Consonance with Vowell
Chalk up another innovation for Election 2008: National Public Radio will be sponsoring what they claim to be the first-ever real-time captioned radio broadcast, covering election results from 8-11 PM EST. The captions will be streamed via npr.org, and will also be viewable at NPR’s Washington HQ and at four branch stations around the country. Question: if we run into chad problems again, will captioned coverage resume after a pregnant pause?
Computer designed by committee
Intel and ASUS are teaming up to create the WePC…with input from potentially the rest of the world. You write up and post your scenario for a perfect computer and vote on others’ ideas, with the idea (hope?) of eventual consensus. Not much accessibility input so far, and searching on “Universal Design” doesn’t return any results; as gimmicky as this might be, it still could be an opportunity to raise visibility.
Not spiking our interest
Someone’s come up with a way of training people to NOT UNNECESSARILY USE THE CAPS LOCK, by adorning the key with two of the spikes usually used for lip piercings. Obviously they didn’t know there’s been a ToggleKeys accessibility feature built into the last several versions of Windows that lets out a rather annoying beep for blind (and really all) users whenever they turn on or off the Caps, Num, or Scroll Lock. So unless you have a spike jones, we can’t endorse this strategy.
“Please listen carefully, as our candidates have changed”
Voting machines have to be accessible to people with different disabilities. Most of the times the manufacturers slap on a voice output system for blind voters and a dual switch scanning solution for physically disabled voters, then call it quits. Results are not always pretty.
Now “Prime III”, an Auburn University prototype, tries a speech recognition system that covers both blind and physically disabled voters. You listen to the choices over a headset. Each candidate is assigned a random number. To vote for that candidate, you say that number, not the name, for privacy reasons.
We’re guessing that this may not be optimal for some voters with hearing, cognitive, or speech disabilities. But at least it’s a new idea. And it also points up the multimodal reality: no single interface will work for all users.
SpeechTechMag.com: Mock Election Showcases Voice-Enabled Voting Machine
Sending out an SOS
Caller ID from WhitePages is an add-on to the Android mobile phone that provides the call recipient with information about the city where the incoming call originated and whether it’s coming from a landline or cellie. Could be useful for providing basic information if the caller is someone with a cognitive disability who is trying to get assistance if they’re lost, but can’t communicate where they are.
Slydial skips the small talk
Slydial lets you leave a voice message in any US mobile user’s mailbox, without ringing their phone. This is sort of like texting, but by voice instead. Call Slydial’s number, hear an ad, enter the recipient’s number, and record your message. The recipient gets notified in the usual way, sees your CallerID, and hears your message. (There’s an ad-free version, too.)
Slydial may be useful for people who can’t text due to vision, speech, or dexterity impairments, but want to get in on the fabulous forestalling fashion of one-way communication. And some people are just shy.
Tic tactic
The GreenDot Project can identify people in videos by their body language. It seems that our unconscious head tilts, shoulder shrugs, and grimaces are quite idiosyncratic. Such a video analysis technique could be used as an input device for people who can’t use a keyboard, but can reliably perform a carefully selected and encoded set of gestures.