Speak the book

The visually impaired find open source the key to future access over the Internet.

The promise of technology has been slightly out of reach for the visually impaired. It may be that information that should be accessible is not, or that the products have been too costly for most, or even that complexity has presented a barrier to usage.

But if Klaus Knopper, the legendary developer of Knoppix, is to be believed then open source has all the answers.

At the recent LinuxAsia conference, Knopper presented case studies to demonstrate how open source was enabling accessibility of computers to the physically handicapped.

Citing the example of his wife who shops on ebay, though she is vision-impaired, Knopper insisted "the trend within the industry is moving away from proprietary software to open systems that increase the speed of developing new features". One example is the likely expansion of the number of natural languages available in free open source implementations.

Paul Kangro, who is applied technology strategist for Novell, says, "Many blind people install Linux "eyes-free" either by using another computer (that can talk) or includes braille as a terminal. Another option is the SpeakUp screen reader because it's a set of kernel patches that gives audible feedback from bootup to shutdown."

"People who are visually impaired have not often had opportunities to volunteer," voiced Linux guru Knopper, "but over the Internet, nobody knows that they are visually impaired. Specifically, with regard to access to books, the Internet has made it possible to establish and run services like Bookshare.org (an online library built primarily by the visually impaired)." The library is adding 500-1,000 books per month.

Anthony Wasserman of Carnegie Mellon University West shared an interesting view on open source. Imagine a scenario five years hence when a visually handicapped person walks into a standard PC store.

An appropriate device is chosen and set up so it can be controlled by voice command, by using the keys on the phone or an external braille device.

"The response from the device will come as audio feedback from the machine in the form of recorded speech prompts or text-to-speech, delivered wirelessly to an external braille device," he finishes.

"Some of these capabilities and services will be freely available, others will be available on a fee-per-download or use basis," lists Kangro, "and others will be available on an all-you-can-use subscription basis."

An upgraded software package with extensive character-recognition that runs on the device can also be an option, priced either as a one-time licence fee or on a continuing subscription basis.