Wayfinder Access Campaign

Sorry I’ve been so slow in carrying this item. I’m sure any support you can give will still be appreciated.

nystagmite.

Wayfinder Access Campaign Update
Saturday, 27 March, 2010 17:52
From:
“Wayfinder Access Protest Petition”
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Dear all,

You recently signed the Wayfinder Access Protest petition, expressing your support for our campaign to save or provide a comparable alternative to this GPS navigation solution which enables thousands of blind pedestrians to find their way and was unexpectedly discontinued by Vodafone.
Firstly we would like to thank you for your signature. Thanks to your efforts in signing and promoting our campaignwe are at over 2000 signatures, a great accomplishment! Vodafone acknowledged our campaign and negotiations are ongoing, more on that below.
To strengthen the voice of blind GPS users and ensure Wayfinder Access remains usable by it’s current users for some time, we need your ongoing help to increase the number of signatures more than ever! So if you haven’t done so, please send the link to our site, http://www.talknav.com/protest, to your family, friends and other acquaintances! It’s also very important that media and blindness related organisations in all countries learn about our campaign, so please send them the link as well!

In the international signature number competition it’s getting really interesting… most signers are from the UK, congratulations you’ve passed the US! But don’t sit back… I’m sure you Americans will make sure you get it bigger again! Below the US Germany has finally passed the Netherlands, congratulations but just as on the football field the Dutch will no doubt score a lot of signatures soon to beat Germany! 5 South Africa / 7 India, you are hit hardest by WFA’s discontinuation because there is absolutely no alternative in your countries, so please make sure to show this in your signature count – you’re both under 100, I’m sure you can do better! 6 France is also under 100… alors montez votre grandeur! And in all those countries below 7th place there’s a lot more potential as well… please get signatures and get your country in the top 7 signature sources next time!
Future of the campaign
Due to the nature of the campaign and the progress that has been made to date, a number of changes need to be made to our cause and what exactly we are seeking from Vodafone. We originally set out with three key goals:
1. To ask Vodafone why they cancelled Access without warning
2. To ask them for an assurance concerning existing license holders rights
3. To enquire as to the possibilities of a third party developer taking over Access.

As we have been informed directly and through media releases by Vodafone we now are able to answer some of these points and thus change our strategy as follows.
Vodafone are pulling out of the Wayfinder service completely as a result of market forces, with the advent of free vehicular navigation solutions from the likes of Google and Nokia. Wayfinder which needs considerable investment, just isn’t a viable product range for Vodafone.

So this is why Access has been discontinued and is facing complete shut down in the coming months. Vodafone cannot make a profit on the overall Wayfinder platform that it runs on. So Access, to coin the phrase, is the baby being thrown out with the bath water.

So this answers our point one, as to our other specific goals here is where we now stand.
Wayfinder and Vodafone through direct conversation with us and media discussions on BBC radio etc have confirmed their intentions to shelve the entire Wayfinder product range. They stress that they are sympathetic to our needs and concerns and state that they are working towards potentially offering some sort of resolution package for Wayfinder Access users.

What this translates into nearer to the time we cannot say for certain. What we can tell you is that what is being discussed is;
A) A full or prorated refund to existing Wayfinder Access life-time license holders,
B) To enter into some sort of exchange program, where Vodafone exchanges Access licenses for an alternative accessible GPS product. The details of this are very much up in the air and no commitment to this has been given yet.
C) The possibility of providing a third party with the source code and necessary information to take over the Access project.
D) Other options to which they’ll not at this time discuss.

So we have now our goals 1 and 3 answered; Vodafone cannot make money out of Wayfinder so it’s being shut down, and they are considering at this time permitting a third party organization to take over Access.
So what about goal 2; Vodafone have used plenty of lip service towards this one, we’ve had assurances and more assurances, but what this translates into down the road no-one knows. In today’s commercial environment phrases like “Social Responsibility” have significant measure and with license holders having life-time rights to Access Vodafone surely have both an ethical and legal obligation towards Access users, but quite how far this translates into a helpful resolution is yet to be seen.

So where does this leave our campaign?
Now more than ever it’s essential that we keep signatures coming to our campaign petition, we need to show Vodafone that this is a real and believed in cause, and that by not acting there is a significant risk of damage to their corporate image as well as legal ramifications.

We also want them to be certain that whatever solution they are considering that we, the users, are kept informed and have a say. We are aware, as Vodafone have informed us that they are talking with multiple parties. We ask Vodafone to consider, as we are not told who these parties are, please be sure to consider our views, the users. If the other parties to whom they are discussing our product with get to make a choice on our behalf this may prove not to be in our best interests.

For now the only thing we can do is keep the pressure on, so please keep signing, ask all who you know to review our campaign and sign in favour of accessible technology for all.

Regards,

the campaign team Neil Barnfather
Tim in ‘t Veld
Paul Hopkins

The Blind Buzz on Carers – time to kick out the jambs!

If you’re a so-called informal carer, you don’t need anyone to tell you that the system in the UK is a complete shambles. After decades of strategy reports, green papers, white papers, pink papers or whatever they are, well, all we’ve got is a dusty bookcase full of strategy documents. How you can have a strategy when no action is taken, except, of course, for planning the next bit of governmental displacement activity, beats me completely. Maybe we should organise a carers’ strike. Meanwhile, maybe you would like to sign this very mild-mannered petition.

Carers UK: The Voice of Carers : Tell the next government it’s time to support carers

The petition reads as follows..

Dear Prime Minister,

Unpaid carers save the country a fortune yet many struggle without support.

I want your new government to deliver a better deal for carers. I want carers to get a decent income and practical support when they need it.

Yours sincerely,

The Blind Buzz on Accessibility

CSUN 2010 Audio

• 
  Blind Bargains: Audio Content Index includes several items related to CSUN
• 
  CSUN 2010 – 27 interviews conducted on March 25, 2010, in the exhibit hall of the San Diego California Manchester Grand Hyatt.
• 
  Hands On with Accessible Canon Copiers
• 
  MagniLink Go Reads, but also Magnifies
• 
  New Magnification Upgrades from Enhanced Vision
• 
  Serotalk – SeroTek at CSUN 2010
• 
  Tech Chat 56 – CSUN Highlights, and XP Mode Under Windows 7 « SeroTalk
• 
  The Summit of I.D. Mates

Other CSUN 2010 items

• 
  Adaptech Research Network Presentations
• 
  Adventures From My First Day at CSUN 2010 – Perspectives from a Blind Point of View
• 
  More Adventures from CSUN 2010 – Perspectives from a Blind Point of View
• 
  CSUN 2010 recap – Marco’s Accessibility Blog
• 
  Olympus DM-4 And DM-2 Digital Audio Devices Are At Your Command To Deliver Super High-quality Recording And Simple Playback
• 
  Slides from CSUN 2010 Talks – Adobe Accessibility
• 
  Two New Seika’s Coming to the U.S. – new Braille displays

10 Insanely Great iPad Apps We Can’t Wait to Use « AccessTech News

[Video] 2007 Faculty Development Award Winner: Access E-Learning – Georgia Tech tutorial on many aspects of accessibility.

A Brief Guide to WordPress and Web Accessibility

ABBYY Invites iPhone Users to Try Its Business Card Reader for Free

Accessible JavaScript: Beyond the Mouse

Accessible World Tek Talk Presents Make It Work, Computer Consultants March 29, 2010 by Mr. Daniel Kevorkian – general computer discussion

Accessibility tips for the casual coder – hope: Nerdy PSA – Why you should use em and strong tags for italics and bold.

ai squared – making accessibility simple – ZoomText, Victor reader Stream, Pebble, SenseView Duo and more.

Ajax Accessibility and ARIA – Ajaxian

Apple iPad Helps Businesses Meet Needs of Disabled Employees – Yahoo! News

Bank of America Installs Talking ATMs by Bank Systems & Technology

Best Buy Adds Tactile Keypads to Improve Checkout Experience for Customers with Visual Impairments – USA story.

Blind Bargains to Begin Charging for Access on April 15

Blind-friendly ipad – Latest Technology News

Browser Zoom Comparison | AlastairC – several ways of changing the size of things on screen in several browsers.

Choosing To Use A Cane – Fred’s Head

Cinemas apply for exemption to the Disability Discrimination Act of 1992 « AccessTech News – cinemas in Australia are asking for a delay in the demand for audio description and captioning.

Contributor Robert Kingette – Accessible PDF with WebbIE – Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind – first-hand experience of Accessible PDF from webbie.org.uk, which on the whole is very good.

Council on e-accessibility « Sköne Oke – standards are inconsistent across ~European countries.

Costa Rica Zip line Tour at Turu Ba Ri park is almost for any body | Costa Rica Turubari Park – Canopy Tours – elderly blind woman enjoys the tour.

Digital Talking Book Internet Service Delivers One Millionth Download « AccessTech News this is the NLS BARD Service in the USA.

eBooks page on the RNIB web site. On the same subject, you may like to visit
The tale of the accessible eBook – BBC Ouch!

eClipseWriter Student-Teacher – talking word processor with adjustable fonts and "Save as DAISY" facility.

FAE: Run FAE – functional accessibility evaluation. Enter a web address for an assessment of the page’s accessibility.

Free AVG Rescue CD Helps Get Unbootable PCs Working

Freedom Scientific Lease-to-Own Petition – sign the petition if you agree that FS should let people pay by instalments instead of needing the whole purchase price of JAWS up-front.

GNOME 2.30 released – with excellent accessibility support – Peter Korn’s Weblog

Google funds new research to help blind web surfers | Bioscience Technology Online – work at Manchester University to be supported by a £50,000 grant from Google.

Google Services Optimized for iPad: Gmail, YouTube, Maps and More « AccessTech News

GrabText – the idea is to take a picture of the whole screen and pick out the text from it using OCR

[GSoC Proposal] N900 as an Accessibility device – maemo.org – Talk

How Perceptual Blindness Works – Simple test shows how Humans (yes, even you) sometimes completely miss things that are in plain sight – Try the test – The Blogs at HowStuffWorks – Mozilla Firefox – even if you have some sight, you can miss something that’s right in front of your face. Here’s why.

How to Use Bump Dots to Maximize Accessibility – Fred’s Head – raised dots have uses on keyboards, ATMs and keypads. there are other uses for them in your life.

iPhone HD or iPhone 4G release? – rumours, no doubt carefully orchestrated by Apple, of the new iPhone release in the summer of 2010.

Is it possible to develop an accessible dynamic menu? – AccessIT

Issues in improving accessibility « H809 Learnings by SkillKick – some of the barriers.

IVONA Text-To-Speech Makes Mobile Applications More Accessible – free trial and book available on the site.

Juicy Studio: Image Analyser – This service examines all images found on a web page to check for any accessibility issues. The width, height, alt, and longdesc attributes are examined for appropriate values.

Kit support scent – Kit Cosmetics want to support Guide Dogs Australia. They have even sent scented Braille letters to blind people making them aware of their support and their product. 

Support Scent Video Commercial

KPR – Koester Performance Research – ‘ …enhances the usability and accessibility of information and assistive technologies through research, development, and education. We research the “fit” between users and their technology. We develop software to assess user needs and to enhance computer interfaces. We also consult on usability and research desig’.

Learning the way – Donna Jodhan – how are you going to find your way about when you can’t see landmarks?

LookTell, Mobile Applications For The Blind – Technology Blog – mobile application for object recognition.
[Video] LookTel demo shows how Looktel system recognises objects, including food cans, newspaper items, shop signs, currency notes (at least, American currency notes).

Link Roundup including CSUN – March 2010 – Web Axe – Practical Web Design Accessibility Tips – Podcast and Blog

Mouse by Keyboard « AccessTech News – Mac tip

Mozilla Thunderbird 3.0.4 Final « AccessTech News

Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition 3.0.4 Released « AccessTech News

Multiple form labels and screen readers | 456 Berea Street – using an extra label to carry text for users to read seems like a good idea until you try it with a screen reader…..

New Design Opens Door To Full Screen Displays For The Blind – page display rather than line-by-line.

News Bytes – latest on Linux.

Nuance Announces TALKS 5.0 for Touchscreen Phones | Business Wire 

Nuance Talks web site.

Nuance announces T9 Trace « AccessTech News – it’s not clear whether Nuance Talks will support this text entry system.

OverDrive Announces New Program for Visually Impaired Readers « ResourceShelf – download up to 20 ebooks per month.

Podcast: 30 Mar 2010 Software Walk-Through Resco News S60 – Blind Mind News – Unrestricted Access – RSS reader for symbian 3rd and 5th generation phones.

ReadPal -Free download to read faster with no stress or glare. – read documents in easy formats.

Set default zoom level in Safari using a CSS file – Mac OS X Hints

Sharp’s New 3D Touch Displays Eliminate Need for Glasses | Blog | ZiggyTek

Software @ ColorJack – products include a free Sketchpad program, Color Galaxy for color visualization and Color Sphere, which lets you choose color schemes, including colorblind simulators.

Sources of Research Articles on Cognitive Web Accessibility « Clear Helper

[Audio] The very first look at a touch screen phone with Talks 5. | Listen and Learn Recordings

The Web Isn’t for Everyone … Yet but lessons here try to help web authors make the most of it.

Turn Your iPhone or iPad Into an External Multitouch Monitor for Your Mac [IPad Apps] « AccessTech News

Virtual Ability, Inc. – offers techniques and training to enable disabled people to enjoy virtual worlds, such as Second Life.

VisionZone Initiates Eye Heath Awareness and Low Vision Community Connectivity -online arm of Optelec promises education on eye health and support for visually impaired people and their allies across the USA.

What to do with a Guide Dog when entering a Mosque? – www.TurnToIslam.com

Whenever you use :hover, also use :focus | 456 Berea Street – applying :focus to the CSS state of links.

WinPenPack Gathers Hundreds of Portable Apps in One Package [Downloads] « AccessTech News

YouTube accessible interface alternative now available « AccessTech News 
Full story 
Accessible Interface to YouTube

Save our Disability Benefits

Our benefits are under threat. I know this is not the first time I’ve mentioned it, but it is helpful if you and the millions of others who get disability benefits take some action before the worst happens.

There is a petition at this address.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/AttendanceA/

and the petition reads…..

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to recognise the vital support that Attendance Allowance (AA) and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) provide to disabled people, and to ensure that these benefits are secured and are not removed as part of any future reform of the social care system in England.

So far, the petition has attracted only 15,000 signatures. I worry that we could be sleep-walking into even more poverty and social exclusion than we have experienced before.

Both Labour (Green Paper) and Conservatives (2009 Conference speeches) have disabled people in their sights. While I can only applaud efforts to make sure that benefits go to the right people, we all know how that’s going to work in practice. Benefits have been arbitrarily stripped away before.

The fashion in the early 90s was to kick single mothers, and make them folk devils in the popular press. Now it’s disabled, sick and dying people. Not very heroic, is it, politicians, dear. Sort your expenses out first, and show us what this honesty business is all about.

UK citizens! Your disability benefits are in danger!

Thread: Charities claim it’s too late to save DLA and AA