca's reading interfere with my voice searching, even when done at the same time. It's intelligent to know the difference between what is coming out the speakers and what is going in the microphone, and to differentiate. Very cool. 

Unfortunately, this feature is only available in the Chrome/Chromium browser as of now, but hopefully will be coming to Firefox and other browsers by surfing to the Google website. One can only hope...

 

Polishing Chrome With Accessibility

It used to be that the choice of web browser was painfully limited; Internet Explorer topped the list, followed by those who used Safari on their Macs, and whatever those odd Linux users had picked (I'm a Linux user by the way). Fortunately, this is no longer the case, and consumers have a wide variety to fit their own unique preference, taste and needs.

Many of you have heard of Internet Explorer (after all, it's pre-packaged in all current Microsoft Windows operating systems), Safari (pre-packaged in Macs), and possibly Firefox (one of the most popular browsers in the world). Google has also released a browser as well, dubbed 'Chrome'.

Chrome is a very fast browser utilizing tabs for its interface, along with a simplified window to improve the visual experience. However, users with disabilities seemed to not be at the top of the list, as many in the assistive technology world noted it to be a "virtual black hole" of accessibility. In the past few months though, this may have started to change, with the introduction of themes, extensions and apps that enabled better access to Chrome for people with disabilities. Not only that, but Google added their Voice Search (standard in their Android mobile operating system) to Chrome, a notable nod in the direction of accessibility and convenience. 

Google began rolling out their Voice Search for their Chrome/Chromium browser as a way to quicken up the foraging experience. It's quite nice, to be honest - just click the microphone in the search bar and say what you want to find (example: brownie recipes); your query is typed in and Google's search engine starts scanning for your content. You don't need to have a special microphone or other customized equipment, either - I was able to use my laptop's built-in microphone (usually nothing more than a tiny hole near either the webcam at the top of the screen or near the speakers in the base) with no problems. From simple words with few syllables to more complex ones with many syllables, it was quite impressive.

But for me, that's not enough - I wanted to see if it could handle more, and if Google had actually taken into account the issue of accessibility rather than just doing a copy & paste job on a feature from Android. So I threw it a curve ball - I activated Orca Screen Reader, enabled it so that it would read whatever I moused over, and tried my hardest to confuse the Voice Search.

The result was much more impressive than I would have imagined; Google's Voice Search handled Orca as if it was a native application. At no time did Orca's reading interfere with my voice searching, even when done at the same time. It's intelligent to know the difference between what is coming out the speakers and what is going in the microphone, and to differentiate. Very cool. 

Unfortunately, this feature is only available in the Chrome/Chromium browser as of now, but hopefully will be coming to Firefox and other browsers by surfing to the Google website. One can only hope...

Update! - Having problems getting Chrome to recognize my voice. Don't know what's happened, but it may be due to a number of causes, namely the fact that I'm running Chromium (Linux version of Chrome) and that I'm using ALSA for my sound card drivers (too much to explain). I highly suggest trying Google's Voice Search out regardless of my recent experience. It could be as simple as a need for a Chromium update. 

Tablets & Ubuntu: Highs and Lows

Greetings to all!

Wow, it has been a eventful time since I last posted; not to make excuses, but with family in Joplin, I had higher priorities. Thankfully, they are all safe and sound.

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As we've seen within the past month or so, tablets have taken over the tech industry by storm - even though most users don't even have one yet. While I don't have any statistics to back this up, I do have the fact that the majority of my co-workers, friends, family and the people that I meet each day (yes, these are the people in my neighborhood) not owning a tablet device.

However, that IS changing. Major companies are focusing on tablets, such as Samsung, Motorola, and Apple - and most of the major ones haven't even debuted yet.

So let's clear the air here: the iPad is not the only tablet available for people with disabilities. In fact, it wasn't even the first tablet created. Tablet computers have been around since 2000, but failed to reach popularity until the iPad.

Currently, Apple's iPad/iPad 2 is the must-have, hot gadget for accessibility and assistive technology among professionals working with people with disabilities.

To be honest, it does provide accessibility - touchscreen navigation, a section of the App Store unfortunately referred to as "special needs" - which is an incredibly discriminatory term for people with disabilities - and more. It's slim, stylish, and fits well in various carry-alls.

But it is not the only tablet available for people with disabilities.
 

There are ten - TEN! - new Android tablets alone coming out this year. One such tablet, the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, comes with all the features of a regular Android tablet, and features a keyboard dock.

And it starts at $399.

If that's too high, there are other, less expensive tablets coming your way: Motorola's Xoom2, HP's touchpad, Samsung's Galaxy 2 and more.

But wait, what about apps? 

Accessibility applications are available on the Android Market - and are free or available at low cost. Apps such as Google Goggles, various screen readers,  text-to-speech apps, etc, etc.

So keep your options open the next time you are looking for an assistive technology device - specifically a tablet.

Power Up Android Accessibility

*(For those of you who attended my presentation and wish to download the materials mentioned, please see the end of this post)

Last week, I attended the PowerUp Assistive Technology Conference in Columbia, Missouri (http://www.at.mo.gov/powerup/) and gave a presentation about accessibility in Android and Google's App market. Many found it pretty informative, and didn't know Android actually had accessibility capabilities.

 

 So, to help more concisely - and perhaps critically - review Android on an Assistive Technology level, I will give an overview of it in this post.

*Also, after many requests from the participants, I will now begin to feature at least one Accessible Android App every week - displayed on a secondary page for easy browsing. (http://thelatte.posterous.com/pages/accessible-android-apps)

SO! Without further ado....

Power Up Android (and my allergies): A Unique Post

*(For those of you who attended my presentation and wish to download the materials mentioned, please see the end of this post)

Last week, I attended the PowerUp Assistive Technology Conference in Columbia, Missouri and gave a presentation about accessibility in Android and Google's App market. Many found it pretty informative, and didn't know Android actually had accessibility capabilities.

 So, to help more concisely - and perhaps critically - review Android on an Assistive Technology level, I will give an overview of it in this post.

*Also, after many requests from the participants, I will now begin to feature at least one Accessible Android App every week - displayed on a secondary page for easy browsing. (http://thelatte.posterous.com/pages/accessible-android-apps)

SO! Without further ado....