Dear AccessWorld Editor,
I liked An Overview Survey of Home Appliance Accessibility by Aaron Preece and Neva Fairchild. Thank you for addressing this topic. I totally agree on the importance of home appliance accessibility. [Connecting appliances to a mobile app] can make things easier, especially for people who are blind or visually impaired.
Whirlpool has its Duet line of washers and dryers. They provide audible beeps that tell the user what actions to take if the door of the washer is open. The newer Whirlpool Duet washers…have some very important features [, including] the clean washer cycle. This special cycle uses higher water volumes in combination with a fresh washer cleaner or liquid chlorine bleach to thoroughly clean the inside of the washer. Steam washer models also utilize steam to enhance cleaning in this special cycle.
The clean washer cycle … will determine whether clothing or other items are in the washer [before proceeding]. … If any items are detected in the washer, RL (remove load) will be displayed.
…Whirlpool's Duet washers [also…] have [a] door lock mechanism. This [prevents] the user from opening the washer door during operation. … If you damage the door lock mechanism, the washer will not operate.
Thank you for making this publication accessible for people who are blind and visually impaired.
Valentin Bernal
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
Thanks for a great read, Best Android Apps for People with Low Vision by Shelly Brisbin
I've been using Android for 15 months now. During that time I've been constantly amazed at the number of apps I've found in the Google Play store that have worked well with TalkBack. I've only found a couple that I've not been able to make use of but there's no doubt about it, accessibility in each successive release of Android OS was improved.
I hear statements about the lack of accessible Android apps and I believed those when I started using Android. At first when I tried Android I gave up, but that was three years ago […] and now those statements about Android accessibility are both mythical and thankfully laughable.
All this means of course more choice for the individual and more choice in the devices that the individual can use.
Dane Trethowan
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
I very much appreciate your hard work and great articles. ?I can't tell you how much I've benefitted through the years from your product evaluations and news items, both as a blind consumer and as a vocational rehabilitation counselor.
I recently upgraded to Mac from Windows. Your articles and Janet Ingber's book Learn to Use the Mac with VoiceOver: A Step-by-Step Guide for Blind Users have been true lifesavers, so to speak, with this process.
I have also enjoyed your medical related articles. ?I haven't come across any recent reviews of the current crop of digital players, though, such as the new Victor, the new players from HIMS, the product from APH, etc.
Is this a task you could address for us?
Right now, I have two aging Victors which have served me very well.
Even so, I'd like to have some info to decide which player might be the best replacement for my needs when the time comes.
Thanks again for your great articles and hard work.
M. Todd Morando
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
Thanks for such an intriguing look into what hopefully will be the future for most blind people who desire the use of such technology in the article, Repairing or Replacing the Optic Nerve: New Frontiers in the Vision Technology Research, by Bill Holton. Please keep us posted on this and any other companies or institutions involved in this wonderful research, including details regarding how to participate in clinical trials or betas.
Beth Terranova
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
Repairing or Replacing the Optic Nerve: New Frontiers in Vision Technology Research by Bill Holton is an interesting article.? I hope the cell regeneration proves successful, but it sounds risky.
Sorry, but that second approach, the tiles implanted on the visual cortex, no thanks.? That scares me silly.?Sounds freaky, not very good vision, and very glitchy.?But if someone wants to be a Guinea pig and can handle it, more power to him or her—and I wish them the best of luck.
David
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
Thank you for AccessWorld.
I especially like the recent article, Repairing or Replacing the Optic Nerve: New Frontiers in Vision Technology Research, by Bill Holton. He referred to his previous review of Argus II, which has only sixty pixels. Please ask him to review the device developed in Tubingen, Germany. It has 1,500 pixels and is reported to be very successful.
James Slagle
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
A Day in the Life: Technology that Assists a Visually Impaired Person through the Day by Bill Holton is a fun article, thank you for it. All these great technological solutions represent fine and of course ever-changing potential for us as blind individuals. Arriving at just how to actually use them seems to me to be the province of those among us with the money, the motivation, the network of instructional possibilities or knowledgeable friends willing to teach us. This article reminds me of the tales of streets of gold, just over those mountains, just across that ocean. My friends who are at my age have this or that product, but we are often living as we did getting to our age, with an exception here or there.
Cost: I have a Trekker, about $700; a talking thermostat, $150 before installation, add another $200 to 250 [for installation]; and a bar code reader, $1,300 (oh and it's only okay, lots of … common everyday things are not recognized); a color identifier, $100, and it's all right, not great; I have an Apple TV, but I kind of forget how to use it, and not only that, the setup and iTunes, let's see, when will my kids be over again? I'm glad to know my cable box and DVR might be accessible, ah but as it stands now, my TV and cable box are inaccessible—well unless I'm motivated to watch the thing, and really I'm not. And hey, NVDA is free, kind of, but I'm really so locked in to JAWS I mean it feels like an investment, I have to confess, I'm not really in a big hurry to learn iOS and NVDA; oh I have the books all right; I bought those books.
You have done your job, informing us of what's out there. We will or we won't make fabulous use and keep up with changes. Progress has been made and the responsibility is on us to get with those products and services that will help us be independent. I have to admit I am not quite as liberated as this article would have me be. The work-arounds we do are still considerable; the question is, How much do we care? Note takers, braille displays, CCTVs, iDevices, I'm glad they are there. In time maybe I'll learn them, maybe not. Cost deserves one more mention, it is said that I can have GPS for free on my smart phone. Ah, but my phone is anything but free. So we decide some things with no clear sense of how to be the best consumer, your article does let us see the range of possibilities. For that I thank you.
Mike Cole
