Newest CTA Foundation Grant Recipients are Enhancing Lives With Technology Programs
Recently, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) Foundation announced it will award more than $500,000 in grant funding to 10 organizations that help link seniors and people with disabilities with technology to enhance their lives. The recipients include groups that work with accessibility apps, develop digital entrepreneurship among seniors, and bring "smart home" technology to residential living centers.
"Whether it's helping to deliver the on-demand immediacy of app-based services to people with disabilities or exploring the latest innovations in remote care of our loved ones, these organizations recognize the technology sector is changing our lives for the better—regardless of our age or independence," said Steve Ewell, executive director of the CTA Foundation. "The CTA Foundation is pleased to continue our support of programs across the country that leverage technology to promote greater independence, communication, and a sense of community for everyone."
The CTA Foundation—a public, national foundation—will continue its previous support of the following five groups:
- BridgingApps: A program of the Easter Seals of Greater Houston, BridgingApps will expand upon its project to identify accessibility apps that improve the physical, cognitive, and social health of seniors and people with disabilities.
- Lighthouse Guild: At the Grunwald Technology Center, clients receive instruction in everyday consumer technologies, along with instruction available on various adaptive and assistive technology training.
- Oasis Institute: The group will build upon last year's successful Mobile Accessibility Guide, distribute free tools such as tutorial videos and downloadable tip sheets, and offer accessibility classes for older adults.
- OATS: After developing a digital entrepreneurship institute geared toward older adult artists and artisans, the new OATS program will focus on developing new content to train older adults in emerging technologies in creative expression.
- Selfhelp Community: The organization's Virtual Senior Center is an innovative technology solution helping address social isolation among vulnerable homebound seniors.
Additionally, the CTA Foundation will initiate support for these five organizations:
- Beneficent Technology: The creator of Bookshare, the world's largest online library of accessible print materials, will expand use of its library to the state of Texas giving seniors access to e-books, periodicals and other reading materials.
- Jewish Council for the Aging of Greater Washington (JCA): JCA's tech training centers offer computer and technology courses for adults 50 and older, focusing on digital literacy to stay connected to family and friends, and manage finances and health care.
- Meritan: The organization is outfitting two of its residential living centers with Smart Home technology, allowing for an increased level of care, real-time data availability, faster reaction to health issues and improved efficiency for direct support staff.
- Research to Prevent Blindness: The group supports early-stage research aimed at developing new assistive technology for persons with low vision, particularly using smartphones and tablets.
- Fellow Program: This new fellows program will engage academia in advancing knowledge to promote healthy, independent, socially-connected lives for older adults and people with disabilities.
For more information about the CTA Foundation, please visit the CTA Foundation website.
VisionCorps Launches Redesigned Website that Offers Improved Layout for Accessibility and Ease of Navigation
VisionCorps, an agency serving individuals who are blind or visually impaired through rehabilitation services and employment opportunities, recently announced the launch of its redesigned website. The website features an improved layout and updated functionality. Creating an accessible user-experience for individuals who are blind or visually impaired was a critical driver of the project.
VisionCorps partnered with local digital marketing agency, Quantum Dynamix, to redesign the site. "When designing the new VisionCorps' website, we avoided making assumptions regarding how people who are blind or vision impaired interact with the Internet. Instead, we spent time with individuals who have low vision or no vision, and observed website navigation one-on-one," impressed Eric Kazda, President and Co-Founder, Quantum Dynamix.
In addition to updates that meet standard ADA compliance requirements, features such as "High Contrast Mode" and "ZoomText Support" were added to allow individuals to more efficiently access the site. Additional modifications include permanently expanded left-hand navigation, improved contrast, clearly defined text boxes, improved font, and a list-view calendar featuring large-print numbers. Full use of Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) syntax allows for the proper support of Job Access with Speech (JAWS) and other screen readers.
"As an agency that employs and serves people who are vision impaired in our community, it is our duty and obligation to ensure that our publics have the best user experience possible," said Dennis Steiner, President and CEO, VisionCorps.
The VisionCorps' website will focus on educating the community in regards to its vision rehabilitation services, manufacturing capabilities, food processing capabilities, and administrative services. The website also includes up-to-date content from the VisionCorps Foundation, which continues to support programs that empower individuals with vision loss, and relies on financial support from individuals and businesses.
The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve GPS Project
In this, the 100th year of the National Park System, a first-of-its-kind project has been completed to make the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Strong, City, Kansas environmentally literate for the visitor who is blind or visually impaired. This groundbreaking work was completed by Craig Phillips, MS Ed. COMS, a Certified Orientation and Mobility Specialist and teacher of the blind and visually impaired formerly of Lenexa, Kansas, and now a resident of Lake Saint Louis, Missouri, who translated the visual environment into an auditory environment by marking the trails, recording routes, defining landmarks, and placing electronic waypoints on the 40 miles of trails with input from Ranger Jeff Rundell. The Trekker Breeze+, a GPS device designed for use by travelers with visual impairments and manufactured by Humanware of Drummondville, Canada, automatically provides the auditory information that relates to the traveler's location and position in real time, as well as recorded anecdotal commentary about the flora, fauna, history, wildlife, and other pertinent information about the geographic position. The Breeze+ provides information to the traveler with a visual impairment that the sighted traveler sees incidentally. For example, the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve has a trail that winds through a pasture populated by a herd of bison. The device informs the traveler of the surroundings by alerting the traveler of the impending danger of traveling through this area; describing the bison's history, diet, and behavior; providing the sound of a bison for familiarity; and offering information about the grass and vegetation in the area.
The visitor center has purchased four of the devices, which will be available to all travelers in the park since the sighted traveler can benefit from the information as well.
For further information contact Heather Brown, Chief of Interpretation and Visitor Services at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve at 620-273-6034 or heather_brown@nps.gov or Craig Phillips at 913-645-8262 or at cleep1700@att.net
Freedom Scientific Releases JAWS 18, Featuring Interoperability with Upcoming ZoomText 11, Vocalizer Expressive 2.2, Migration Feature, and Talking Mouse
Freedom Scientific recently announced the release of version 18 of JAWS for Windows, its screen reading software. Significant new features include the following:
- Greatly improved interoperability with the upcoming release of ZoomText 11
- Support for Nuance's Vocalizer Expressive 2.2 synthesizer, adding voices and new language support in Croatia and India
- Migration feature to assist users moving settings from version to version and computer to computer
- Talking Mouse, to help especially when using JAWS with either ZoomText 11 or MAGic 13.1 and above
With the recent addition of AiSquared to the VFO family several months ago, a priority for JAWS 18 and the new ZoomText 11 release was interoperability between the two products.
"Helping our customers who install and use both products at the same time is a priority now, as we strive to make sure the users of ZoomText can now experience the same benefit our MAGic customers have experienced for years when running alongside JAWS. Synchronized visual tracking on the web as JAWS navigation and reading is happening is a real plus," says Eric Damery, Vice President of Software Product Management. "Add the new migration tool, and JAWS users will find the instant access to their JAWS 17 settings, after installing JAWS 18, making this one of the smoothest annual upgrades yet."
The JAWS 18 upgrade is a Software Maintenance Agreement (SMA) release and can be downloaded as either a 32- or 64-bit version from the JAWS downloads webpage. English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, and French Canadian have all posted simultaneously and DVD shipments to SMA holders and new product customers will commence very soon.
Recruiting Beta Testers for KNFB Reader: Adding Multiple New Languages
Once again, the KNFB Reader team is adding many more languages to KNFB Reader. In June of this year, the grand total of languages available to KNFB Reader users increased to 19. With your help we may be adding as many as 13 in the near future.
In this round of additions, several have proved very challenging. Input from beta testers will be needed to ensure the best functionality for these new languages. We need those familiar with the following languages to volunteer to beta test the next version of KNFB Reader.
- Chinese (both Simplified and Traditional)
- Afrikaans
- Albanian
- Croatian
- Icelandic
- Indonesian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Romanian
- Serbian
- Slovak
- Slovenian
If you are interested in participating, please send a message to support@knfbreader.com. Include the following:
- Your name
- Your location
- The language/s you can test
- Your e-mail address
- The make and model of device you are using
- The version of the operating system you are currently running
- Do you already own KNFB Reader?
- Do you use either TalkBack or VoiceOver?
On a scale of 1-5, please rate your level of proficiency with your device. Please note that we want to find users of all skill levels.
Please spread this message far and wide. Many of these languages may not be commonly spoken in your area. If you know of anyone who may be interested in helping with this project, please do not hesitate to recruit them. Language testers do not need to be blind. Ask your friends, family members and coworkers who may speak any of these languages.
Thank you again for your interest in improving KNFB Reader. The team could not do it without you.
Email: support@knfbreader.com
