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Employment-population ratio: Of the approximately 4 million people who reported vision loss, only 875,000 (22%) were identified as employed. The employment-population ratio of 22% was the percentage of people who reported vision loss in the civilian noninstitutional population and were identified as employed. This means that of the nearly 4 million people with vision loss, only 22% of these people with vision loss were also identified as employed.

It's not an "insignificant number."

Here's a magazine about assistive devices for the visually impaired that's having a special on-line Q&A event this very week:

http://www.familyconnect.org/calendar.asp?EventID=2955

Ask the AccessWorld Experts! Special Online Event November 14-18

Dates: 11/14/2011 - 11/18/2011

AccessWorld iconFamilyConnect and AccessWorld Magazine are excited to announce a special opportunity for families to interact directly with some of the foremost authorities on accessible technology—from cell phones to ebooks, screen readers, classroom adaptations, and more.

Simply visit FamilyConnect's Ask the Experts blog anytime from November 14-18 (Monday-Friday) and leave your questions or concerns in the comments. Our team will be on hand to respond to your inquiries.

AccessWorld's accessibility experts include:

        Lee Huffman
        Tara Annis
        Brad Hodges
        Janet Ingber
        Deborah Kendrick
        J.J. Meddaugh
        Ike Presley
        John Rempel

This one-of-a-kind opportunity allows families to have their questions and concerns about assistive technology addressed by leading experts. Join us November 14-18 for this exciting online event!

Contact: Lee Huffman

E-Mail: accessworld@afb.net

URL: http://www.familyconnect.org/experts

And here's AccessWorld:

AccessWorld
Technology and People Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired

http://www.afb.org/aw/main.asp

I knew some people at the American Foundation for the Blind. At that time, they had a research department of a couple of engineers creating assistive devices. You might contact the AFB or other blindness organizations and find an engineer to talk to. You might well find somebody who will be enthusiastic about your project.

IAccessible2 is a new accessibility API which complements Microsoft's earlier work on MSAA. This API fills critical accessibility API gaps in the MSAA offering. IAccessible2 was created out of necessity to produce a usable and accessible OpenDocument Format (ODF) based office suite for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. IAccessible2 is an engineered accessibility interface allowing application developers to leverage their investment in MSAA while also providing an Assistive Technology (AT) access to rich document applications such as the IBM Workplace productivity editors and web browsers such as Firefox. The additional functionality includes support for rich text, tables, spreadsheets, Web 2.0 applications, and other large mainstream applications.

Are you telling me that this will magically get Windows Phone 7 phones to have accessibility support? Because I'm not reading that.

Additionally, Microsoft seems pretty conciliatory on this. From the AFB link:

Andy Lees, president of Microsoft's Mobile Communications Business, accepted responsibility, saying, "We were incompetent on this."

apparently the BLIND think it's pretty slick

this is the American Foundation for the Blind. ORG

http://www.afb.org/blog/blog_comments.asp?TopicID=6149&FolderID=25

Yes, it's an all-touch-screen device. Yes, I've always said that touch screens and blind people don't go together -- it's suggested, usually by slightly dumb people, that I could just memorize where all the icons were and then I could touch the screen at the right spot and get the right thing to happen... Do they really think they could withdraw $100 from an ATM that way? Dial a phone?

But, the iPhone and iPad have an ingenious and delightful interface that actually makes the touch screen a pleasure to use.

There will be a proper, full-featured review of the iPad in AccessWorld soon. These are just the first impressions of a so-far-happy customer.

here's more.
http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw110206

apparently the BLIND think it's pretty slick

this is the American Foundation for the Blind. ORG

http://www.afb.org/blog/blog_comments.asp?TopicID=6149&FolderID=25

Yes, it's an all-touch-screen device. Yes, I've always said that touch screens and blind people don't go together -- it's suggested, usually by slightly dumb people, that I could just memorize where all the icons were and then I could touch the screen at the right spot and get the right thing to happen... Do they really think they could withdraw $100 from an ATM that way? Dial a phone?

But, the iPhone and iPad have an ingenious and delightful interface that actually makes the touch screen a pleasure to use.

There will be a proper, full-featured review of the iPad in AccessWorld soon. These are just the first impressions of a so-far-happy customer.

here's more.
http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw110206

A book does discriminate, hence large print editions to enable partially sighted users access to content. You see making things accessible isn't impossible or even difficult.

Actually in this case its an interesting angle of attack.
The kindle could be far more accessible to blind or partially sighted users. We already know that text to speech was taken out of the kindle due to Publishers wanting to restrict any possible reduction in sales of audio books.

Since the function is there but disabled then yes the kindle is discriminating against the blind. now if there is any legislation that could force the re-enabling of this feature then the law might be able to trump the publishers.

I'm sure amazon won't protest too much if they are forced to re-enable a feature they were forced to disable.

Theres probably enough sales now for publishers to accept the re-enabling rather than lose future ebook sales or worse take ebooks away from the kindle that have already been sold. Presumably they would have to refund the cost of any ebooks they force to be deleted.

I don't know if there any suitable ports on the kindle for addition of a braille display.
such as
http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw070311
or
http://www.visioncue.com/ALVABC640.html

Prices for braille displays are insanely expensive the last link costs $4,750 but there is Linux support for braille displays (isn't the kindle linux based?) although perhaps they would be forced to use the SD card slot for I/O (its been used to add TV to PDA's among other devices ) unfortunately the Kindle2 drops the SD card Slot and removable battery
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9127739/Kindle_fans_upset_that_Kindle_2_drops_SD_slot_replaceable_battery

on the other hand a netbook with a good battery and a copy of unswindle http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/23/amazon_kindle_hacked/
and the content available on the kindle is available to everybody, proving yet again DRM exists to slap the paying customer in the face. Is there anything DRm'd that can't be got for free with the protection removed?

really the kindles just a portable computer and its limitations are capable of being changed.

http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=15&DocumentID=4398#numbers says that 20 million people have significant vision loss. Plus, add in the number of people who are close to blind without contacts or glasses on and the elderly and you can easily see 55 million people.

but, isn't it going a bit far on things that just are naturally aimed for normal people?

I happen to believe that this country's government should do everything possible to help those who want to contribute and be a part of society do so -- normality not withstanding. Most people don't make a choice to go deaf, blind, or become handicapped. It just happens (most of the time). I would feel a lot better going to bed each night if I knew that should such a calamity happen to me, my life wouldn't come to an end literally or figuratively. There's some things that are just humane to do. That's why the rules are there. No, they're not important for you but to someone else it might mean the world.

No, it's not going too far -- it's not going far enough. WHO estimated that in 2002 there were 161 million (about 2.6% of the world population) visually impaired people in the world, of whom 124 million (about 2%) had low vision and 37 million (about 0.6%) were blind. For comparative purposes, it's guessed that Linux commands a 1.7% marketshare on the desktop. Which means, there's more people out there who are blind than use linux -- yet, were I to suggest that support for Linux not be included because it isn't something normal people use or care about, I'd be lynched.

There are surprising many options out there for the blind. They range from very basic functionality i.e. the LG 5100 (which is what I have right now) to a Sybian or Windows mobile based phones. I got the LG free with a 2 year service plan. Where as a Symbian phone with the proper software can cost at least a couple hundred bucks for the phone and the software.

Try looking through the AFB Product Database or Access World 208 (though not all the information in there is entirely accurate, i.e. AW08 claims Wayfinder Access only runs on Windows Mobile phone when it actually only runs on Sybian phones.)

Also, the "picture reading software" mentioned earlier is called KNFB Mobile Reader (it costs $1600USD.) And for all the naysayers, *pointless*, This software would allow a blind person to read a menu at a restaurant, read labels at a super market, etc.

If you choose to go the Smart phone route be prepared to spend a lot of money. I'm looking at an N82 as my next phone, Phone is ~$550USD on ebay, ~$300USD for the text to speech software, $549 For Way Finder access, get the idea.

There is a Win Mobile version of JAWS the most common Windows PC screen reader. FYI, Just because it is the most popular does not mean it's the best. There is also TALKS which you can get free from AT&T AW08, has more info on that. There are also rumors that AT&T will soon be offering Mobile Speak (Win mobile & Symbian) by Code Factory, as well. As I understand all of these software packages will allow the user to interact will all of the features of the phone including sending and receiving text messages. Also, for those unfamiliar there is this term Legally Blind, and for these individuals there is also software to do screen magnification from Code Factory.

Finally what sound proof room did you use those voice commands in?

They make the Jitterbug in a couple different versions one for seniors, and another for the blind. though I think they are pretty interchangeable.

So the real question is what features does your friend "want" and how much are they willing to spend. Also, you may look into what government assistance they can receive in getting a new phone.

There are surprising many options out there for the blind. They range from very basic functionality i.e. the LG 5100 (which is what I have right now) to a Sybian or Windows mobile based phones. I got the LG free with a 2 year service plan. Where as a Symbian phone with the proper software can cost at least a couple hundred bucks for the phone and the software.

Try looking through the AFB Product Database or Access World 208 (though not all the information in there is entirely accurate, i.e. AW08 claims Wayfinder Access only runs on Windows Mobile phone when it actually only runs on Sybian phones.)

Also, the "picture reading software" mentioned earlier is called KNFB Mobile Reader (it costs $1600USD.) And for all the naysayers, *pointless*, This software would allow a blind person to read a menu at a restaurant, read labels at a super market, etc.

If you choose to go the Smart phone route be prepared to spend a lot of money. I'm looking at an N82 as my next phone, Phone is ~$550USD on ebay, ~$300USD for the text to speech software, $549 For Way Finder access, get the idea.

There is a Win Mobile version of JAWS the most common Windows PC screen reader. FYI, Just because it is the most popular does not mean it's the best. There is also TALKS which you can get free from AT&T AW08, has more info on that. There are also rumors that AT&T will soon be offering Mobile Speak (Win mobile & Symbian) by Code Factory, as well. As I understand all of these software packages will allow the user to interact will all of the features of the phone including sending and receiving text messages. Also, for those unfamiliar there is this term Legally Blind, and for these individuals there is also software to do screen magnification from Code Factory.

Finally what sound proof room did you use those voice commands in?

They make the Jitterbug in a couple different versions one for seniors, and another for the blind. though I think they are pretty interchangeable.

So the real question is what features does your friend "want" and how much are they willing to spend. Also, you may look into what government assistance they can receive in getting a new phone.

I always wonder why nobody has done a phone with a Braile output

Because there aren't enough blind people to make it profitable. There are 1.3 million legally blind people in the United States. That's less than one half of one percent of the current population.

Complex Problem + Increased R&D spending + Small Market = Few Products

Glad to see there are some players in this niche though.

And here's an article from the American Foundation for the Blind. It's from 2004 but it mentions the above phone as well as two others: http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw050406

The superior technology of Linux and MacOSX will keep them alive long after Windows' architecture crumbles, and Vista is the first huge sign that's happening.

I think the claim of superior technology is a bit dubious. What do you base that on?

I think it is telling that Linux, since I first started using it with _kernel .98_ has been trying to acheive feature parity with windows for basic home user and desktop tasks. Every year it is announced that linux has "finally done it" yet every year there continues to be more work to do and more projects undertaken. Either linux and the various desktop systems that run atop of it aren't quite there, or windows continues to make progress.

I also think it is unreasonable to discount a lot of the technology that goes into the windows stack.

OSX is on much less sure footing than linux, maturity and technology wise. Apple has a narrow use-case defined and it excels in serving that customer segment. Compare using a Mac with a windows box with no mouse plugged in. It's actually nearly impossible to operate a mac with no mouse. Certain dialogs (like shutting the machine down) are not KB accessible. When you plug an unrecognized keyboard into a mac you have to use a mouse to configure they keyboard (iirc).

Compare the availability of screen readers and other assistive technology devives between Mac and Windows. Or, talk to the accessibility folks directly: http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw060505

Linux has all kinds of rough spots, which, if a user decides to try fixing it, leads them into a rats nest of competing technologies (i.e. X11 font families and font renderers) and disparate configuration surfaces. There's a lot of technology there, but it's not clear that it is especially novel, superior, etc.

If I had to make a poor generalization, I'd say that Apple is specialized enough that it does a few things excellently, Linux is generalized (and undirected enough) that it does nothing especially well but offers tremendous flexibility to power users, and Windows is kind of this broad sweet spot of functionality and applicability for a wide range of tasks for a wide range of users. Putting a usable facade over all of the baked-in technology is something windows does quite well and linux does less well.

I think for certain use cases, Linux and Apple are "good enough", and for some cases, Linux and Apple are probably demonstrably better. Underlying these advantages, however, I don't think you'll see some _fundamental_ technology advantage.

I think you'd be hard pressed to name some new technology in an Apple or Linux system that Windows doesn't have an analog of (with the windows function often being considerably more complex in implementation to support its edge-case features.. usually around central management or assistive technology support, yet still easier to configure and use on a daily basis)

I guess my summary is that I don't think someone can claim a technology advantage over windows by either OSX or Linux as a matter of settled fact. For starters, it's not even clear what that means.

If you think that 10 million people isn't a large consumer base, then your sense of scale might be a wee bit skewed.

Purely as an aside, not that it is all that relevant to this particular discussion, deaf-blind does not have to mean dumb. Helen Keller was perfectly able to express herself in speech and in writing, and wasn't backward about coming forward on a whole variety of topics. Although whether what she said was particularly understandable is another question.

On the other hand I doubt that she was a very good conversationalist, given the challenges. Which she was quite clear about herself, writing in 'The Story of my Life':

"The deaf and the blind find it very difficult to acquire the amenities of conversation. How much more this difficulty must be augmented in the case of those who are both deaf and blind! They cannot distinguish the tone of the voice or, without assistance, go up and down the gamut of tones that give significance to words; nor can they watch the expression of the speaker's face, and a look is often the very soul of what one says."

She also describes the process of learning to speak.

Another question commonly asked about her is whether she really knew what she was on about, given her sheltered upbringing and the fact that she'd only ever read about most of the things she spoke about. OTOH, you could ask the same about just about any pundit. Either way, she broadcast her opinions widely in both text and speech, so if you call John C Dvorak vocal you can say the same of Keller...

Purely as an aside, not that it is all that relevant to this particular discussion, deaf-blind does not have to mean dumb. Helen Keller was perfectly able to express herself in speech and in writing, and wasn't backward about coming forward on a whole variety of topics. Although whether what she said was particularly understandable is another question.

On the other hand I doubt that she was a very good conversationalist, given the challenges. Which she was quite clear about herself, writing in 'The Story of my Life':

"The deaf and the blind find it very difficult to acquire the amenities of conversation. How much more this difficulty must be augmented in the case of those who are both deaf and blind! They cannot distinguish the tone of the voice or, without assistance, go up and down the gamut of tones that give significance to words; nor can they watch the expression of the speaker's face, and a look is often the very soul of what one says."

She also describes the process of learning to speak.

Another question commonly asked about her is whether she really knew what she was on about, given her sheltered upbringing and the fact that she'd only ever read about most of the things she spoke about. OTOH, you could ask the same about just about any pundit. Either way, she broadcast her opinions widely in both text and speech, so if you call John C Dvorak vocal you can say the same of Keller...

It is amazing to read all the blacklash concerning the Target suit. First if you run a business in this United States of America you cannot disallow any group from purchasing your services. Sorry no blacks allowed does not go anymore. Sorry little woman, you need to bring your husband in to make the purchase does not go anymore.

Sorry blind guy you cannot use our website has not been judged yet. But it would be reasonable to expect that Target will settle/loss this. The point of the lawsuit and I am certain that Target was selected, was to purchase anything from Target website a buyer was required to create an online account. Not a big problem, except at Target where the submit button required the use of the mouse. Two lines of code was needed by Target to fix the problem the day after they were sued. In the six months of negotiation Target said it was to difficult. That is not the only problem but that is why Target will loss the lawsuit.

Second, I am certain that to create an accessible web site or a standard based web site requires a web developer of superior skills and knowledge. Other wise you would see more of them. To mention two great web sites please see http://www.jkrowling.com/ and http://www.afb.org./

That http://www.jkrowling.com/ site uses something called Flash and it's accessible. Obviously from the various posts on slashdot that web designer must be a magician.

For the rest of you who said fuck the blind, what do you expect braille monitors, or I am a sorry ass college professor in computer science who does think I have to have an accessible web site. Get a grip and grow up. Life continues to evolve. and yes one day we will be reading about how hard it is to make web sites accessible for cognitively impaired. And from reading the various posts I think we need to start now.

I mentioned this in my journal almost 2 years ago (yet another rejected submission:) All links are still good, mostly covering the e-book and fair access for the blind.

There are over 10 million visually impaired people just in the US who are being blinded by the DMCA. On the back page of Software Developer, Warren Keuffel has a commentary (free reg) that summarizes what he found to be issues still brewing over the use of the DMCA to prevent people from implementing technology designed to translate eBooks into Braille. XML is being used now to facilitate the translations of eBooks and other electronic formats and to help disabled people get simple access to reading material that others of us may take for granted. The DMCA effectively blocks many of these new innovations (go figure). Is short, the American Federation for the Blind has sent comments the US Copyright office, Congress is looking at the issue, The Association of American Publishers is fighting it, all the while fair-use and disabled students continue to suffer.

I mentioned this in my journal almost 2 years ago (yet another rejected submission:) All links are still good, mostly covering the e-book and fair access for the blind.

There are over 10 million visually impaired people just in the US who are being blinded by the DMCA. On the back page of Software Developer, Warren Keuffel has a commentary (free reg) that summarizes what he found to be issues still brewing over the use of the DMCA to prevent people from implementing technology designed to translate eBooks into Braille. XML is being used now to facilitate the translations of eBooks and other electronic formats and to help disabled people get simple access to reading material that others of us may take for granted. The DMCA effectively blocks many of these new innovations (go figure). Is short, the American Federation for the Blind has sent comments the US Copyright office, Congress is looking at the issue, The Association of American Publishers is fighting it, all the while fair-use and disabled students continue to suffer.

Better yet, here's a review of Windows XP on the web site of the American Foundation for the Blind.

It puts a proper perspective on Narrator: "Narrator is a basic screen reader that provides speech output for blind computer users. It is not intended to replace more powerful commercially available screen readers. Rather, it is intended to help you when your normal adaptive equipment is not available. "

Do we know that the Mac reader is any more than this?

I don't know very much about this, but I don't think that "legally blind" necessarily means the same as totally blind. Here's one link that I found that describes "Amblyoplia" and mentions depth perception and 3D viewing

Now, we add a whole new method of content rendering. We can't even impliment the main standards properly.

We can do so, a trained monkey could almost do so, it's quite easy to do... the problem is instead of trained monkeys we have so-called web designers that refuse to learn the basic facts about HTML. I don't know if you're one of them or not, but your post is a perfect example of the ignorant arrogance I'm talking about.

How do we plan to ensure that an audio interface can successfully read a website, as well?

By using HTML. Very simple. If your website is readable with lynx, it's readable for the blind. If it's not, you need to learn HTML and fix it.

Keep in mind that this is not what the web was originally designed to handle.

No, this is exactly what the web was originally designed to handle. Ever wonder why it's so difficult to control page layout exactly with HTML? It's because HTML is a content language, not a layout language. It was designed from the beginning to leave 'layout' decisions up to the browser, for precisely the reason that it was designed to be accessible via every disparate 'viewing' device imaginable, explicitely including teletypes and voice-readers!

Here go educate yourself.

From Bill Haneman: I am delighted to relay the news that the "GNOME Accessibility Architecture" has been singled out in this year's "Helen Keller Achievement Award in Technology", one of the annual "Helen Keller Awards" presented by the American Foundation for the Blind.
Although the award is officially being awarded to Sun Microsystems for its "leadership in universal design", it is the work of GNOME Accessibility that is specifically called out by the award presenters."

It certainly warms my heart to read -

"has raised the bar for the computing industry"

"Enable the blind to read legally obtained e-books"

The concept is fantastic and elcom soft would have a open market all over the world for this product if they win the case.

It would really help for them to win otherwise blind people would have to use illegal instruments to be able to read books and they could all go to jail.

Maybe the American Foundation for the Blind would have to say something about this and make the case stronger because after all every seven minutes somebody in America will become blind or visually impaired.