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Michael Doise

#CSUNATC17 – The Accessible Copier from Canon

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Top of Canon Copier

Each year, the California State University of Northridge (CSUN) holds their assistive technology conference. This year the conference was in San Diego California, and was held at the Manchester Grand Hyatt.

One of the biggest things that people go to this conference for is the exhibit hall, and iAccessibility was there and we continue to bring you articles based on several product seen at the exhibit hall.

One exhibitor that was in attendance this year was Canon, with cameras and copiers that provided accessibility features, which include speech and voice activation.

How do Canon Accessible copiers work?

The new copiers that are accessible look very similar to traditional copiers of today. They have touch screens and buttons for dialing a fax, but there is a new speaker to allow for speech output, and a new button for voice activation. The touch screen will allow for the user to use the machine with speech access, and you can also hold the voice command button to speak to the copier.

Text To Speech functionality

The Canon copiers have text to speech capabilities so it will speak when you make selections on the touch screen or enter commands on the keypad.

Voice Activation

The new canon copiers also have a voice activation feature for those who prefer to use their voice to complete actions, or for those with disabilities that prevent the use of touch screens and key pads. The folks at Canon demonstrated where you could say, “Make 2 copies,” or make, “Scan document,” to complete basic copier tasks.

Conclusion

There has been a need for accessible copier technology in office environments for as long as we have had copiers. I am very happy to see Canon go as far as they have to make copiers more accessible, and I hope they continue to work on this goal of accessible copier technology. I also hope this gets other copier manufacturers into the accessible copier space.

#CSUNATC17 – Dot Incorporated Makes a Braille Smart Watch For The Blind.

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Dot Watch with four Braille cells and orange crown

There were many companies showing products this year at the CSUN Assistive Technology conference this year, and one of those companies was Dot Incorporated. DOT makes a Braille smart watch that is similar to a standard braille display with four braille characters only to let someone tell time and much more.

Features

The Dot smart watch is a light Braille smart watch with four refreshable braille cells. It shows the time with these cells, so you would feel something like 1230 instead of 12:30. The watch also allows for pairing with your smartphone over bluetooth to receive push notifications and other smartphone features that you would expect on a smart watch. The Dot watch will even vibrate your wrist when you receive a push notification on your phone. One of the things I liked about the watch is that it is very light weight, and the leather band is comfortable to wear. It also appears that the watch charges with a magnetic charger that attaches to the bottom of the watch.

issues

I have a few issues with this product though and while they are not huge issues they are things that people need to be aware of. The Dot watch has an orange crown. I think the watch looks very nice until you see that orange color on the crown. I personally don’t think it goes well with the aesthetics of the watch. Also, While I think the Dot watch has great features, it does not have any fitness possibilities which puts it below other mainstream watches like the Apple Watch which are at the same price point of around $300.

Conclusion

While there are some issues with this watch, I feel that it is a good start in offering a Braille smart watch to blind and low vision users. The Dot Smart Watch is still not shipping yet, but you can pre-order it for $300 from their website at Dot Incorporated.

#iACast 36 – #CSUNATC17 Highlights

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CSUN AT Conference Feb 27 -March 4 2017

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Each year, the California State University at Northridge, (CSUN) holds a conference on assistive technology. On this episode of the podcast, Jason Earls, Jeff Bishop from the ACB and Michael Doise discuss what they feel are the highlights, and here are the topics that were discussed.

Exhibit Hall Highlights

Session Highlights

Along with the exhibit hall, CSUN AT conference 2017 contained several sessions including pre-conference sessions. Here were the discussed highlights.

  • Several sessions listed in the agenda were on topics that were not represented well in the agenda, meaning that people would go in expecting to learn about a specific topic and would be presented with other information.
  • Session on the Blind Arduino Project. We will feature this topic here on iAccessibility.net soon.
  • AbleGamers discussed a session on the state of accessible gaming with modified controllers for games in the room.
  • Twitch.tv had a session on the current state of accessibility on Twitch.
  • Many of the sessions were geared towards education or on the implementation of WICAG 2.0 standards in websites.

We hope that you have enjoyed this episode of the iA Cast. Please leave us feedback at feedback@iaccessibility.net with questions, suggestions and comments for future episodes.

First time Experience at CSUN AT Conference

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CSUN AT Conference Feb 27 -March 4 2017

Last week I had the chance to experience the CSUN Assistive Technology conference in San Diego California. CSUN is a yearly conference to show off some of the best technologies that have come out and that are to be released during the coming year, and this year there were many devices that were shown that will make an impact on the Assistive technology community. During this article, I will discuss my thoughts of this conference and talk about what I found to be the most interesting devices and sessions I saw.

The Hotel

The conference is held currently at the Manchester Grand Hyatt hotel in downtown San Diego. When I booked my tickets to go to the conference in January the hotel was already booked and did not have room available, so my boss from the Austin Lighthouse and I stayed at the Residence Inn in Mission Valley.  Each day I would use Lyft to get from the hotel where I was staying to the conference hotel, and I also rode back and forth with my boss in a rental car. The trip was great to see the town, and both hotels were great. That Monday San Diego received so much rain that Monday which caused the power at the Residence Inn to go out for a day. San Diego received so much rain that much of the city had flooding beyond what they are used to which caused a lot of power issues.

On Sunday, I decided to go and explore the hotel for the convention since I was taking pre-conference classes. I learned very quickly that the hotel was very big and had a lot of space for sessions and class areas. I also learned that the restaurants at the hotel were expensive but great and serving staff was very helpful with helping customers find what they wanted to buy. I also noted that hotel staff would explain directions in terms of steps and turns which was very helpful.

The Pre-Conference

Monday saw the beginning of the Pre-conference with classes and learning opportunities from businesses in the assistive technology industry. I took a class on inclusive design from the folks at Deque Systems, and learned quite a bit about testing for accessibility and which tools can help determine website accessibility. We will have more on this here at iaccessibility.net soon. On Tuesday I took a class on Advanced Mobile App Accessibility testing and learned a lot about testing apps and their code for accessibility.

The Conference

Wednesday was the start of the actual conference, which was filled with many sessions and a wonderful exhibit hall. They also had several parties for people to attend to network and to meet others in the AT industry. I took the opportunity to look at several exhibits and went to several sessions, but here is the highlights from what I saw.

Exhibits

CSUN 2017’s exhibit hall was the size of the NFB National convention’s exhibit hall, but was made up of nothing but technology which was up my ally since I love tech. I saw several devices that I thought were nice like the ElBraille from VFO, The NeoBraille and the Braille Sense Polaris which is from HIMS.One of the things that we have been looking for at the Austin Lighthouse is accessible copiers, and Canon came to CSUN with exactly that. They showed us copiers that could be used by speaking the number of copies, and the device would also read the screen out loud. We will post more about exhibits and products that were at CSUN at iaccessibility.net soon, but you can also check out coverage from Blind Bargains for interviews on these products.

Sessions

CSUN had so many sessions that one could not possibly attend all of the topics that they would like, so you have to pick and choose which ones are the best for you and your industry. Several sessions I went to sounded great but were on different topics than I would have imagined, so I did not stay at these. Personally, I found Friday’s sessions on video game accessibility to be most interesting because they focused on entertainment for everyone which I personally think is interesting. There were speekers from AbleGamers, SSB BART and Twitch from Amazon. I think my favorite session that I attended was a session on a project called the Blind Arduino Project that promotes the concept that people that are blind can become Makers, and build projects with circuits and code. We will post more on this topic in a future article here at iaccessibility.net.

Conclusion

CSUN 2017 has been an amazing conference, and I really urge anyone to go if they have the chance. I would also suggest that everyone go and explore San Diego as it is a beautiful city in California. The town is wonderful, and so is the hotel downtown. If you do go next year, book your rooms early, and get to the hotel with plenty of time so that you can make sure to have a room for the conference.

UIAccessibilityTraits Roles for iOS developers

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Image showing VoiceOver icon. icon is a grey gradient to white with a universal access symbol and a speaker with sound waves going to the right.

If you are an iOS developer then accessibility should be high on your list of priorities so that all users can utilize your app. Apple has added accessibility traits that are like Aria roles to determine what each element in your app can do. Some of these traits may include Titles, Headers, buttons and more. One that I find interesting is the UIAccessibilityTraitAllowsDirectInteraction trait. This allows the element to be interacted with without having to double tap on that element.

For more information on these traits, head over to the UIAccessibilityTraits documentation from Apple.

Amazon’s Accessibility Help Desk Describes Product Images

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Amazon

Blind Bargains reported that Amazon’s accessibility help desk will allow users to get product descriptions, which means that any product images on their website will be described on this help line. You will still have to purchase the item from their site but you can now get a description of how the item looks. This line is open from 6:00 AM to 1:00 AM Eastern time

The number to this line is (888) 283-1678

Getting Around Unfamiliar places.

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Around Me app icon dropped gps pin over blue circles

This week I will be traveling to the CSUN 2017 AT conference, and it occurs to me that it would be a good thing to get a few apps that can help me find things in San Diego, so lets look at two of these kinds of apps that can really help you in these types of situations.

BlindSquare

BlindSuare is a blindness specific app that utilizes the power of GPS and Foursquare to let users find places near them. Foursquare is an app that lets users check in and name places. You get points for each check in, and you can even make points of interest that may not be in Google Maps, or on Apple Maps. BlindSquare is on iOS. BlindSquare has a mode that lets you see what is around you by moving your phone. The good thing is that it works with Foursquare, so all of the user points of interests that have been made will show up in the app.

Blindsquare will also let you see what town you are flying over. You ca learn more about this by visiting Blind Bargains and it is on one of their podcast episodes.

BlindSquare is $39.99, and also has in app purchases. Unfortunately, BlindSquare is only for iOS and is not currently available for Android.

Around Me

Around me is a free app on iOS and Android, and is $2.99 as an in app purchase to remove ads. With AroundMe, you can select a category like hotels or restaurants and the app will give you a list of the closest points of interest in that category. Alternatively, you can select the visualization button and pick between list, map and live view. Live view is a really neat feature, because it lets the user move the device they are using around and items will float in to view. This uses the camera, and does utilize explore by touch for VoiceOver on iOS. Unfortunately, Live View is not available on Android devices, but more map options are available.

Nearby Explorer for Android

Nearby Explorer by the American Printing House for the Blind is another app for Android and iOS also assists users in this area, but will run you around $80 and will not be covered in this article.

Conclusion

While BlindSquare is a grea5 option for users, it is quite expensive, and will only be on the iOS platform. If you are on Android you can look at Nearby Explorer, but this will also run $80, so while AroundMe doesn’t have the live view feature, it does allow you to see what is in your general area.

#iACast 35 – Hands Free Purchasing Power

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Image of Amazon Tap on white background

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Welcome to our latest episode of the iA Cast. This week we discuss the following topics.

We will have one more episode this week and then we will have new content fresh from the CSUN 2017 conference

We are looking for new ways to bring you into the conversation, and we encourage people to join us for the podcast recording on TeamTalk at teamtalk.iaccessibility.net. We only ask that you mute while we record the podcast.

We hope that you have enjoyed this episode. Please email us at feedback@iaccessibility.net for suggestions or to leave comments or feedbac.

Amazon Tap Without the Need to Tap?

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Image of Amazon Tap on white background

Amazon just announced that the Amazon Tap would be updated soon to support a new feature known as hands free mode. This will allow the device to work more like the traditional Echo or Echo Dot where you can just say, “Alexa” to activate the Alexa voice system, so all you would have to do is ask it questions as if you were using an Echo or Echo Dot. Here is how to turn this feature on.

Enable Hands Free mode on Amazon Tap.

To Enable Hands free mode, you will need to have the updated device software on your Tap. At the time of this post I do not see this software update, but here are the steps if you were to have this software update which rolls out over the air as long as the device is on Wi-Fi.

  1. Open the Alexa app on your mobile device
  2. Find the menu button at the top left
  3. Find Settings in the menu
  4. Find and select your Tap in the list of devices. It should have the name similar to Your Name’s Tap
  5. find the setting for Hands free mode and activate it

While using Hands free mode you should still get 8 hours of battery from your Tap. You can also press the power button on the back to put the device to sleep so it keeps charged longer.

Conclusion

Many have said that the Tap was a useless device because it did not have hands free use with the Alexa platform. With this software update, Amazon has gone a long way to make this device more useful in making it a battery powered alternative to the Echo Dot and to the bigger Echo device.

I personally plan to use this device now while I travel and at convention season this summer.

Amazon Tap – Amazon

#iACast 34 – iA DemoCast 2: The Braille Challenge

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The Braille Challenge logo with letters B and C in white on a blue background over the Alexa Skills icon template.

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Last year we released the Braille Challenge skill to the Alexa Skills Store. Join Michael as he demonstrates the use of this skill in this episode of the iA DemoCast.

You can find the Braille challenge at the following link.
The Braille Challenge – Alexa Skills Store

Hours Time Tracking for iOS Provides Only Seconds of Accessibility

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Hours Blue icon with minute and second hands in white

I recently have been looking for good time tracking apps for iOS and Android to keep track of my project hours. I went to the App Store business section in iOS and found the app Hours which promised to do just that. As a visual user I found the app to be appealing and would do what I wanted, but I fired up VoiceOver, and received a completely different experience.

How does Hours work

Hours lets the user create a new project, with basic text fields. Once you create your project you can track how much time you work on that project. One nice thing about this app is that it lets you track multiple projects at the same time so you can record your hours for multiple projects.

Accessibility Issues

Once I downloaded this app I was happy to see a mainly text interface, but my happiness stopped there. Once I enabled VoiceOver I only received, “Button” on any graphical button. To make matters worse, the buttons would not work while VoiceOver was on, which makes the app unusable to VoiceOver users. Beyond this presenting a problem to VoiceOver users, sighted users with partial to low vision will have a difficult time using this app because the buttons to me at least, do not tell me anything by just looking at the pictures, so I would need to use VoiceOver to gain perspective on what I am doing, so this makes this app fairly useless to low vision users as well.

Conclusion

While it is a great concept, Hours is not the app for blind and low vision users. Its lack of labeled and usable buttons with VoiceOver makes this app be unaccessible, and I urge the developer to take a look at the accessibilityHint and accessibilityLabel attributes to make these buttons accessible. It is also on Apple because they are featuring these apps which not all users can use.

Hours Time Tracker – iOS App Store

Quick Tip: Get Custom Alerts From Google Alerts

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Google Logo with Alerts in blue under the word Google

Ever wanted to know if something gets posted on the web about you or an interest that you follow? Google has a service called Google alerts to help with that.

How does it work

Google Alerts is a service that lets you sign up for email alerts for many popular topics. They also have a search box that lets you add custom alerts, so you can add your name or any other topic to email alerts.

When you opt in for alerts, you will receive an alert whenever Google finds that a page was added to their index with your keyword.

How to set up alerts

Here is how to set up a custom alert.

  1. Go to http://google.com/alerts
  2. Pick popular alerts that you would like to follow
  3. Find the search box and type the custom alert you would like to add. An example would be your name.
  4. You can also select the Show Options button to make more precise changes like how often you receive alerts and how you receive the alert. You can select your Google email address or you can make an RSS feed to put on your website or in an app.
  5. Once you are done, select Add Alert

You will need a Google account to use this feature but Google Alerts is a great feature from Google if you are a new business or a person wanting to get the news for research.

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