[bcab] Re: Are Macs viable for VIs?

Hi Geoff, I was at the BETT (British Educational Technology & Training) 
exhibition earlier this 
month and had a demonstration of assistiveware's visio voice product for the 
MAC OS platform. 
Quite simply it was the best I've ever witnessed a mac working for blind & VI 
users so far, a very 
impressive & functional screen reader with a wide range of voices and a 
reasonably good 
magnification system too.

Price £164.   More information available at
http://www.assistiveware.com

(Copied text on the main features)

About VisioVoice

VisioVoice® is an application that enhances access to Mac OS X for blind and 
vision impaired users. 
It adds multilingual support to Apple's excellent VoiceOver screen reader 
technology for a number of 
languages, as well as providing several other speech and vision related 
features to enhance access 
to Mac OS X. VisioVoice comes bundled with Infovox iVox, which provides the 
best voices ever on the 
Mac in a wide range of languages. VisioVoice is a Universal Binary and can be 
used on PowerPC and 
Intel Macs.
VisioVoice makes using the computer easier, more efficient and more fun, 
because of the high quality 
voices, its easy to use text reader, the powerful zoom functionality, the large 
cursors and its 
ability to convert text to audio files and iTunes tracks.

Features

Document Reader: VisioVoice includes an advanced document and selection reader 
with play, pause, 
stop, rewind and fast forward functions. As it speaks, it can highlight the 
spoken words or 
sentences. Use it to listen to the selection in any application or to Text, 
Word, HTML, PDF and RTF 
documents.

Creation of audio and iTunes files: VisioVoice can convert Text, Word, HTML, 
PDF and RTF documents 
to audio files or iPod-ready iTunes tracks.

Large cursors: VisioVoice includes large, customizable cross-hair and target 
cursors that make using 
the Mac much easier for vision impaired users.

Image Zoom: VisioVoice includes an Image Enlarger that makes it easier to see 
what is on the screen. 
Unlike the built-in zoom functionality of Mac OS X, which zooms the entire 
screen, the Image 
Enlarger window just zooms the area around the cursor, so that you do not loose 
sight of the "big 
picture".

Text Zoom: VisioVoice includes an Text Enlarger that shows the title of 
buttons, menus, text entry 
areas, and all other "accessible" text in large type in a separate window. 
Because the text itself 
is enlarged, rather than the image of the text, the enlarged text is crisp and 
easy to read. This 
feature works for all applications that support Apple's Accessibility API, 
including Safari, Mail, 
Finder, TextEdit, as well as many third-party applications.

Talking interface: VisioVoice's Talking Interface speaks the contents of 
buttons, menu items, text 
entry areas, and all other "accessible" text, as the user navigates across the 
screen. This feature 
works for all applications that support Apple's Accessibility API, including 
Safari, Mail, Finder, 
TextEdit, as well as many third-party applications.

Translated version of VoiceOver: VisioVoice includes translations of VoiceOver 
and VoiceOver Utility 
for French and Dutch so that now also non-English users can make use of the 
built-in Mac OS X screen 
reader. Additional languages may be available in the future.

Infovox iVox naturally-sounding, multi-lingual voices: VisioVoice comes bundled 
with Infovox iVox, 
which provides the best voices ever on the Mac. Infovox iVox is available for 
multiple languages, 
including: American English, British English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, 
Flemish, Spanish, 
Portuguese, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish.

System-wide keyboard shortcuts: VisioVoice provides many user-configurable 
system-wide hot keys for 
easy access to it's core functionality by blind and vision impaired users.

Requirements for VisioVoice

VisioVoice requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later, but Mac OS X 10.4.6 or later is 
recommended.
Minimum recommended hardware: G3/G4/G5 900 Mhz with 512 MB or any Intel Mac.

(End of visio voice schpeel)

You also might to look at

www.macvisionaries.com

Where Saqib Shaikh (who I met at Sight Village last year) is a blind mac user 
who has done a lot of 
work on Mac accessibility.    They haven't updated for a while (anyone hear 
from Saqib since 
Techshare?) but a lot of very useful information.

Lastly ATHEN (Access Technology Higher Education Network) did some serious 
testing of Bootcamp
(= intel mac dual boot) systems and tested Jaws 7, Zoomtext, Dolphin Easereader 
& Dolphin Producer, 
successfully.

See The following ATHEN blog entries for more info:-
http://athenpro.blogspot.com/2006/07/up-in-mornin-with-risin-sun.html
http://athenpro.blogspot.com/2006/07/bootcamp-part-2.html
http://athenpro.blogspot.com/2006/08/bootcamp-continues.html

Hope this is helpful information.

Leon Gilbert
Editor, www.vipnews.org.uk


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Geoff Madge IS Contracts Manager" <Geoff.Madge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bcab@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 11:08 AM
Subject: [bcab] Re: Are Macs viable for VIs?


Tristram,

Thanks very much for the insight on this.  I would like to know whether Macs
are as good as everybody who uses them keep telling me they are.  What do
you think?





Regards,

Geoff Madge
Contracts Manager
Information Services
Essex County Council
County Hall
Chelmsford CM1 1LX
Tel 01245 431332 (Ednet 21332)
Email geoff.madge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: bcab-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bcab-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Tristram Llewellyn
Sent: 29 January 2007 10:49
To: bcab@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bcab] Re: Are Macs viable for VIs?


Being a Mac owner and knowing a thing or two about screen readers I would
say in general it is isn't viable yet.  There are still a lot of things tbat
are not accessible.  It may be worth holding off until you see OS 10.5 and
guage opinion from there, whilst publically they have announced the
improvements made to VoiceOver application support was not one of them
unless they are keeping something back.  Ironically at present Apples iTunes
is less accessible on a Mac than it is on a PC.

Regards.

Tristram Llewellyn
Sight and Sound Technology
Technical Support
www.sightandsound.co.uk <http://www.sightandsound.co.uk>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Geoff Madge IS Contracts Manager <mailto:Geoff.Madge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: 'bcab@xxxxxxxxxxxxx' <mailto:'bcab@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'>
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 9:31 AM
Subject: [bcab] Are Macs viable for VIs?

Hello All.

I am considering buying a new system at home and I am interested to know if
anybody is using a Mac successfully as their home system.  Is OSX 10.4 and
all the associated applications accessible to a totally blind person now?
Also, can it support braille output reliably.  I look forward to hearing
views both for and against.


Regards,

Geoff Madge
Contracts Manager
Information Services
Essex County Council
County Hall
Chelmsford CM1 1LX
Tel 01245 431332 (Ednet 21332)
Email geoff.madge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx




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