Technology

Access IT magazine - October 2008

Summary: Learn more about access technology through our monthly magazine about IT.

• Highlight's from this month's Access IT
• From the cutting room floor
• Previous issues

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Highlight's from this month's Access IT

• Solutions to Independent Living - Thursday 20 November
• Target agrees six million dollar accessibility case settlement
• Introducing Daisy Radio Listings
• Amazon makes it easier to buy audio-described DVDs
• Download Jaws v10
• Let your theme song be your password
• Olympus launches 7 new voice recorders
• IBM testing voice-based web
• Is Google Chrome accessible?
• Skype starts to speak thanks to Expressivo
• Google copying, storing more stories fit for print
• Another fabulous Access IT competition
• At last - The talking iPod has arrived
• How Captcha was foiled: Are you a man or a mouse?
• Interview with WebVisum.com - crowdsourced accessibility

At last - The talking iPod has arrived, by Steven N Plumpton

Apple has released the new iPod Nano in a variety of colours and in 8 Gigabyte or 16 Gigabyte guises. The menu structure on the iPod can now be spoken using a synthetic voice (computer generated voice), so now if you can’t see the iPod screen, you will not be left wondering what tracks you have downloaded or have selected to play.

The model evaluated is the Nano Red, which means that Apple donates some of the purchase cost towards fighting Aids in Africa. The great news is that this is an iPod that anyone can buy and use, not a specialist product or needing an add-on for blind or partially sighted people to use.

This is the first talking iPod to come to the market. You can expect other MP3 players to follow suit as Apple is the market leader in this segment. The spoken menu feature is expected to be well received amongst fully sighted people also because the iPod is an audio device and people will find the spoken menu coming through their earbuds.

The spoken interface can be used on a Macintosh or Windows PC but you must use iTunes version 8. When the iPod is plugged in the first time, it will begin to charge up the battery. Eventually a start up screen appears which allows you to choose how you want to set up the iPod. One of the tick box options is “spoken menus”. Tick this box if you want iPod menus to be spoken.

The voice used is a synthetic voice so might not be totally clear or understandable. The voice used is the one chosen in Speech in System preferences folder on a Mac and the speech folder in the Control Panel on a Windows PC. These are text to speech voices that are installed on your computers hard drive. The more synthesizers you have installed then the greater the number of voices you have to choose from.

The PC used to trial the iPod Nano had Microsoft Sam installed which was very basic but quite clear and also Voiceware Kate which is a very human sounding voice.

Using the iPod

The iPod has an LCD screen, which is approximately half of the height of the device. The screen can be used to watch movies, or photo albums or even TV shows that are now available to download from iTunes. The screen also shows albums and songs installed on the iPod.

Below the screen is a touch wheel. This touch wheel is made up of four buttons that can be pressed - so left side of the wheel is rewind or backwards but also can be volume down, the right side of the wheel when pressed is fast forward or volume up. The top of the wheel is Menu and the bottom of the wheel when pressed toggles between play and pause. The touch wheel can also be used as a touch sensitive scroll wheel. Sliding your finger around the wheel will move backwards or forward through the menus.

Finally the inside of the wheel acts as an on and off button. To listen to tracks simply move through your menu list of tracks and press play on the one you want to hear. If you want to browse for another track whilst listening to a song, the iPod fades the music playing into the background while speaking the menu contents. Once you finish navigating in the menus the song returns to the set volume.

Shuffle the Shuffle

The iPod has an accelerometer built in so it can detect which way it is being held up. This is mainly as a feature for sighted users viewing photos, movies or downloads. However the accelerometer allows the iPod to detect when it is shaken. This shaking is used as the shuffle feature and a track is played randomly from the playlist.

Disable touch wheel mode

When the iPod is your pocket, bag or even on your arm you can set it to play then disable to touch wheel functions so that it does not change songs or stop playing by accident. It's similar to keypad lock on a mobile phone. On the top left of the iPod is a tiny round slide switch. Sliding it to the right puts the iPod into keypad locked. To the left, unlock touch pad.

Display and font sizes

The display is small - after all, the device is called a Nano! However there is some accessibility built in. In the General folder the backlight, brightness, font size can be adjusted. The font adjustment has two settings standard and large. Large is approximately 14 point print size.

The colour scheme appears to be set as black text on a white background. There is a lot of adjustment in the Brightness setting if people find the bright white background causes glare however contrast does deteriorate if the brightness is turned down low.

A useful feature is the "clicker", which registers movement on the touch wheel by clicking through menu items.

In conclusion

A desirable, great little device that just got even better. Why not give one a try and join the iPod generation!

From the cutting room floor

Articles we just didn't have space for this time!

Petition to save John Slatin’s Accessibility Institute

John Slatin, a respected member of the web accessibility community and former chair of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group, sadly passed away earlier this year leaving behind him the University of Texas Accessibility Institute.

Sadly UT want to close the Accessibility Institute which has been a centre of excellence for research and innovation in web accessibility. This would be a huge loss to the industry as the Accessibility Institute has contributed to the furtherance of web accessibility in many ways.

As news has spread of the closing of UT’s Accessibility Institute, many have asked for a simple way to register their objections. Knowbility has created and posted an online petition and welcome all the support you can bring by signing the petition and forwarding it to anyone else who may be interested.

Reasons for saving the Accessibility Institute include:

• Need for research based findings to support accessible design practice.
• Opportunity for a world class institution like UT to serve as an example to other institutions.
• Place where emerging practices can be tested and modelled.
• Contributions to international body of knowledge on inclusion.
• Maintain thought leadership in Texas, easily disseminated to state agencies that have accessibility mandates.

Sign the petition to save the Accessibility Institute today.

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Content author: technology@rnib.org.uk

Last updated: 20/11/2008 14:37