I was featured too. Thx for the mention georgie. ;)
Sent from my iPhone
On May 5, 2012, at 5:53 PM, gar@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Our very own Maria and Lynne are featured in this article. Enjoy.
>
> g
>
>> Return-Path: <dlb723@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Return-Path: <dlb723@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>> From: "dlb723" <dlb723@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>> To: <gar@xxxxxxxxxx>
>> Subject: Fw: How the Blind Are Reinventing the iPhone
>> Date: Fri, 4 May 2012 21:02:33 -0700
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lilian Scaife"
>> <lmscaife@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>> To: "Lilian Scaife" <lmscaife@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Sent: Friday, May 04, 2012 7:28 PM
>> Subject: How the Blind Are Reinventing the iPhone
>>
>>
>>> How the Blind Are Reinventing the iPhone The Atlantic, May 2 2012
>>> Liat
>>> Kornowski - Liat Kornowski is a writer based in New York City.
>>>
>>> At first many blind people thought that the iPhone would never
be accessible
>>> to them, with its flat glass screen. But the opposite has proved
>>> true.
>>>
>>> Maria Rios, 66, woke up at 6am. She got out of bed in her little
>>> second
>>> floor apartment on the north side of Central Park, and checked her
>>> iPhone
>>> for the weather. Then she felt around in her closet, where she had
>>> marked
>>> her navy blue garments with safety pins, to tell them apart
from her black
>>> ones. In the adjacent room, her roommate Lynette Tatum, 49, picked
>>> out a
>>> white sweater and dark denim slacks. She used her VizWiz iPhone
app to take
>>> a photograph and send it to a customer-service rep who lets her know
>>> what
>>> color the item is.
>>> For the visually impaired community, the introduction of the iPhone
>>> in
>>> 2007 seemed at first like a disaster -- the standard-bearer of a new
>>> generation of smartphones was based on touch screens that had no
>>> physical
>>> differentiation. It was a flat piece of glass. But soon enough,
word started
>>> to spread: The iPhone came with a built-in accessibility feature.
>>> Still,
>>> members of the community were hesitant.
>>> But no more. For its fans and advocates in the
visually-impaired community,
>>> the iPhone has turned out to be one of the most revolutionary
developments
>>> since the invention of Braille. That the iPhone and its world
of apps have
>>> transformed the lives of its visually impaired users may seem
>>> counter-intuitive -- but their impact is striking.
>>> Watching Rios and Tatum navigate the world with the aid of
their iPhones is
>>> a lesson in the transformative and often unpredictable impacts that
>>> technology has on our lives. After getting dressed, they strap on
>>> their
>>> backpacks, canes in hand, and walk out the door. They can't see the
>>> sign
>>> someone hung in the elevator, informing them the building is
>>> switching to
>>> FIOS, but the minute they're outside the fact they can't see is a
>>> minor
>>> detail. They use Sendero -- "an app made for the blind, by the
blind," says
>>> Tatum -- an accessible GPS that announces the user's current
street, city,
>>> cross street, and nearby points of interest. What it's missing,
adds Tatum,
>>> is a feature that tells you which bus is arriving and what its
next stop is.
>>> In the meantime they walk a couple of blocks south to catch the
M1 downtown.
>>> Rios pulls out coins from her purse and pays the driver. She
tells the coins
>>> apart by their size and the ridges. Bills are another story --
but there's
>>> an app for that. It's called the LookTel Money Reader and with it you
>>> can
>>> scan the bill you're being handed, instead of depending on the
kindness of
>>> strangers.
>>> Romeo Edmead, 32, who's been blind since the age of two, is a
>>> prominent
>>> member of the blind community in New York, taking pride in who
he is and all
>>> that he can do. He's a guide at the Dialog in The Dark exhibit,
a writer for
>>> the Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the blind, and an athlete.
>>> But he hasn't caught up with the iProducts yet. "It's
revolutionary in all
>>> that it can do," admits Edmead. "Now, if I want to tell money, I have
>>> a
>>> standalone device," he demonstrates its size with the palm of his
>>> hand.
>>> "It's a kind of box you slide the bill into and it tells you
what the bill
>>> is, but it means carrying something extra. That's inconvenient."
>>> Tatum is what Edmead calls "a techie." She had a previous,
failed experience
>>> with the Android, which almost made her give up the touch technology.
>>> Luckily, she kept her mind open enough to see how those around her
>>> are
>>> adapting to the iPhone. "I started 'Info share' five years ago, where
>>> a
>>> group for visually impaired people can share information. A young
>>> lady,
>>> Eliza, got an iPhone, and she was entranced."
>>> The sales representatives at the Verizon store, she says, were
very nice and
>>> helped her set up her email account and sync her contacts. They
didn't know
>>> much besides that, and she had to teach them how accessibility
is turned on
>>> (through Settings.) "They all went 'Whoa!',"
>>> she says.
>>> Tatum and Rios happily volunteer to show off all their iPhone can do.
>>> "See, I tap it," says Tatum, her iPhone stretched in front of
her, "and it
>>> started reading out what is on the screen."
>>> Blind people use their iPhones slightly different than the
sighted because,
>>> well, they can't see what they're tapping on. So instead of pressing
>>> down
>>> and opening up an app, they can press anywhere on the screen
and hear where
>>> their finger is. If it's where they want to be, they can double-tap
>>> to
>>> enter. If it isn't, they'll flick their finger to the right, to the
>>> left,
>>> towards the top or the bottom, to navigate themselves. The same for
>>> the
>>> simple "slide to unlock" command.
>>> "We use Audible and it reads for us books that we download from
>>> audible.com," Tatum goes on. Each woman is in her respective
phone, sliding
>>> and flicking and taping, looking for apps. What makes an app stick,
>>> they
>>> explain, is whether it's practical, accessible, fast, and easy
to use. Rios
>>> adds that she downloaded a hundred apps by now, but for the
most part she'll
>>> use an app once or twice and leave it. There are a few, like
Sendero, that
>>> they use every day. "There's also HeyTell, it's speech texting,"
>>> explains
>>> Tatum. She demonstrates, and manages fairly quickly to record a few
>>> words
>>> and send them to Maria. Maria receives the message, opens it,
and holds her
>>> phone to her ear. It works. "There's Dragon Dictation, but that's
>>> half
>>> baked," says Tatum.
>>> "You can speak to it and it turns it into a written text you
can then send
>>> over." There's also HopStop. "It's completely accessible, you put in
>>> your
>>> destination and it tells you what trains to take and exactly how to
>>> get
>>> there."
>>> Chalkias, Tatum's colleague, is not only an iPhone advocate who
>>> breezes
>>> through the device faster than a baby with an iPad, he also gives
>>> private
>>> lessons to people of all ages on how to use it. He has found that
>>> people,
>>> young and old, who can use a computer, are familiar with the desktop
>>> environment, and can type, have an easier transition to the
>>> touchscreen.
>>> "The first thing I teach is the layout," he explains. "They have to
>>> understand it's a grid, four by four [apps], they need to understand
>>> the
>>> dock, the status bar, how to unlock the screen.It's a new
language, it means
>>> moving from buttons to no buttons, and it means relying
completely on audio
>>> cues, so it takes time to adjust. The name iPhone is misleading
-- it's more
>>> of a computer than a phone."
>>> Siri, the highly acclaimed feature of the iPhone 4S, isn't the answer
>>> to
>>> everyone's prayers, in his view. It's a nice shtick, but it's not
>>> always
>>> compatible with the voice over feature. "She'll hear what you're
>>> saying,
>>> explains Chalkias, "but either not respond or her answer will
appear on the
>>> screen and you'll still have to tap it to hear the response, so there
>>> are
>>> still some glitches."
>>> Tatum and Rios mention that in the future they'd like their device to
>>> describe to them what's on the street as they're walking down
-- Toys "R" Us
>>> or CVS. It would be great if the phone could vibrate anytime
they are close
>>> to one. There should be an app that inform thems of construction
>>> sites:
>>> Even the accessible GPS apps don't mention those.
>>> They would also like an app that reads out restaurant menus, and a
>>> navigation app that works indoors.
>>> People like Nektarios Paisios, 30, are the ones who can make those
>>> wishes
>>> come true. Paisios, a Computer Science student from Cyprus, moved to
>>> New
>>> York four and half year ago to work on his dissertation. He went
>>> blind at
>>> four years of age, and is working on a number of iPhone apps that
>>> could
>>> potentially solve some of the blind community's problems with the
>>> device.
>>> One of them is an indoor GPS.
>>> "One of the biggest concerns of the blind community is finding their
>>> way
>>> around independently," he says. "You can find an address, but what if
>>> you
>>> get someplace and you have nobody to help you find your way around
>>> the
>>> building?" His solution, still in the works, will attempt to
sketch a map of
>>> the building based on previous routes taken within, and the
strength of the
>>> wireless signals bouncing from the different sources.
>>> It'll also take into consideration the pace and number of steps a
>>> person
>>> takes from one point to the next. If a blind person were to arrive to
>>> a
>>> hotel, he'd only need to be shown to his room once. The iPhone
will remember
>>> the way for him, and navigate him back and forth from the room
to the lobby.
>>> Another app Paisios is working on is a more elaborate form of VizWiz,
>>> the
>>> app that tells the person what color is the shirt he is about
to wear. For
>>> people like him who have no recollection of color ("yellow means
>>> ripe,
>>> because yellow bananas are ripe"), it doesn't mean much that
the shirt he is
>>> pointing to is green. He'd like a stylist app to tell him what this
>>> green
>>> goes with, so he can know which color pants to put on. It'll
also be able to
>>> tell more intricate designs. "What if people want to be fashionable?"
>>> he
>>> asks earnestly.
>>> Yet for all that technology has helped achieve, many in the
blind community
>>> fear it might result in illiteracy in the generations to come.
>>> "I think the technology that's coming out right now is wonderful,"
>>> says Chalkias,"but I also think it's dumbing us down because it's
>>> making
>>> everything so easy. I have a lot of teens who have speech technology
>>> and
>>> they don't know how to spell, and it's horrifying to see that." Rios
>>> has
>>> encountered the same problem. She is an administrative assistant at
>>> the
>>> music school of Lighthouse International "an organization dedicated
>>> to
>>> overcoming vision impairment," based in Manhattan, and a tutor
at CCVIP who
>>> helps Maria with teenagers. "Even now I come in contact with
kids who can't
>>> spell," she says. "Young adults don't read Braille because they
have screen
>>> readers who read for them."
>>> "I definitely think there's benefits to this technology" Chalkias
>>> says.
>>> ''But if it keeps getting easier we're just going to be a
society of idiots
>>> that can't do anything except tell our computers what to do for us."
>>>
>>>
>>> VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
>>> Archived on the World Wide Web at
>>> http://listserv.icors.org/archives/vicug-l.html
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>
>
