[accessibleimage] Esref Armagon, John Kennedy Discovery Chanel, Audio guide, lawyer, artist

Hi, Sending some links. One is a MUST!!!The Discovery Chanel program about Esref Armagan with Prof. John Kennedy. Excellent Joan Erocel first told me that Discovery would be coming out with this program in November. Here it is on YouTube. 
A definite must
http://thoughtware.tv/videos/show/1220
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3AgO6H0H98
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Scotsman.com (UK)
Saturday, November 10, 2007

Audio guide's picture for the blind
BLIND and visually-impaired people can get a special tour of the Scottish Parliament thanks to a pilot scheme.
Six visitors were given a unique tour round Holyrood by trained "audio describer" Bridget Stevens yesterday.
She described everything from materials used on the building to debating chamber equipment.
A spokesman said a decision on whether to make the tours permanent will be taken in the new year. 

Last updated: 10-Nov-07 12:29 GMT


http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1785232007
----------Invitation to participate to the beta program of Mobile Daisy Player v2.0 Code Factory announces upcoming release of new version of Mobile Daisy Player, with enhanced format support and industry-leading usability features
Code Factory, the global leader in mobile accessibility solutions, today announces the upcoming release of the 2.0 version of its Mobile Daisy Player product and invites users to participate to the beta program which will start during Q1 2008.
This new version represents a leap forward in functionality over the previous version, including several new features designed to streamline usability and support a wider set of formats. 

Some of the highlighted features of Mobile Daisy Player 2.0 include:
* Support for both Daisy 2.0 and Daisy 3.0 books, opening up a wider selection of content from even more sources than before. * The ability to access text-only, audio-only, and mixed-mode books, thanks to Code Factory’s support of the widest array of text-to-speech engines in the industry. * Variable-speed playback, allowing the audio content of the book to be listened to at either faster or slower than normal speed, without changing the pitch of the audio. * Direct-to-phone book installation allows you to copy the Daisy book contents directly to your memory card, without requiring a separate installation step as in previous versions. * Complete bookmarking capability allows you to store and jump to specific locations within a book for easy access * Auto-resume feature creates a bookmark when stopping playback or closing a book, allowing you to pick up exactly where you left off * Essential navigation functions, such as accessing the table of contents, or skipping backward or forward by sections, pages, or chapters.
Mobile Daisy Player 2.0 will be available for both Symbian and Windows Mobile platforms.
If you are interested in participating in the beta test of Mobile Daisy Player 2.0, please send your information (name, email address, phone model and IMEI number) to beta-mobiledaisy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Note that Code Factory will also be presenting a seminar on the use of electronic books, including Mobile Daisy Player, at the 2008 ATIA conference in Orlando, Florida. For more information, please visit www.atia.org. 
About Code Factory
Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Terrassa/Barcelona, Spain, Code Factory is the global leader committed to the development of products designed to eliminate barriers to the accessibility of mobile technology for the blind and visually impaired. Today, Code Factory is the leading provider of screen readers, screen magnifiers, and Braille interfaces for the widest range of mainstream mobile devices including Symbian-based and Windows Mobile-powered Smartphones as well as Pocket PC phones and PDAs. Its product line is the only one to support phones working on the GSM, CDMA and WCDMA networks. Code Factory's success lies in giving excellent customer support and in responding immediately to the needs of its end users.
Among Code Factory’s customers are well known organizations like ONCE, and carriers such as TMN, Vodafone, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and AT&T. The company also collaborated with leading TTS providers and Braille manufacturers, thus enabling Code Factory to provide excellent text-to-speech technology in many languages for Mobile Speak products, and to incorporate support for over twenty wireless Braille devices into the software. 


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Tools for an Unconventional Lawyer
excerpt

http://www.law.com/jsp/ihc/PubArticleIHC.jsp?id=1198663505112
In their early days together, they took a road trip into the South, driving until they reached an island off the coast of Florida, framed with mangroves. There, he worked as a massage therapist and personal trainer for two years. Afterward, Meghan drove the two West as they headed out to UCLA for him to attend film school.
He graduated -- and even succeeded in a class on silent films -- but he was put off by the prospect of selling his work. So he put away his box of unpublished scripts, including one of his favorites: a tale of a grandfather and his blind grandson, a story spurred mostly by "wishful thinking," he said, and prepared for the LSAT. 




article
Wisc. State Journal

http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/263748
Artwork the visually impaired can see


December 24, 2007
Even as she completed her master 's of fine arts degree in 1980, Janis Nussbaum Senungetuk noticed her sight was dimming. Her speciality -- fine, detailed portraits -- eventually began to fatigue her eyes so much that she all but gave it up. 

And then, color began to leave her.
"Blues and greens were very gray, " she says. "I lost yellow altogether. If there was yellow on a white page, I couldn 't see it. Other colors were fading, not into pastels but into gray. "
Doctor after doctor told Nussbaum Senungetuk she had cataracts on both eyes, but they weren 't ready to be removed. "And I said, But I 'm an artist, and color 's so important to me. ' They kept patting me on the head and saying, There 's nothing we can do about it. ' "
Finally, she met retinal specialist Dr. Barbara Blodi, who ordered surgery. Though she remains legally blind in her left eye, Nussbaum Senungetuk regained 20/25 vision in her right eye. 

Just as important, color returned to her life.
"I wanted to have a parade up and down Washington Avenue and say, I can see color again ' " she recalls, "because it is so much a part of my life. "
Intense, bright, vivid color is what Nussbaum Senungetuk celebrates in "Bold Visions, " her exhibit of 14 photographs on display through Feb. 28 at the Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired.
Photographed with a digital camera in flower gardens and farmers ' markets across Madison, the images were manipulated by Nussbaum Senungetuk on her computer to aesthetically enhance them -- and also to make them more discernible to viewers with diminished sight.
In some cases, she 's replaced the garden behind a stunning lily with a black background, so the flower image virtually pops from the frame. In others, she 's manipulated the depth of field on her camera or intensified contrasts with her computer so that, to a viewer with full vision, the prints mimic beautifully rendered watercolors.
Nussbaum Senungetuk manipulates the photos on her computer using Adobe Photoshop software and prints them on 100-percent rag printmaking paper.
Originally, she started playing with Photoshop "to make (the photos) more accessible to me, because it helped me see the image more clearly, " she says. "It was only after it was pointed out to me that people who are visually impaired would enjoy this work because of that quality that I really started educating myself how to make it even more accessible. "
Working pixel by pixel "takes some patience, " says Nussbaum Senungetuk, 61, a native of Kansas City who moved to Madison with her young daughter in 1981.
"But I 'm also interested in finding out how far I can push something. And very often I start out working in one medium, and end up with a mixed-media piece. I have always used some form of photography in my work. When I was painting, I would work very often from my photographs.
"In print-making, I went into photo etching and (screenprinting). The work that I 'm showing here is photo-based, but it is not straight photography, because I have altered the images to increase contrast and the color intensity. "
Nussbaum Senungetuk, who won the Madison Arts Commission 's 2007 Signature Grant to put together the show, printed title cards for each photo in 18-point type and also posted title cards in Braille. For the visitor who wants to do a self-guided audio tour, she 's recorded a narrative tape.
A staffer at the Council made suggestions along the way. "When I was writing my catalog for the show, she told me what she would find important to know, " says Nussbaum Senungetuk. "It goes far beyond On your right there 's a butterfly. ' She wants to know more -- about the atmosphere of the work, the variety of colors, the variety of flowers. This is someone who 's never had sight.
"Someone who is blind from birth, who has not had the experience of direct knowledge of colors, isn 't mentally blocked, " says Nussbaum Senungetuk, whose own visual impairment is from diabetic retinopathy.
"They still have an idea of colors and shapes, and the more research that neuroscience has done, the more they have discovered that the vision is there. It may not totally correspond to a sighted person 's vision. But it 's not just a blank, empty space. "
One of the biggest surprises from "Bold Visions, " she says, has been the hugs.
"I 've had a woman hug me and say, I can see this after so many years of not being able to. ' And it brought back good memories for her. So that was wonderful, and great encouragement to continue. " 

If you go
What: "Bold Visions, " a portfolio of floral images by Janis Nussbaum Senungetuk.
Where: Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired, 754 Williamson St. 

When: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays through Feb. 28.
Admission: Free. Framed and matted works for sale, $330- $375; a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired. 

Information and tours: 255-1166 or www.wcblind.org

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