Apparently they do some pre-processing with scripts before feeding it to Emacspeak, and then save the output as MP3 files. (This is all from reading the guy's public comments here -- in between flames -- as well the Emacspeak blurb.)
If you have Emacspeak -- free software that runs on Linux, natch -- you only need access to ETC's scripts to produce identical files. This seems to be the bit that he wants to sell to institutions.
It's actually a consortium of software developers, basically -- which is why it's got much more of a corporate bent to it. The goal is to get software developers on the same page when it comes to digital books.
Since most of the time, software development is expensive, they talk a lot about money. Software development for people with disabilities is even more expensive -- a screenreader program such as JAWS for Windows runs you around $800. Yes, more than many people pay for their computers themselves is the cost of software to make usable if you're blind.
I said "most of the time," and since this is Slashdot, you're undoubtedly wondering about open source software. Assistive technology software developed as part of an open source project is a GREAT idea, and would be a huge boon for people with disabilities.
Sadly, few people in open source seem interested enough in this idea to create what's necessary. Emacspeak is one such example, though. Note that a link on the Emacspeak page says that etc-edu.com is using Emacspeak to generate the Gutenberg Radio files!
The site seems to be dead currently, but that's undoubtedly just the Slashdot Effect.
I have no idea what they're using, but for the sake of accessibility and future-compatibility, I hope they're following the standards of the DAISY Consortium. DAISY has devised a standard for talking books which deserves support, especially as it's been specifically designed to provide accessibility for people with disabilities.
I've read most of the discussion and one point brought up repeatedly is "Well, you can just go to the library and check out the book for FREE on a limited basis; why get an e-book you have to PAY for?!"
While I am personally a big fan of the library, I have to point out a few basic facts:
Libraries are free because they are subsidized by government (usually local, sometimes state or larger).
Libraries pretty much track everything you read, or haven't you noticed?
Libraries are quite often subject to restrictions on what materials they can carry, based on content as well as on cost.
Most libraries only have a few copies of each book, so in general YOU may be able to check that book out for three weeks, but not everyone can.
Don't get me wrong -- libraries are great -- but they are also a very restrictive system that allows you much less choice than you'd like as well as the security threat of the local library tracking every book you check out from them in a database.
--Kynn
Actually, it's not necessarily poor web design at all, and HTML 4.0 is certainly not the solution. I'm not talking out of my ass here. I'm a member of several W3C working groups, and from experience, it's clear that the HTML 4.0 specification -- and indeed, the whole HTML model of web interaction -- is woefully inadequate for allowing authors to describe user interfaces.
My work at Edapta -- now owned by Reef -- has focused on using dynamic generation of web-based user interfaces to allow optimized presentation based on the user's needs, settings, and preferences. The more information that the user chooses to provide, the better the match for the resulting web UI.
This is necessary because current HTML/XHTML standards do not meet the needs of the users, the authors, or anyone else, except in the barest minimum sense that you can build a graphical layout which is nearly completely lacking in semantic information. This means, for example, that the site is useless for anyone who does not use a graphical browser -- such as users with disabilities, with screenreaders.
The solution is not to try to force a "one size fits all" when doing web design -- the real solution is to have intelligent, user-aware servers which will automatically transform/morph content into a format that is most useful by the end user.
--Kynn
The neatest way to improve this feature would be to implement the W3C's Composite Capabilities/Preferences Profiles specification. It's still under development now, but you can read an old, old article I did years ago for the HTML Writers Guild's newsletter, at ccpp.org, or you can just check out the W3C's web site. There's a public draft currently available.
--Kynn
For Gutenberg texts in XML -- or to get involved in the process yourself -- see the HTML Writers Guild's "Gutenberg at HWG" project started by XML author Frank Boumphrey, at:
A few composite replies to some of the statements that have been made
here:
fleenerwrote: Either the W3C standards will change to somehow radically change the makeup of pages on-the-fly for blind users, or another Jakob Nielsen will rise to power and make a lot of money.
Actually, the W3C standard to change the makeup of pages on the fly exists; it's
XSLT -- XSL Transformations. We use it
at Reef (formerly Edapta) to do dynamic
edaptations of the user interface to meet the needs of various audiences, including
people with disabilities. If you want to see the semi-non-public demo pages from
last year, drop me a note in email. (I'm not at liberty to get us slashdotted at
the moment!)
Argy offered great advice, including:
As to what you're looking for, I'd spend some time browsing your sites using lynx.
If you haven't used Lynx for a long time, and don't want to bother to install it, you
can also try Delorie's Lynx Viewer, a web-based lynx simulator script.
GCwrote:
You do not have to change your website at all. Your website does not define the media which will be used to define it. Your website will just send down the Internet pipe what it is requested for. The accessibility concerns are fully dependent on the equipment used to communicate and receive the information at the users end and this is not within your power nor should it be your concern.
The problem, however, is a simple "garbage in, garbage out" scenario. Assistive
technology needs enough information to be able to cobble together an alternate
access method. That information is encoded within the HTML file. If the HTML
file is poorly done, then it may prove impossible to get even the minimum
information from a page.
If you don't want to simply believe me because I say it's so, then you could
do a test yourself -- download a screenreader and try it out on a web page and
see how it works. You may be disappointed to find that it's not as easy as
you'd hoped -- and then remember that for many people this is their only
way to access the web.
A few quick links to screenreader (or screenreader-like) technology:
Hi, Rafajafar -- I've met some of your web
design team in the past, so I feel as if I
"know" the JLAB.org folks in a way, and I've
spoken with them about web accessibility,
too.
I agree with you that this is a complex
problem; Section 508 compliance is a major
issue facing all federal agencies. The
bad news is that if you haven't already been
taking steps towards understanding web
accessibility, you may be in a bit of
difficulty. The issues surrounding access
by people with disabilities are not new;
this has been discussed for a number of
years, and as others have stated, it really
is just a part of basic, quality web design,
not anything particularly extraordinary.
Unfortunately, while it's not all that hard to do
it right, many people don't realize that, and
many web sites, including federal sites,
have accessibility problems.
As you can see from the links I listed, I'm
involved in helping to solve this problem in
a number of ways -- including the work with
my "day job" employer, formerly
Edapta, now Reef to
develop software that adapts a page to the
user's requirements. If you need more
information on this topic, you can drop me
a note (but please, not all of you); full
disclosure is that Idyll Mountain also does
consulting on this very topic, but don't worry,
I'm not going to hard-sell anyone my
services.
At Reef recently I was asked to answer an
editorial inquiry regarding this very question
Rafajafar asked. Here's what I said:
The best strategies are threefold, and are based on past, present,
and future:
Past: Old data represents the greatest challenge for web
accessibility and section 508 compliance. Many thousands of
web pages were created in a blatantly inaccessible manner,
back before 508 requirements were created and before many
people were aware of the issues. This means that there is a
huge store of information which is inaccessible, but must be
made accessible.
This is primarily a resources problem; it takes time, energy,
people-power, and money to convert those old pages into something
which can be read by today's browsers, assistive technology, and
database assimilation tools.
In short, accessibility of legacy information is a problem akin
to the Y2K problem. It consists of fixing problems which were
caused by ignorance and poor programming practice; it is a
simple problem in terms of complexity, but a time-consuming
one.
The ultimate solution is that those older documents must be
updated in some manner. The most reasonable solution is to
dump them into a database and make incremental repairs; there is
no quick fix here to undo years of shoddy web design.
Present: Web development being completed now must adhere to the
standards laid down by section 508 guidelines, and must include
all information required by assistive technology devices. Web
authors doing government work must immediately be retrained to
understand concepts of platform independence and interoperability
necessary to create accessible documents.
This is an area in which I've been working for a number of years,
first by creating and teaching an online course in web
accessibility through the HTML Writers Guild (just completed the
11th run of the course!), and then by creating a resource center
at the Guild, the Accessible Web Authoring Resources and Education
Center. I've also conducted in-house seminars at locations such
as Sandia National Laboratories, as well as given presentation at
federal, state, and public conferences on web design.
Education is the key to accessibility for any documents being
produced today.
Future: In the future, the role of education will be reduced,
because we will have tools which produce valid, accessible, usable
HTML right out of the box -- something lacking currently in today's
crop of WYSIWYG editors. But the web designer of tomorrow will
have an even more potent tool at her disposal: Adaptive
information delivery systems such as that being developed at
Reef.
Under such a system, web content
creators and managers will be able to write once, web design
artists will be able to design once per device, and the web
morphing service and content edaptation service built into Reef
will automatically produce any number of device-specific
interfaces, from screenreader output to WAP phones; from interactive
TV to braille terminals.
It's interesting to note that Lycos's search engine was a re-application of "Fuzzy's" work on a robot that traveled mud rooms and constructed maps and graphs of the information in the mud database.
"Julia" was the mother of the web search engine. And "Fuzzy" is now quite well off.
--Kynn
Here's a somewhat
interesting article on "corporate flaming" by
Nick Mamatas, an Internet columnist and
relatively long resident of the net.
(http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0036/mamatas.s html)
Usenet went to hell when newsreaders
stopped warning you that "this message will
cost thousands of dollars to send around the
world" and then asked if you were sure.
Sure, nobody actually discarded a post
because of it, but the extra step was a subtle
reminder.
The other side of the coin from yesterday's discussion about web access for the blind has revealed itself. Linux proponents must support an interoperable, platform-independent web that can be used by any valid user agent!
That does indeed include users with disabilities, too.
You can help contribute to this cause by avoiding specific-platform HTML code and instead coding to the HTML 4.0 spec. Create websites that can be used by everyone, not just one browser on one platform.
Accessibility == platform independence == interoperability. You didn't care about the blind being shut out yesterday, but you do care about the linux user being excluded today? Think it over carefully, my friends, and promote a web that ANYONE can use.
FYI, Cynthia Waddell of the city of San Jose -- an expert in accessibility law and Internet use by people with disabilities -- will be presenting at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center's InterLab 99 conference, and she tells me she'll be addressing the AOL lawsuit.
Also, some guy named Kynn will be speaking too.
You can watch this live in streaming media, or archived once the event is over, by going to the InterLab page at SLAC. It starts in just less than a half hour, so that may be too short of notice for some of you -- my apologies!
--Kynn
PS: Neither I nor Cynthia have direct control over the streaming multimedia aspect of the session, so I am not sure if the presentation will actually be accessible to users with disabilities! Oh, the ironies of the web...
Slashdot Mirror
R. Francis Smith of Sturgeon's Law has a podcast interview with Noel Gorelick of Arizona State University -- the guy behind Google Mars -- who discusses the technical and scientific background behind the project. Listen to it here.
Done.
Hell, my dog Nying still gets spam, and she had to be put to sleep earlier this year at the age of 13.
The best thing about this story is that it was submitted by "an anonymous reader".
--Kynn
Police states rarely have terrorism problems.
... ... the ...
I suppose if we want to be less free, we can give up open source.
And libraries.
And criticizing the President.
And the right to freedom from arbitrary searches.
And equal justice regardless of national origin.
And the right to be charged with a crime instead of being held indefinitely.
And the
oh, CRAP.
We're screwed.
--Kynn
ObPlug: Political ranting from me at Shock & Awe, and tech stuff at Maccessibility
You really are a bitter and angry little person, aren't you?
--Kynn
According to the Emacspeak homepage, this project at etc-edu.com uses Emacspeak.
Apparently they do some pre-processing with scripts before feeding it to Emacspeak, and then save the output as MP3 files. (This is all from reading the guy's public comments here -- in between flames -- as well the Emacspeak blurb.)
If you have Emacspeak -- free software that runs on Linux, natch -- you only need access to ETC's scripts to produce identical files. This seems to be the bit that he wants to sell to institutions.
So, a lot of the software is out there! Enjoy.
--Kynn
It's actually a consortium of software developers, basically -- which is why it's got much more of a corporate bent to it. The goal is to get software developers on the same page when it comes to digital books.
Since most of the time, software development is expensive, they talk a lot about money. Software development for people with disabilities is even more expensive -- a screenreader program such as JAWS for Windows runs you around $800. Yes, more than many people pay for their computers themselves is the cost of software to make usable if you're blind.
I said "most of the time," and since this is Slashdot, you're undoubtedly wondering about open source software. Assistive technology software developed as part of an open source project is a GREAT idea, and would be a huge boon for people with disabilities.
Sadly, few people in open source seem interested enough in this idea to create what's necessary. Emacspeak is one such example, though. Note that a link on the Emacspeak page says that etc-edu.com is using Emacspeak to generate the Gutenberg Radio files!
--Kynn
PS: No, I'm not connected in any way with DAISY.
Gawd. This guy's pathetic. I've rarely come across anyone who, in the replies to THEIR OWN STORY, deserves to be modified down as "Flamebait."
--Kynn
I thought that this story seemed more like an ad than a story -- what with this fellow actively and aggressively following up to posts.
Looks like it's not only an ad -- it's an ad for a jerk.
--Kynn
The site seems to be dead currently, but that's undoubtedly just the Slashdot Effect.
I have no idea what they're using, but for the sake of accessibility and future-compatibility, I hope they're following the standards of the DAISY Consortium. DAISY has devised a standard for talking books which deserves support, especially as it's been specifically designed to provide accessibility for people with disabilities.
Learn more about the DAISY Consortium here, and in the FAQ here.
--Kynn
- Libraries are free because they are subsidized by government (usually local, sometimes state or larger).
- Libraries pretty much track everything you read, or haven't you noticed?
- Libraries are quite often subject to restrictions on what materials they can carry, based on content as well as on cost.
- Most libraries only have a few copies of each book, so in general YOU may be able to check that book out for three weeks, but not everyone can.
Don't get me wrong -- libraries are great -- but they are also a very restrictive system that allows you much less choice than you'd like as well as the security threat of the local library tracking every book you check out from them in a database. --KynnActually, it's not necessarily poor web design at all, and HTML 4.0 is certainly not the solution. I'm not talking out of my ass here. I'm a member of several W3C working groups, and from experience, it's clear that the HTML 4.0 specification -- and indeed, the whole HTML model of web interaction -- is woefully inadequate for allowing authors to describe user interfaces. My work at Edapta -- now owned by Reef -- has focused on using dynamic generation of web-based user interfaces to allow optimized presentation based on the user's needs, settings, and preferences. The more information that the user chooses to provide, the better the match for the resulting web UI. This is necessary because current HTML/XHTML standards do not meet the needs of the users, the authors, or anyone else, except in the barest minimum sense that you can build a graphical layout which is nearly completely lacking in semantic information. This means, for example, that the site is useless for anyone who does not use a graphical browser -- such as users with disabilities, with screenreaders. The solution is not to try to force a "one size fits all" when doing web design -- the real solution is to have intelligent, user-aware servers which will automatically transform/morph content into a format that is most useful by the end user. --Kynn
The neatest way to improve this feature would be to implement the W3C's Composite Capabilities/Preferences Profiles specification. It's still under development now, but you can read an old, old article I did years ago for the HTML Writers Guild's newsletter, at ccpp.org, or you can just check out the W3C's web site. There's a public draft currently available. --Kynn
For Gutenberg texts in XML -- or to get involved in the process yourself -- see the HTML Writers Guild's "Gutenberg at HWG" project started by XML author Frank Boumphrey, at:
http://gutenberg.hwg.org/
Volunteers are needed!
--Kynn
A few composite replies to some of the statements that have been made here:
fleener wrote:
Either the W3C standards will change to somehow radically change the makeup of pages on-the-fly for blind users, or another Jakob Nielsen will rise to power and make a lot of money.
Actually, the W3C standard to change the makeup of pages on the fly exists; it's XSLT -- XSL Transformations. We use it at Reef (formerly Edapta) to do dynamic edaptations of the user interface to meet the needs of various audiences, including people with disabilities. If you want to see the semi-non-public demo pages from last year, drop me a note in email. (I'm not at liberty to get us slashdotted at the moment!)
Argy offered great advice, including:
As to what you're looking for, I'd spend some time browsing your sites using lynx.
If you haven't used Lynx for a long time, and don't want to bother to install it, you can also try Delorie's Lynx Viewer, a web-based lynx simulator script.
GC wrote:
You do not have to change your website at all. Your website does not define the media which will be used to define it. Your website will just send down the Internet pipe what it is requested for. The accessibility concerns are fully dependent on the equipment used to communicate and receive the information at the users end and this is not within your power nor should it be your concern.
I beg to differ here; it's a common fallacy that assistive technology can solve all of the problems of access. In fact, I included this on a list of Common Myths About Web Accessibility because many people seem to think that a screenreader or braille terminal can fix everything.
The problem, however, is a simple "garbage in, garbage out" scenario. Assistive technology needs enough information to be able to cobble together an alternate access method. That information is encoded within the HTML file. If the HTML file is poorly done, then it may prove impossible to get even the minimum information from a page.
If you don't want to simply believe me because I say it's so, then you could do a test yourself -- download a screenreader and try it out on a web page and see how it works. You may be disappointed to find that it's not as easy as you'd hoped -- and then remember that for many people this is their only way to access the web.
A few quick links to screenreader (or screenreader-like) technology:
Enjoy!
--Kynn Bartlett
Hi, Rafajafar -- I've met some of your web design team in the past, so I feel as if I "know" the JLAB.org folks in a way, and I've spoken with them about web accessibility, too.
I agree with you that this is a complex problem; Section 508 compliance is a major issue facing all federal agencies. The bad news is that if you haven't already been taking steps towards understanding web accessibility, you may be in a bit of difficulty. The issues surrounding access by people with disabilities are not new; this has been discussed for a number of years, and as others have stated, it really is just a part of basic, quality web design, not anything particularly extraordinary.
Unfortunately, while it's not all that hard to do it right, many people don't realize that, and many web sites, including federal sites, have accessibility problems.
Several great resources have already been posted on this thread, such as the Web Accessibility Initiative and CAST's Bobby web accessibility evaluator. Here's some others that might help you:
As you can see from the links I listed, I'm involved in helping to solve this problem in a number of ways -- including the work with my "day job" employer, formerly Edapta, now Reef to develop software that adapts a page to the user's requirements. If you need more information on this topic, you can drop me a note (but please, not all of you); full disclosure is that Idyll Mountain also does consulting on this very topic, but don't worry, I'm not going to hard-sell anyone my services.
At Reef recently I was asked to answer an editorial inquiry regarding this very question Rafajafar asked. Here's what I said:
--Kynn Bartlett
It's interesting to note that Lycos's search engine was a re-application of "Fuzzy's" work on a robot that traveled mud rooms and constructed maps and graphs of the information in the mud database. "Julia" was the mother of the web search engine. And "Fuzzy" is now quite well off. --Kynn
Here's a somewhat interesting article on "corporate flaming" by Nick Mamatas, an Internet columnist and relatively long resident of the net. (http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0036/mamatas.s html)
Usenet went to hell when newsreaders
stopped warning you that "this message will
cost thousands of dollars to send around the
world" and then asked if you were sure.
Sure, nobody actually discarded a post
because of it, but the extra step was a subtle
reminder.
That does indeed include users with disabilities, too.
You can help contribute to this cause by avoiding specific-platform HTML code and instead coding to the HTML 4.0 spec. Create websites that can be used by everyone, not just one browser on one platform.
Accessibility == platform independence == interoperability. You didn't care about the blind being shut out yesterday, but you do care about the linux user being excluded today? Think it over carefully, my friends, and promote a web that ANYONE can use.
--Kynn
Also, some guy named Kynn will be speaking too.
You can watch this live in streaming media, or archived once the event is over, by going to the InterLab page at SLAC. It starts in just less than a half hour, so that may be too short of notice for some of you -- my apologies!
--Kynn
PS: Neither I nor Cynthia have direct control over the streaming multimedia aspect of the session, so I am not sure if the presentation will actually be accessible to users with disabilities! Oh, the ironies of the web...
On the Internet, nobody knows you have a seeing eye dog.
--Kynn
--Kynn