Dear AccessWorld Editor,
This letter is in response to Deborah Kendrick's amazing article, Connecting the Dots: A Brighter Spin on the Future of Braille, from the January 2013 issue of AccessWorld.
As a braille user since the age of four (I'm now seventy-eight), it was wonderful to feel the enthusiasm coming from the author. Yes, I use modern technology, such as computers, the iPhone, audio-watch, and an audio mp3 player, but I like to read my braille book and my braille magazine.
As a radio presenter, I write my scripts in braille. My Perkins Brailler is used every bit as much as my laptop. I present a radio program on the Internet for people with vision loss called "Audioview." I record the show from my home and upload it to the radio station that transmits it over the Internet at www.theglobalvoice.info on Fridays at 5:00 p.m.
To Deborah Kendrick, may I just say, "Well done!" My guide dog gives me mobility, and braille gives me literacy.
Thank you once again for an inspiring article.
Joe
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
I was thrilled to read Deborah Kendrick's recent article, Connecting the Dots: A Brighter Spin on the Future of Braille. I have been reading braille since I was six years old. I am 63 now, and needless to say, I am a fanatic supporter of anything braille.
I recognized the importance of braille in my life when I first started college. I was typing an essay, and I realized I could not remember how to spell certain words, such as "possible." I sat there trying to remember if there is one "s" or two. I subscribed to the Braille Readers' Digest and sat down and read it every month. This stopped the creeping illiteracy of not remembering what words looked like. Also, even though grade two has many contractions, I do not have trouble remembering the spelling because I also type.
Sincerely,
Franklin
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
My letter is in response to Janet Ingber's article, Control Your E-mail with Your Voice: A Look at the Upcoming Talkler App from Talkler Labs, in the January 2013 issue of AccessWorld.
I will soon be an iPhone user, I have extensive speech-recognition experience on the PC, and I am a beta tester for popular speech access software.
- Ideally, you should disable and enable voice over automatically. I would prefer to keep it active at all times, so I can handle error situations.
- Users should be able to read line-by-line, word by word, character by character, and paragraph by paragraph. They may have to review message headers and read them the same way.
- How do users handle situations in which they want to select a link and get to a page? This is where VoiceOver comes in.
- Talkler should ensure that you have a "Reply" command and a separate "Reply All" command.
- Talkler should tell the user to whom the message is being sent.
- What about creating message rules / filters? Can Talkler handle this through speech?
- How does Talkler integrate with Siri?
- Can Talkler spellcheck e-mail?
- How does Talkler handle Read Receipts? Will it read message flags, such as "Forwarded," "Replied," etc.?
Any additional information you can provide would be helpful.
Thanks,
Pranav
Response to Letter by Janet Ingber
Hello Pranav,
Talkler is not a fully functioning e-mail program such as Outlook. It is meant to allow the user to listen to their e-mails and perform certain tasks, such as "Reply," "Delete," "Go to Next E-mail," "Skip Forward in an E-mail," and "Mark as Unread." There are other options in the Settings menu.
It is certainly possible to use the app with VoiceOver running, but there is a chance of conflict between the two speech programs. What I've done is turn off VoiceOver by triple clicking the "Home" button and, then, triple clicking the "Home" button again when I want VoiceOver turned on. With Talkler running, you can use VoiceOver to read by line, characters, etc. Talkler does not have that function at this time.
In my AccessWorld article, there is an e-mail address to contact the developer, who takes accessibility seriously and would welcome comments.
Sincerely,
Janet Ingber
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
The Talkler App article in the January 2013 issue of AccessWorld mentions only iPhone applications. Would it work on an iPad or mini iPad? I hope so!
Bill
Response to letter by Janet Ingber
Hello Bill,
Yes, Talkler works with devices running iOS 5.1 or later.
Sincerely,
Janet Ingber
