[oats-sig] other stuff for writing and reading support ...

Thanks Mats, some very good points. I can make a few broad comments

I've asked Janina Sajka at Open A11y about Linux DAISY players as I
know she has worked on the spec.

Steve

On 22/11/2007, Steve Lee <steve at fullmeasure.co.uk> wrote:
> Thanks Mats, some very good points. I can make a few  broad comments
> based on my contacts with the community but the best thing would be to
> post to project mailing lists. The GNOME a11y and www.a11y.org mailing
> lists would probably be the best places to start. I could forward for
> you if you like but you would then not see any responses. (This is an
> interesting issue for OATSoft in itself, how to co-ordinate across
> channels).
>
> Orca is moving fast so may have more reading support features now, but
> I take your point that it's full features are overkill for this use.
> It supports magnification. You could ask the Orca project group and
> they may well know of other more suitable projects.
>
> The Firefox Addon CLiCk, speak is one useful open source tool. It can
> be used with web applications (e.g. google documents) and is cross
> platform. It is based on the same code library as FireVox.
> http://clickspeak.clcworld.net/
>
> While I'm not completely up to speed on TTS eSpeak (
> http://espeak.sourceforge.net) seems to have a good range of voices
> and comes with Ubuntu (say) and is I believe the preferred engine for
> Orca. TTSynth has a range of languages (Swedish is not currently
> listed though). Linux sound infrastructure is an issue as it is rather
> fragmented but there are efforts to resolve it in order to make TTS
> more straight forward (ALSA look favourite).
>
> Open Komodo Labs are looking at simple voice guestures but I'm not
> aware of much other voice input. I know that Willie, the Orca lead has
> worked in this are so may be able to say what the current state is.
>
> listenup is a DAISY player but does not appear to be enduser ready and
> is perhaps the one you are thinking of? There has been mention of ODF
> to DAISY translation and now MS have announced a plugin for OpenXML
> there may be renewed effort and that could conceivably lead to an
> interest players.
>
> For AAC there is the  Bliss variant of Dasher and GOK may have some
> suitable features.
>
> It occurs to me that if anyone is interested in working on improving
> these areas they could investigate the availability of Mozilla
> Foundation accessibility grants as they cover a wide range of
> accessibility issues.
>
> Steve
>
> On 20/11/2007, mats.lundalv at vgregion.se <mats.lundalv at vgregion.se> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > I'm just now trying to sum up the situation we've found here in Sweden
> > concerning the poor situation in the Linux environment for students - and
> > users in general - who need support for their writing and reading problems.
> > There is a really problematic lack of appropriate tools in most areas -
> > apart from the word list and prediction stuff we have been discussing:
> >
> > - No appropriate TTS support tools for this group - as ORCA and other screen
> > readers for the profoundly visually impaired (without additional
> > disabilitieas) both lack important functionality and impose too much
> > functionality for these users. We would need a project/group that for
> > example made an alternative version of ORCA - provided a setup to strip off
> > the specific features for context reporting etc for the visually impaired -
> > and added the functionality and interface needed for the larger group of
> > users with some kind of print impairement other than visual. It should be
> > very doable, as the basic speech, as well as screen and key reading
> > functionality is already there, and there are several well established tools
> > in the Windows and Mac worlds to use as template specs.
> >
> > - We of course also need access to a wider range of better TTS voices for
> > most languages - both free and commercial - for this range of users.
> >
> > - Lack of usable speech input products (in particular multi lingual), either
> > free or commercial
> >
> > - Lack of usable tools for management and OCR of scanned text (including the
> > TTS support of course). The ones I've found (but not yet tried) seem to be
> > primitive and of questionable value. Good enough OCR is of course a
> > tremendous task. (Any research resources available somewhere waiting to be
> > released to the OS communities?) Access to existing commercial resources may
> > be a more realistic path here?
> >
> > - Lack of product ready DAISY readers (a couple of dead or dormant projects
> > - the most recent - 1½ year old - and promising seems to be the Norwegian
> > student work for Skolelinux "The DaisyPlayer Project" - but only half way to
> > product I'm afraid?). A bit surprising, as this should be a high common
> > priority also for the visually impaired?
> >
> > - Lack of tailored spell, homophone and homograph checkers (in all/most
> > languages)
> >
> > - Total lack of course for AAC support in general, and linked to reading and
> > writing / literacy support needs in particular. A first step here would be
> > an OSK with support for not only text, but also grafics and sound/speech,
> > and user friendly tailoring - based on SAW5-The Grid-Clicker like
> > functionality.
> >
> > What, apart from most of the details, have I missed out?
> > There is definitely still a lot to do in these areas ;-)
> > Any tips of useful resources are welcome!
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Mats
>
>
> --
> Steve Lee
> --
> Jambu - Alternative Access to Computers
> www.fullmeasure.co.uk
>

-- 
Steve Lee
--
Jambu - Alternative Access to Computers
www.fullmeasure.co.uk