In November 2007, I started an open letter initiative [1] to convince Google to make the Android platform accessible for blind users. Now I want to say: Google, thank you! Especially thanks to T.V. Raman and Charles Chen.
Although I have written lots of mails to the Android developer lists and to several Google departments, I never received an answer but my mails must be read by the right persons with the right understanding. Thanks again!
Pieces from a New York Times article, published on January 03, 2009:
[...] Mr. Raman, 43, is now working to modify the latest technological gadget that he says could make life easier for blind people: a touch-screen phone. [...] With no buttons to guide the fingers on its glassy surface, the touch-screen cellphone may seem a particularly daunting challenge. But Mr. Raman said that with the right tweaks, touch-screen phones - many of which already come equipped with GPS technology and a compass - could help blind people navigate the world. "How much of a leap of faith does it take for you to realize that your phone could say, 'Walk straight and within 200 feet you'll get to the intersection of X and Y,' " Mr. Raman said. "This is entirely doable."
[...] Now, much of their effort is focused on touch-screen phones.
"The thing I am most interested in is all of the stuff moving to the mobile world, because it is a big life-changer," Mr. Raman said.
To show their progress, Mr. Raman pulled his T-Mobile G1, a touch-screen phone with Google's Android software, from a pocket of his jeans. He and Mr. Chen have already outfitted it with software that speaks much like a screen reader on a PC. Now they are working on ways to allow blind people, or anyone who is not looking at the screen, to enter text, numbers and commands.
That development would complement voice-recognition systems, which are not always reliable and don't work well in noisy environments.
Since he cannot precisely hit a button on a touch screen, Mr. Raman created a dialer that works based on relative positions. It interprets any place where he first touches the screen as a 5, the center of a regular telephone dial pad. To dial any other number, he simply slides his finger in its direction - up and to the left for 1, down and to the right for 9, and so on. If he makes a mistake, he can erase a digit simply by shaking the phone, which can detect motion.
He and Mr. Chen are testing several other input methods. None of these technologies have been rolled out, but Mr. Raman, who is already using the G1 as his primary cellphone, hopes to make them freely available soon. (Few screen readers are available for smartphones today, and they can often cost as much as a phone itself.)
What may become the most life-changing mobile technology - a phone that can recognize and read signs through its camera - may still be a few years away, Mr. Raman said. Already, some devices can read text this way. But because blind users don't know where signs are, they can't point the camera at them or align it properly, Mr. Raman said. Once chips become powerful enough, they will be able to detect a sign's location and read skewed type, he said.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Per" <Reisen...@online.de> To: <android-discuss@googlegroups.com> Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2007 6:35 PM Subject: [android-discuss] Android could make life for blind people easier
Yes, Charles Chen and T.V. Raman did a great job on TTS-for-Android,
and I currently use it to make The vOICe for Android accessible: both
main "menu" and dialogs with radiobuttons and buttons) are now fully
accessible through use of TTS-for-Android. The normal Menu cannot be
made accessible because it lacks focus change tracking options, but
overriding it with a ListView, being a subclass of View, can be used
as a workaround until the Android API gets extended with some
equivalent of setOnFocusChangeListener() for MenuItem: issue 1705 at
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1705
The article reads
> "How much of a leap of faith does it take for you to realize
> that your phone could say, ‘Walk straight and within 200 feet
> you’ll get to the intersection of X and Y,’ " Mr. Raman said.
> "This is entirely doable."
I acknowledge that this is entirely doable, but how much of this
remains restricted in practice due to licensing restrictions with
Google Maps data? Navigation and route guidance are not permitted by
the Google Maps TOS, as far as I know. For that reason I am limiting
myself to local information for increased situation awareness, and do
not add navigation and route guidance even while it is doable.
> In November 2007, I started an open letter initiative [1] to convince Google
> to make the Android platform accessible for blind users. Now I want to say:
> Google, thank you! Especially thanks to T.V. Raman and Charles Chen.
> Although I have written lots of mails to the Android developer lists and to
> several Google departments, I never received an answer but my mails must be
> read by the right persons with the right understanding. Thanks again!
> Pieces from a New York Times article, published on January 03, 2009:
> [...] Mr. Raman, 43, is now working to modify the latest technological
> gadget that he says could make life easier for blind people: a touch-screen
> phone. [...] With no buttons to guide the fingers on its glassy surface, the
> touch-screen cellphone may seem a particularly daunting challenge. But Mr.
> Raman said that with the right tweaks, touch-screen phones - many of which
> already come equipped with GPS technology and a compass - could help blind
> people navigate the world. "How much of a leap of faith does it take for you
> to realize that your phone could say, 'Walk straight and within 200 feet you'll
> get to the intersection of X and Y,' " Mr. Raman said. "This is entirely
> doable."
> [...] Now, much of their effort is focused on touch-screen phones.
> "The thing I am most interested in is all of the stuff moving to the mobile
> world, because it is a big life-changer," Mr. Raman said.
> To show their progress, Mr. Raman pulled his T-Mobile G1, a touch-screen
> phone with Google's Android software, from a pocket of his jeans. He and Mr.
> Chen have already outfitted it with software that speaks much like a screen
> reader on a PC. Now they are working on ways to allow blind people, or
> anyone who is not looking at the screen, to enter text, numbers and
> commands.
> That development would complement voice-recognition systems, which are not
> always reliable and don't work well in noisy environments.
> Since he cannot precisely hit a button on a touch screen, Mr. Raman created
> a dialer that works based on relative positions. It interprets any place
> where he first touches the screen as a 5, the center of a regular telephone
> dial pad. To dial any other number, he simply slides his finger in its
> direction - up and to the left for 1, down and to the right for 9, and so
> on. If he makes a mistake, he can erase a digit simply by shaking the phone,
> which can detect motion.
> He and Mr. Chen are testing several other input methods. None of these
> technologies have been rolled out, but Mr. Raman, who is already using the
> G1 as his primary cellphone, hopes to make them freely available soon.
> (Few screen readers are available for smartphones today, and they can often
> cost as much as a phone itself.)
> What may become the most life-changing mobile technology - a phone that can
> recognize and read signs through its camera - may still be a few years away,
> Mr. Raman said. Already, some devices can read text this way. But because
> blind users don't know where signs are, they can't point the camera at them
> or align it properly, Mr. Raman said. Once chips become powerful enough,
> they will be able to detect a sign's location and read skewed type, he said.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Per" <Reisen...@online.de>
> To: <android-discuss@googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2007 6:35 PM
> Subject: [android-discuss] Android could make life for blind people easier
