Good comment Robert. The near invisibility of some of the exhibitors identity was puzzling, almost as if they didn't want to be seen there, (smile). Maybe if I'd asked who they were, they'd have pointed and exclaimed, 'Are you blind!' Certainly the girl guides, if you see what I mean, were perplexed and embarrassed at not being able to find what I wanted. And they did try. It was other exhititors who put us right in the end. If I didn't make it clear, then I came down marginally in favour of the new venue because of its compactness and the bar/refreshment area. I take alex's point. Maybe the RNIB could joint forces with RNID! They'd have a good excuse for their deafness then. Oh dear, don't want to put ideas into their aging head. Ray. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Stokes" <restokes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, July 16, 2004 11:43 AM Subject: [access-uk] Re: Sight Village this year? Hi Ray, Many thanks for posting this message. I've learnt more from it than I did visiting Sight Village last Tuesday. I must say I liked the change of venue. I found it much easier to get round and didn't fall over as many guide dogs as I usually do. ,grin. I only have one small criticism. I went with my wife and although she has some very useful vision, we had difficulty locating some of the stands we wished to visit. If I had products or services to sell, I'd make sure the name of my company was displayed in easy to read print, if possible at eye level. We certainly got quite a lot of help from some of the reps who approached us and didn't seem put out that we were not interested in their particular products. In fact they went out of their way in directing us to those that did interest us. Best. Robert. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ray's Home" <rays-home@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, July 16, 2004 11:09 AM Subject: [access-uk] Re: Sight Village this year? Hi Andrew. Trust the new job is going OK. I am surprised that no one as yet seems to have weighed in with their thought on Sight Village, and I'll only give you a few impressions here. The venue. If I had to come down for or against, I'd say, marginally, its an improvement on QAC. For me the main downside of the layout of the exhibition was that the main hall, or halls, were next door to one another and there was a lot of noise spill-over which made speech products very hard to hear. Really what is needed is for exhibitors with speech/hardware products to have screened off areas, while those displaying mainly information and quieter products could be together in a larger area. The whole thing was more compact though, even though it was spread over three levels if you include the mezomine area. Seminar rooms were good though. Speaking of seminars, GW Micro's presentation was a little lack-lustre. Dan Weirich hammered home the stability advantage with W-E and someone got a baseball cap for recognizing that, but I thought he could have demonstrated the private beta there, as well as downstairs. I could also be wrong here, but he didn't seem to make anything of the fact that a remote computer running Window-Eyes could be accessed with a machine that (doesn't) have Window-Eyes on it. No, I do not think I have got this wrong, for as far as I know, you can access W-E with a thin client if it has sound attached. Someone put me right if I am wrong on this, please. On the portable magnifier front, I found the 'tin can' cameras demonstrated by New Vision quite acceptable for the price and they were very portable. The idea is you hook up to a SCART on a TV, or via a box to a computer monitor where you can switch between the two images. The option including a small LCD display - which also might be a TV, was selling for £550.00. I'l post more on that if anyone is interested. In the crazy, 'you must be joking' class, we had Professional vision demonstrating an elegant camera on stand to plug into a laptop along with software for screen splitting. That will be £3,000 sir. Not bluddy likely. Think it was from a German firm called Steller, who were also there. Before leaving the subject of CCTV, I was interested in the device Andrew mentioned in his post, and would be interested in a critical review of it, if you are still reading this Andrew, (smile). Braille products. I was interested in the Braillino which seemed a very neat and sturdy device. Though its a Braille input and notetaking device, it has no inbuilt speech, but that's not a problem if you are using with a laptop with speech on board. Sure Steve will come in on improvements, but of course you can use it with a mobile. Think it comes from Handitech who may be associated with the software that makes mobiles talk. I saw the Braillenote PK, and very nice and solid it was too. As well as being a bit heavy on the pocket - well aren't they always! - you would need a pretty deep and stirdy pocket to put it in. I didn't see Mr. Mozan, which was a bit of a disappointment. Whatever you think of Pulsedata, and not all opinions are flattering to them, I must say they always have a very professional looking stand and display, and Pedro Pulson was out there on reception handing out leaflets with Braille and Print summarizing there products. Didn't see anyone else doing that. It does no harm at all, in my view, to approach blind people in a civilized way to tell what they have on show, after all, we can not see what there is until we are told. The only other product that comes to mind is the Index embossers. These have been upgraded to include USB and networkablility. Also, they are moving towards being able to use several embossers in tandom, so that if customers needs exspand, then they can just add another embosser in parallel. Waht a noise! Of course they are introducing a cabinet that will hold four embossers and hopefully forstall those claims for loss of hearing. No doubt some of you will have heard George on In touch commenting on the cost of being at SV now. To my mind, the guy from QAC didn't really put up any credible defence, other than its a more exspensive venue to hire. It was very noticable how cramped the space for some exhibitors was, and I have alreay already mentioned the noise spill problem. All this for a more than 100% price hike to exhibitors? Well, what do you folk think? You might also ponder whether 'charities' should be asking themselves whether they are in fact a charity or a business. Are you listening, RNIB? Oh, sorry, I am not a member. Was forgetting. How silly of me. Se you at Share the Vision, (smile). Ray. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew Hodgson" <andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2004 9:10 PM Subject: [access-uk] Sight Village this year? Hi, I normally try and get to Sight Village and do a summing up on this list for people who could not be there, but could someone do it for me this year as I was at work all day? Anything interesting? Each year I go thinking there won't be much there, but there is always one piece of equipment which really is worth looking at. The two pieces for me this year have been the Pacmate from Freedom Scientific, and the Quick Look from Ash technologies. Access to work got me both pieces whilst starting work, and while the Pacmate is good as expected, I never thought that an electronic magnifier would actually benefit me the way it has done! The down side to the magnifier is now I have to fax/photocopy a lot of documents, as I can see the relevant display! 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