Group items tagged

Blog--NOT news item--devoted to assistive tech for the vision impaired

"A PRODIGIOUS amount of money has been spent worldwide on putting government services online, but the results so far have been hard to measure and often disappointing (see chart 2). Accenture, a consultancy that pioneered the business of selling technology services to government, has been publishing reports on the subject since 2000. The titles give a flavour of the industry's struggle to balance promise and performance. In 2001 it was "Rhetoric vs. Reality: Closing the Gap", followed by "Realising the Vision" in 2002 and "Engaging the Customer" in 2003. "

"On Dec. 9, perhaps anticipating DOJ action, Amazon announced that audio menu features would be available on Kindle e-readers by summer 2010. Amazon's press release at the time noted that Kindle "has enabled many vision-impaired readers to enjoy books more easily than before, and has also helped dyslexic readers and those with learning disabilities improve their reading skills. ... To make Kindle more useful for the blind, the Kindle team is currently working on an audible menuing system so blind and vision-impaired readers can easily navigate to books unassisted. ... In addition, a new super size font will be added to Kindle, increasing the number of font sizes from six to seven. This seventh font size will be twice the height and width of the current largest font" "

But now this Augmented Reality (AR), as it is known, is materialising in the real world. Mobile phone operators, at least, are hoping it will be the next big thing as programmers learn to corral all the bells and whistles of smart phones - GPS, video, accelerometers - into "killer applications". For the first time such AR is available for handsets.

But now this Augmented Reality (AR), as it is known, is materialising in the real world. Mobile phone operators, at least, are hoping it will be the next big thing as programmers learn to corral all the bells and whistles of smart phones - GPS, video, accelerometers - into "killer applications". For the first time such AR is available for handsets.