Dear AccessWorld Editor,

As I read through the April issue, I felt a rising sense of disappointment. Not dissatisfaction with AccessWorld, which always does a splendid job, but with the stagnation of this industry on which it reports.

There was so much "pie in the sky" at the 2014 CSUN Conference that isn't even available! There were so many companies at this year's AFB Leadership Conference promising greater accessibility which has not been delivered much so far. To cite just a few examples: I've been reading about IBM's access adventures for decades, because they always speak at these conferences, but IBM has little to offer the average consumer. Google is making lots of noise, but Talkback is still tricky, Google Groups is confusing and forget Google+. Just a few years ago, Sun MicroSystems was demonstrating Linux accessibility at CSUN, and it has completely disappeared without much improvement in accessing the graphical environment under Linux, either. Though Intuit has been working on access for a couple years now, Quicken still isn't accessible. I venture far more blind consumers want access to Quicken than QuickBooks. And Comcast keeps pontificating, since 2011, at blindness conferences about their new accessible set-top box, but you can't order one yet from its customer service.

It's kind of sad really that one could pay $500 to attend a conference, another couple thousand [dollars] for the hotel stay plus meals, and all that money is spent merely to learn about devices that are still basically just research projects! Even where products being sold are showcased, most sessions about the new screen reader update or the new braille PDA are purely advertising. And since most conference attendees use their agency's funds to attend, taxpayers' dollars are being spent on little more than a pricey promotional junket. Though I do believe it is important to promote one's research, I note that much of what we hear about at CSUN never becomes a real device we blind consumers can purchase and utilize.

Apple, meanwhile, never bragged about its plans to make the iPhone accessible. It simply did it and waited for the blind community to handle its advertising for them.

I loved Deborah Kendrick's review of the Focus Blue 14, and immediately wanted one. But none of these companies have any innovative financing models to offer me. Why can't I finance my braille display like a car? I love that I can get demos of nearly any product I am curious about if I attend these conferences, but what would be truly innovative is if the product managers sat down with consumers to ask us what we want and how their products could be improved. I've never seen that kind of a session at these conferences!

Speaking of innovation, do we really need more magnifiers, OCR solutions, talking PDAS, or braille embossers? How about tackling some real and as of yet unsolved problems we visually-impaired consumers encounter! I would like an iPhone app that interfaces with the treadmill at the gym to tell me what's on its screen and lets me control the exercise bike directly using my iPhone. All the gym equipment these days can cable to the phone, but the connection isn't being used for access. I would like a web server on my thermostat and laundry equipment so I could use a simple html?based interface to configure it and program a wash cycle. I would like a bar code reader that will tell me the price while I'm shopping. How about a television that costs as much as any other TV in its class, that I can control by voice: "Tune channel 4," or "When is PBS showing Nova next?" What about an indoor navigation system that's gotten beyond the research phase? The new Bluetooth 4.0 standard with its 100-foot range could be cheaply implemented to make indoor navigation a reality, see The Stick and Find stickers at https://www.sticknfind.com/sticknfind.aspx for an inexpensive commercial product which, with slight modifications, could become access technology.

Or, take some of those ultrasonic sensors you see now in vehicles which prevent the sighted from backing up over curbs, and put them [into] inexpensive handheld devices for object detection. When this was tried years ago, the sensors were not cheap, but now they cost less than a dollar. Searching the Web you'll find universities where students have built them in to gloves, helmets, belts, shoes and glasses, but this was all research. Few commercial products resulted. Surely the miniguide doesn't need to cost as much as it does if it used modern ultrasonic sensors. Temperature sensors, Compass sensors, GPS chips, and real-time clock chips are equally cheap, so if several sensors were built in to a baseball cap, powered with a solar panel on its bill, and this wearable gadget for the blind sold for $20, thousands would be purchased on pure impulse.

I wish the access technology innovators would actually innovate and spend more resources on developing the product than going to conferences to brag about what's still in the alpha-testing stage. We don't need to waste conference resources on more electrical engineering undergrads turning out research projects that go nowhere. They might as well use a cheaper venue like Make magazine to do that! Maybe the access technology guys should start reading Make!

I would also like to see our industry create more affordable, universal items, thus selling more of them and making them indispensable. The Victor Stream was truly useful, inexpensive and when it first came out the only player that could read such a variety of formats. More access technology companies need to copy its success; not by making another Daisy player but by making something that scads of vision-impaired customers can buy now and will truly want. Anyone want to design my $20, self-powered Telemetry cap? You can have the idea for free!

Sincerely,

Deborah Armstrong

Dear AccessWorld Editor,

Thank you very much for your article, A Review of Freeware and Shareware Screen Magnification Software for Windows by Ike Presley. I found it both very interesting and informative.

I currently use the Dolphin Supernova software. It is, in my view, the top of the range. I am a volunteer at my local libraries, helping visually impaired people to use this complicated software suite.

Maybe I can suggest for most of my students a less daunting software. I am really interested in Lightning Express for its launch from website, as you rightly identified, my local Library would not allow me to download more magnifying software onto their network.

Most visually impaired people want some magnification to enable them to read, write documents and e-mails and surf the internet.

I will be downloading some of the freeware and shareware software you have listed for evaluation.

Thank you very much for your work.

Warmest Regards,

Mr. Djafer Hammouche

Winslow, England

Dear AccessWorld Editor,

Thanks to Bill Holton for the great comparison of finance apps in the April 2014 article entitled, Accessible Mobile Money Management: Evaluating Mint, Check, and MoneyWiz iOS Apps. I understand Money Wiz is coming out with an app for Windows and Mac. Do any of these other apps work with Windows or Mac?

I am in a situation where my sighted wife needs access on a laptop and I want access on my iPhone.

Keith Bundy

Response from AccessWorld author, Bill Holton

Hello Keith,

Unfortunately, neither Mint nor Check runs on Windows or the Mac. Thanks for your question.

Dear AccessWorld Editor,

Reading A Review of Freeware and Shareware Screen Magnification Software for Windows by Ike Presley, I have concerns about the Android system. As an Apple iPad mini user you haven't convinced me that Google's Android operating system meets my needs as Apple's operating system does.

I only have 2% of normal sight so I need either constant speech in the form of VoiceOver or constant magnification in the form of Zoom. The font size would need to be at least 24 point for me to be able to read it and then only for short periods.

Sincerely,

David Devoy

Dear AccessWorld Editor,

As an occasional participant on AFB Technology Talk and a regular reader of AccessWorld, I want to commend the job you and your colleagues do on keeping the public, blind or sighted, informed about new innovations to help our quality of life.

Referring to A New Music Streaming Service: iTunes Radio is Here by Janet Ingber concerning iTunes radio, I often listen to public radio stations using Windows Media and had the misfortune to somehow have my computer infected by the Scorpion virus. Like a previous article in AccessWorld, I too sing the praises of the Microsoft Disability Support Team that were able to help me remove this threat. The question now stands: do you have, or plan to have any articles that might address the issue of pop-ups including unwanted threats to one's computer?

I am willing to exercise caution in listening to any on line radio as a result of this reported experience.

Thank you,

David Russell

New Books from National Braille Press

National Braille Press has recently published tutorials and more will be available this summer. Anna Dresner's Getting Started with the iPhone and iOS 7 is available in Braille, eBraille (BRF), Word, or DAISY for $24. This introduction for new users of iOS 7 includes tutorials, troubleshooting tips, and resources for more information. Judy Dixon's Get the Picture: Viewing the World through the iPhone Camera, also available in Braille, BRF, Word, or DAISY, costs $15.00. In this book, Judy has applied the knowledge she has gained from months of research on iPhone photography and has put into practice strategies enabling people who are blind to enjoy creating and sharing their own photographs of the world around them.

To order books:
By mail:
NBP
88 St. Stephen Street
Boston, MA 02115-4302

By phone:
toll-free: 800-548-7323
617-266-6160, ext. 520

Online:
http://www.nbp.org/ic/nbp/publications/index.html.

Perkins Announces New CEO

Perkins recently announced that Dave Power, a longtime business advisor and former software company executive, is the organization's new CEO and president. Power has worked as a business strategist and operating executive for more than 25 years.

"We couldn't be happier with the choice," said Frederic M. Clifford, Chairman of Perkins Board of Trustees. "Dave brings an informed viewpoint and innovative approach that will take Perkins and its various business ventures to the next level. His business acumen and entrepreneurial spirit are exactly what we need."

Power will oversee the company's five divisions:

• Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts
• Perkins Products, which includes the Perkins Brailler and other access technology
• Perkins Library, provider of audio, large print, and braille books
• Perkins International, helping organizations in 67 countries build educational opportunities for children who are blind or deafblind
• Perkins eLearning, delivering online education and networking opportunities for educators and parents of children with visual impairments

"Perkins has an extraordinary opportunity, shaped by technology advancements and the changing needs of the populations we serve," Power said. "With our leadership, our know-how, and our partners…we have a special opportunity to improve what we do today, reach new populations, and deliver exciting new products and services. I'm thrilled to take on this role."

Five years ago, Power helped develop the Perkins eLearning initiative to extend the know-how from the Perkins "center of excellence" in Watertown to other geographies through online education, webinars, and professional networking.

As CEO and President, he will look for new ways to improve services and outreach while also working closely with Dorinda Rife, the recently appointed Superintendent and Executive Director of National Educational Programs, to continue promoting the mission of Perkins School for the Blind.

In addition to his reputation as an innovative thinker and successful businessman, Power brings a personal understanding and passion for the mission and future of Perkins as the parent of a son who is deafblind and who graduated from Perkins.

A 10-member search committee chose Power after a six-month vetting process that considered more than 200 candidates. The search committee consisted of eight board-of-trustee members and two executive team members. A professional search firm, Witt/Kieffer, was brought on to help identify the best candidates and narrow the field. Additionally, another outside agency, Green Peak Partners, provided a rigorous assessment of the final candidates.

Power, who is the founder and current president of Power Strategy, Inc., is a former CEO and senior executive at several leading technology and investment firms and has advised business leaders on the essential elements of long-term sustainable growth. He has worked for companies such as Sun Microsystems, Novera Software and Fidelity Ventures. He earned BSCE and MS degrees from Tufts University, and an MBA from Stanford Business School. He is also the author of The Curve Ahead: Discovering the Path to Unlimited Growth. He lives with his wife, Helene, and their five children in Newton, Massachusetts.

M-Enabling Summit to be Held in Washington, DC

The M-Enabling Summit, a conference and showcase solely devoted to accessible and assistive mobile technology for seniors and users of all abilities, will be held June 9–10, 2014, in Washington, DC.

The Summit, organized in cooperation with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), encompasses a variety of topics from sectors including education, senior services, rehabilitation, travel and transportation, smart homes, mobile e-commerce, and emergency response. Leading solutions for those with physical, visual, and speech impairments, who are hard of hearing, and who have learning and cognitive disabilities will be demonstrated. The Summit will also review how mobile applications and services leveraging the latest accessibility innovations embedded in smartphones and tablets are playing a key role in rapidly transforming these sectors.

The program will focus on mobile accessibility innovations with 150 speakers, private sector leaders, application developers, mobile accessibility experts, and disability advocates sharing their experience.

View the complete agenda Register now

For additional information, e-mail Pat Tessler, or call 301-493-5500.

Last Call for the NIB Joseph Roeder Assistive Technology Scholarship Applications!

The National Industries for the Blind (NIB) is seeking applicants for the Joseph Roeder Assistive Technology Scholarship, a $2,500 scholarship to an individual who is blind, interested in pursuing education in computer science, information systems, or a related field, and pursuing a career in access technology. Learn more about the scholarship.

All applications and additional documents must be submitted online no later than Friday, May 16, 2014. The scholarship application is available online.

Blind Media Professionals Open Hollywood's Eyes to Watching TV

Make Media Accessible Event and Live Streaming Interactive Webcast Set for May 14—Entertainment Industry, Educators, and Disability Community Invited to Attend

Rick Boggs of Audio Eyes, LLC and his team of production professionals who supply video description for broadcast TV networks will demonstrate the process they use to produce effective video description in a May 14 event and webcast.

The event, "Inside Video Description: How Pictures Become Words," will take place from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. (PST) in Burbank at the Dolby Labs, Umlang Theater, 3601 West Alameda Avenue Burbank, CA, 91505, along with the live interactive webcast.

"This is an opportunity to bring together Hollywood executives, TV producers, educators, and a number of professionals from within the disability community to reveal state-of-the-art techniques on ways professionals with vision loss are adding value to the description production process," says Rick Boggs, whose company, Audio Eyes LLC, provides accessible media services to the entertainment community.

Boggs and his team will demonstrate his company's Quality Control Process to those attending the event as well as broadcast it online in partnership with the Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP), the nation's largest free-loan educational described and captioned media library.

Josh Miele, director, Video Description Research and Development Center (VDRDC) said: "We all find ourselves wondering how to make media more usable and enjoyable for persons without sight. We wonder about the cost and the time involved in making media accessible, and how to tell whether the video description accommodation is effective and worthwhile to students and consumers."

In particular, Miele and Boggs believe this process offers the film and television industry, the creators of America's most powerful cultural and economic export, a new opportunity to make media inclusive and to work inclusively with "disabled" professionals.

A television celebrity host and a nationally renowned video description expert will lead a demonstration and discussion to review the process and to answer questions.

"Holding the event in Burbank will give executives and producers from Hollywood who attend the chance to see firsthand the live demonstration of the critical video description quality control process, with plenty of time to ask questions about how the process can impact their work," says Boggs.

He adds that blind consumers who attend the web event will be invited to submit their comments and questions live during the video description process. He also notes that those with vision loss will have an unprecedented opportunity to learn about professional opportunities in the field of accessible media.

National Disability Employment Awareness Month 2014 theme announced

The US Department of Labor recently announced the 2014 official theme of National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM): "Expect. Employ. Empower." Observed in October, NDEAM is a nationwide campaign that raises awareness about disability employment issues and honors the many diverse contributions of America's workers with disabilities.

"We all have a role to play in—and benefit to gain from—increasing opportunities for meaningful employment for people with disabilities," said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Disability Employment Policy Kathy Martinez. "This year's theme encapsulates this in three powerful words. It conveys that advancing disability employment is about much more than just hiring. It's about creating a continuum of inclusion. And the first step on this continuum is expectation."

This year's NDEAM theme is the outcome of a highly collaborative process. The department's Office of Disability Employment Policy began by holding a national online dialogue in which members of the public were invited to submit ideas. Facilitated through ODEP's ePolicyWorks initiative using crowdsourcing technology, this dialogue attracted 350 registrants who together submitted 126 different theme ideas. In addition to contributing their own ideas, registrants could comment and vote on those submitted by others. ODEP then narrowed the list of contenders in collaboration with members of the Campaign for Disability Employment at their quarterly meeting April 9, which was held at Special Olympics headquarters in Washington, D.C.

NDEAM traces its history to 1945, when Congress declared the first week in October each year "National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week." In 1962, the word "physically" was deleted to acknowledge the needs and contributions of individuals with all types of disabilities. In 1988, Congress expanded the week to a month and adopted its current name. Upon its establishment in 2001, ODEP assumed responsibility for NDEAM, including the selection of its annual theme.

Although NDEAM is recognized in October, its theme is announced each spring to assist workplaces, individuals and communities across the nation in planning. For more information, including specific ideas for how different types of organizations can participate, visit the NDEAM website.

You don't have to look far to realize that the ways people learn about news and current events have changed dramatically over the past decade. The days of waiting for tomorrow's newspaper or the 6 o'clock news to get the latest headlines are long gone, and now, thanks to smartphones, we have a bevy of options at our fingertips to learn of the latest happenings. Since news stories by their nature are mostly text-based, many of the apps available to read the news are quite accessible on mobile devices. Below, we'll cover several apps available for iOS (iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad) or Android that we have found to be both accessible and useful in gathering and reading about the latest news. As you will notice, most news apps are either free or very inexpensive, so all you'll need is your phone or tablet of choice to keep up-to-date with the latest happenings in the world.

NFB Newsline

The NFB Newsline service has been offering news, TV listings, and more from hundreds of sources since the 1990s, and now it has evolved to include an iPhone app. After signing up for a free Newsline account, you will receive an identification code and a PIN, which you will need to use the app. If you've ever used the phone service or website, this is the same code used for these services. Once you enter this information, you can browse through the list of available publications or search for one you like. NFB Newsline includes hundreds of sources, and finding the one you're looking for can sometimes take you a few menus deep. You can create a favorites list, however, so you only have to search once for your favorite newspaper or magazine.

Once you choose a publication and an issue, all of the articles are presented on a single screen. You can navigate by headings using the rotor gesture on your iOS device. Take two fingers and place them on your screen as if you were turning a screw and turn clockwise. You will hear a wrench sound if you perform this gesture correctly. Keep doing this until you hear the word "headings." Then you can swipe up or down with one finger to move between each story in the list.

NFB Newsline has recently added a Breaking News category that includes popular online sources such as CNet and the Verge. Select the Breaking News item from the list and then select today's date. Headlines are posted here at roughly the same time as they appear on the website. While many of these news sites offer their own apps, some people may prefer the consistent interface the NFB Newsline app provides.

Umano

News read through a speech synthesizer can get tiring after a while. Sometimes, it's just easier to listen to someone else reading you news and interesting articles. Umano's tagline is "Bringing content to life with human narration," and this goal is achieved through providing a variety of news and features content read by others.

When the app opens, you'll be asked to log in with an account or skip logging in. While you don't need an account to listen to articles, the free sign-up process lets you create playlists and store your preferences across devices. You then will be asked to select some categories to create your custom feed. Don't worry, you can change these later on. This will just help the app create a list of suggested articles you might want to read. Once you do this, you can start to select articles to listen to them. You can load articles one at a time or put them in a playlist for hands-free listening while jogging or working.

The basic Umano service is free for both iOS and Android and includes a growing library of content from dozens of sources. The focus is on features content such as technology, sports, or political stories. A $3.99 per-month premium service allows for enhanced features such as offline listening, so you can download articles and listen to them without an Internet connection, and additional playlist features.

CNN

Practically every major and local news outlet has mobile apps to complement their other services. As we mentioned above, many of these are completely or mostly accessible since news is largely text-based. For example, the CNN app allows users to read the latest news stories or browse through featured content. When selecting a news story on an iPhone or iPad, it's often easier to turn on continuous reading so you don't have to keep swiping to hear an entire story. To do this, swipe down with two fingers to read the screen from the current position, or up with two fingers to read the entire screen from the top. For newer Android devices, make a right angle gesture by swiping up and then to the right for the continuous reading menu.

The CNN app allows you to also watch various live television channels, the same channels you would find on your cable or satellite provider. You will need a subscription from one of these providers to watch live TV, and will be prompted for a username and password to view these channels. Check with your cable or satellite provider if you do not have your log in information.

If CNN is not your cup of tea, similar apps exist for the BBC, Fox News, NPR, and many others. You can use the news apps section on the AppleVis website to browse through over 100 apps that other users have rated for accessibility.

Following News on Twitter

Twitter is often thought of as a place for people to give short 140-character updates on their lives, but it is perhaps more often used as a means to post and share news headlines, stories, and observations. One common strategy is to create a list of news accounts to follow and browse for the latest headlines. For example, all of my local television stations, my local newspaper, and a local radio station have Twitter accounts that I follow. These accounts will tweet news headlines and stories as they are posted to the Web as well as other short observations about important events. By following all of these accounts, I can get a good sense of the happenings in my local area. You can expand on this idea by following local restaurants, universities, libraries, theaters, and others who also have Twitter accounts. This Introduction to Twitter was published in AccessWorld in 2010, but much of the material still applies.

There are a variety of Twitter apps to choose from, but Twitterrific on iOS and Tweetings on Android both have simple, clean interfaces that are easy to follow and work well with accessibility. You'll need to create a Twitter account to follow others including news sites, but you don't need to actually post to your account if you don't want to.

Conclusion

We've only scratched the surface when it comes to accessible apps for staying up-to-date with the latest news. Whether you prefer to read articles from today's paper, listen to news read aloud, or watch a television news channel, there's likely an app or several apps to do the job. And since most news apps are free, you can try them out without worrying if they'll meet your needs. If you don't like a particular app, just remove it from your device. Most mobile devices can store hundreds of apps, so there's little worry of filling up your phone with apps.

If there's a particular app you're fond of, be sure to let us know and we may feature it in a future article. But for now, enjoy the news.

Comment on this article.

During the past few years, the community of people with visual impairments has become increasingly excited over the accessibility prospects and possibilities of Google Glass, a pair of smart glasses that incorporates cameras, a heads-up display, and a live data connection to enhance the wearer's ability to interact with his or her environment. What many are not as familiar with, however, are the great strides that have already been made by researchers focused on similar technologies and how they can be used to assist people with visual impairments to navigate and interact with their worlds on a footing more equal to that of their sighted contemporaries. This article discusses two such efforts: A pair of smart glasses under development by a team of researchers led by Oxford University's Stephen Hicks, and the digital eyewear, available for purchase as of October 2013, from Ottawa-based eSight Corporation.

eSight Corporation

For nearly 30 years, Canadian electrical engineer Conrad Lewis has made a point of keeping up with all the latest access technologies. His two sisters Julia and Anne were both diagnosed in their 20s with Stargardt Disease, an early onset form of macular degeneration. Prompted by their diagnoses, Lewis—who began his professional career as a business executive and is now a venture investor—began to bring home new gadgets and pieces of access software he'd come across at trade shows and through his growing network of professional connections.

In the middle of the last decade Lewis took note of the growing convergence of mobile processing power and lightweight, high-resolution video displays. Perhaps he could leverage this coming convergence into a workable product that would enable his sisters to use their limited eyesight more effectively.

In 2007, Lewis founded eSight Corporation with the help of US and Canadian angel investors, along with grants from various foundations and government agencies. "Others had previously worked on head-mounted displays for the visually impaired, but they were too large and heavy, and didn't allow people to be mobile—not at all what Conrad had in mind," says Kevin Rankin, president and CEO of eSight Corporation, where Conrad Lewis currently serves as Chairman of the Board.

The device Lewis envisioned would also require much faster image processing than was available at the time of the company's founding. So he and his team of engineers set about writing and optimizing software, testing and customizing components, and building prototypes for two generations of eSight glasses. They completed their first pre-production model in mid-2012, and in October of 2013 began offering their eSight glasses for sale in the US and Canada.

eSight Glasses: How They Work

eSight glasses are about the size of a pair of wraparound sunglasses. They enable a user to magnify and view objects as close as 12 inches away and as far away as an object across the room, across the street, or across a field. A high-resolution video camera with zoom capabilities is built into the bridge, and a cable runs from one of the earpieces down to a hip-carried processing unit and power source. "The glasses are custom made using lenses ground to the wearer's own prescription," says Rankin. "These lenses are then overlaid with a transparent OLED (organic light emitting diode) display that can be user adjusted to fill their entire field of view, or just the upper portion, while allowing use of peripheral vision and awareness, and most importantly mobility." Think of a pair of bifocals, where the user can choose between magnified and contrast enhanced or their regular vision for any activity of daily living, depending on whether he or she focuses his or her gaze through the upper or lower half of the lenses.

The eSight camera captures what's ahead and sends it to the processing unit, which is about the size of a large-screen smartphone and about twice as thick. There the images are processed frame by frame in real time. "The unit allows the user to adapt to their personal preferences and needs with two easy-to-use dial controls, including an up to fourteen times zoom, contrast, and various color adjustments to make the real-time image easier to see and enjoy," Rankin explains.

Lewis did not want his sisters and other users to have to constantly switch back and forth between their standard prescription glasses and their eSight digital eyewear. "The way we designed them, a wearer could rely on their own prescription lenses to navigate their living room or other familiar surroundings, switch to half screen mode with some magnification and enhanced contrast to watch television, or choose a full-magnification, full-screen mode to read a book with white letters on a black background," he says, adding, "eSight users are now sharing amazing stories of actually seeing all of the important details while shopping, walking through airports, being at school, and at work."

One User's Perspective

The eSight glasses went on sale last October, priced at $14,950. One of the first purchasers was Yvonne Felix, who lives with her husband and their two young sons in Hamilton, Ontario.

Yvonne was diagnosed at age 7 with Stargardt Disease. By 15 she could no longer see the drawings filled with fairies and unicorns she loved to create. "I'd have to finish them in a single sitting," she recalls. "Otherwise I'd lose my place."

In high school teachers would not allow Yvonne to attend art class because they didn't know how to grade her work. They also discouraged her from assembling a portfolio and applying to art college. When Yvonne was 25 she applied, anyway, was accepted, and after graduation she became a community artist with two public installations to her credit—a public conversation area and a large magnifying glass that's also a sundial.

Yvonne read about the glasses in a Foundation Fighting Blindness newsletter, and purchased a pair with the help of a generous private donor and several public fundraisers. "They brought them to my home to try," she relates. Yvonne did not wear prescription lenses, so her first test was using full screen magnification. The results were startling. "The very first thing I saw was my husband and my boys," she remembers. "They were beautiful. They looked just like I had always imagined."

At the time, Yvonne was completing a painting for a charity auction—an abstract depicting her blind spot. "When I saw it through the glasses, I wanted to redo the entire canvas," she says. "My mind's eye and my new eyes had a lot of getting to know each other to do."

Yvonne's vision was improved even more with the addition of prescription lenses. "Sometimes it's like my blind spot isn't even there, anymore," she says. "I can see the dials on the oven, and these days when the house gets dirty I notice it, which is a mixed blessing."

Yvonne's brother, William, also has Stargardt disease, and he is in the process of getting a pair of eSight glasses for himself, too. Her elder son, Noah, has also tried on Yvonne's glasses. "To him it's like a magic trick that lets me read print books to him at night," she says.

Smart Glasses from Assisted Vision

The benefits of eSight eyewear are limited mostly to people with partial sight between 20/60 and 20/400. This leaves out a considerable swath of individuals who have much lower visual acuity. Happily, a small team of British researchers led by Stephen Hicks, PhD, Research Fellow in Visual Prosthetics in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, are well on their way to producing a different kind of device that could assist individuals with useable vision, less than 20/400, to identify objects and more safely explore and navigate their environment.

How Assisted Vision Smart Glasses Work

Like Conrad Lewis, Hicks also saw the benefit of working with off-the-shelf technology. "It occurred to me an excellent starting point might be to pair object recognition software with a heads-up display," he explains.

In 2010 Hicks began working with LabVIEW, object recognition software from National Instruments, which later gave him an award for innovative use of their product. "Traffic signs were fairly easy to recognize, and they were also easy to set up in a lab," he says.

Hicks created signs the size of CD jewel cases and hung them on a wall about 4 meters—a bit more than 13 feet—from several individuals with vision less than 20/600. "Without enhancement, none of the subjects could pick out the signs," he recounts. "We trained a video camera on the wall and used the object recognition software to spot the sign. The image was processed and enhanced, then projected onto the heads-up display of a gaming helmet. Every one of the subjects could now see a patch of brightness in the direction of the wall where the sign was located."

Hick's proof of concept model used a single video camera, so there was no way to distinguish distant from nearby objects. In a happy happenstance, however, it was about that time when Microsoft introduced Kinect, a gaming device that creates a 3D map of a room and identifies game players, tracking their movements and gestures. Kinect uses a single video camera, but it also projects thousands of tiny infrared dots, and uses their reflections and a complex set of algorithms to calculate depth, much like radar or sonar.

"With Kinect we could create a 3D map of objects up to 20 feet away," says Hicks. "But we now had too much information. We not only had to identify objects, we had to figure out which objects were important and which were just background."

Hicks and his team solved the problem by taking a giant step backwards. "We stopped trying to identify the objects," he explains. "Instead of trying to pick out that table three feet ahead and tagging it as a table, we began simply presenting that table as an area of brightness, the closer the brighter. Hicks also simplified the image by removing the far?away back half, and adding enhanced contrast controls. "Often all it takes is a tiny hint of where something fairly close is located to find a door or orient yourself inside a room," he says.

Hicks and his team continued to refine and improve their smart glasses. "We didn't want to replace anyone's usable vision, we wanted to enhance it," Hicks says. Toward that end they assembled a different sort of heads-up display using even more off-the-shelf technology. This new display projected the visual enhancements onto a transparent OLED screen. The wearer can use as much of his or her remaining sight as possible to identify that table, helped along by the device's brightness, contrast and edge enhancements. "Hold a hand in front of your face and the image would show through the glasses, but with an aura of brightness at the edges to help identify it," Hicks explains.

One User's Story

In August of 2013, University of London lecturer in French Dr. Hannah Thompson spent two hours with Hicks and his team testing out the glasses. "When I put them on I felt like a character in a science fiction novel, she relates in a blog post. "I was suddenly seeing the world in a completely different way. Objects which would have been impossible for me to see shone before my eyes in shades of pink and white.

"I found the glasses incredibly easy to use, and within minutes I was happily navigating my way around a series of obstacles. I would find these glasses especially useful at night, in glaring sunlight or in dappled shade. They would not only stop me from walking into things, they would also help me keep a watchful eye on my children, who are often the first things to disappear when light conditions affect my vision."

Indeed, light conditions are one of the few remaining hurdles Hicks and his team must overcome before they turn the device over to the engineers to miniaturize the components and incorporate them into an attractive and comfortable pair of eyeglass frames. "The infrared dots work well inside to fix position, but as soon as you step out into bright sunlight they wash out and become increasingly useless," Hicks explains. Hicks has engaged a British camera company to create an imaging processing unit that works in bright light to generate real time 3-D maps and still be small enough to fit on the bridge of a pair of glasses. "We could actually perform all of the processing on the glasses themselves," he adds, "but we will still need to use a separate power supply, because adding a battery would make the smart glasses too heavy for comfort."

Hicks has many other enhancements planned for the near future. "We've circled back around to our starting point with image recognition, which we could use to identify faces, signs, even headline text. Unfortunately, we can't use color as markers for identified objects, because many persons with extremely limited vision have lost their color perception. We could create blinking patterns, however, or play sound cues through headphones—perhaps bone conducting headphones so we don't interfere with environmental sound cues."

Hicks is currently in the final months of a four-year pilot study, and by the end of 2014 he is hoping to begin manufacturing and marketing his glasses through a startup company named Assisted Vision for approximately£500, a bit more than $800.

Contact Information

eSight eyewear
info@esightcorp.com
Phone: 855-837-4448
Assisted Vision
info@smart-specs.com

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Although it's been a long, cold winter for many of us, summer will be here very soon. If you want to get in shape for shorts, tank tops, and bathing suits, My Fitness Pal may be just what you need. My Fitness Pal is a website that works in tandem with apps for iOS, Android, and Windows Mobile. There is no charge for using the website or apps.

For this review I used an iPhone 5. As part of the research I asked a colleague who is very skilled with the Android operating system to check out the app. He reported that it was not accessible.

Creating an Account

Although you can create your account via the app, you may prefer the website, since a lot of information must be entered.

When the home page loads, you'll find many links such as calorie counts for foods offered at many chain restaurants. Once you create an account these restaurant links will no longer be on the home page, but you will be able to search for them using the food search form. Use your screen reader's form controls to find edit boxes for signing up by e-mail or through your Facebook account. The website promises that it will only share information which you approve.

If you choose to sign up via e-mail, enter your address in the e-mail edit box and activate the "Sign Up" button. When the new page loads, if you're using Internet Explorer, there will be a labeled edit box for a user name. The next edit box will contain your e-mail address and the final edit box will be for entering a password. If you are using Safari, the user name and password edit boxes will not be labeled. There will then be a checkbox to choose whether to receive the My Fitness Pal newsletter. In Internet Explorer the box is labeled, but it isn't in Safari. Once the information is filled in, activate the button to create an account.

When the next page loads, you will be asked your current weight, your goal weight, how many times per week you plan to work out, and the duration of your workouts. There will also be radio buttons to choose your activity level. By default, the unit of measure is calories, but this can be changed to kilojoules. Internet explorer did a better job of reading this page, but Safari did relatively well with it. Once you're done filling in all the information, activate the button to go on to the next part of the form.

The new page will present edit boxes to enter the e-mail addresses of your friends so they can follow your progress. It is not a requirement to complete this part of the form, so if you don't want to add friends, activate the "Skip" button.

Your Program

The next page contains two tables. The first details your nutritional goals, including how many calories and how many grams of carbs, fat, and protein you should have per day. The second table details your fitness goals, including how many times a week to work out and the duration of the workout. The website then gives an estimate of how many pounds you are predicted to lose if you follow the designated nutrition and exercise plans. There is also a "Get Started Now" button.

Although I filled in the information correctly to lose 1.5 pounds per week, my profile said that I only wanted to lose .3 pounds per week. I filled in the information using both Internet Explorer and Safari just in case there was a problem with the browser. I knew that if I followed the website's recommendations that I'd lose more than .3 pound per week. There was a Contact Us link so I activated it. A phone number was not provided, but there was an easy-to-use e-mail form that I filled out and submitted. I could have directly e-mailed using support@myfitnesspal.com.

I received the following answer within a half hour:

"The program is designed to recalculate your goals based on your profile information, but the program also has a limit to the minimum number of calories we recommend per day. We have designed a program to help with healthy and sustainable weight loss. We do not recommend for any member to consume under 1200 net calories a day. Eating too little can also have a negative effect and put one's body into starvation mode.

Since we have this limitation, depending on your profile information, your calculations may not be able to recalculate when you change your information. However, these are calculations, and weight loss varies for each individual. We have had members report more of a weight loss than the calculations originally estimated. We recommend staying within your daily recommendations, and see what happens."

I created a profile for someone else. That person's weight was greater than mine and they needed to lose more weight. The website created a program which made more sense and the weight loss per week was appropriate.

Once the "Get Started" button is activated a new page loads with many links, most of which are clearly labeled. Your browser's navigation hotkeys can make the page easier to read. Safari and Internet Explorer both did well.

Among the many links were "Food," "Exercise," "Add Food," "Add Exercise," and "Settings." There were also social media and forum links.

Activating the "Settings" link brings up a list of things that you can change including Password, Update your Diet/Fitness Profile, Change Diary Settings, and Change Social Media settings (including Facebook and Twitter). You can delete your account from here as well. Once your profile is created, it's a good idea to review the options in Settings.

Adding Foods

When the "Food" link is activated, a table is presented where you can enter what you ate during the day. Under each category, such as Breakfast or Snack, there's a link to add a food. This link brings up a search form, consisting of an edit box and search button. The results list is called "Matching Foods" and it can be found with the headings hotkey. Each result is presented as a link. The more specific the search, the fewer results will be displayed. I searched for "Special K Red Berries Cereal" and still got many hits with some of the results not containing any of my words.

One important thing to note is that if a result has an * (asterisk) in front of it, then another user put the information into the database. When I activated the results link for the cereal, I didn't receive any feedback about the new page being loaded, but with my headings hotkey, I was able to find the result. There was an edit box to enter the number of servings and a button for choosing the unit of measure. Next there was a button to add the food to the diary. When the new page loaded, the item was in the diary and all of the cereal's nutrition information was in a table. On this screen, there is also a link to add another food and a link labeled "Quick Links." Activating this link brings up several options including Remember Meal. If the link is activated, a form will load where you can enter a name for the entire meal. This is convenient for foods and meals you eat regularly, since they will be added to the My Meals section when the "Food" link is activated and you won't have to search for them again.

Adding Exercises

You can add exercises in a similar manner to adding foods. Activate the "Exercise" link and you can search the database or add in your own exercise. Once you choose the exercise you want to use, there will be edit boxes for filling in the specific information for each exercise. For example, I chose Stationary Rowing with Moderate Effort. There was an edit box to fill in duration. Once that was entered, the website listed the number of calories burned. Exercises are broken up into two categories, cardiovascular and strength training. For strength training exercises you'll be asked to enter the number of sets, how many repetitions in each set and the amount of weight.

Even if you don't want to fill in the food and exercise diaries, this website is a good place to get information about nutrition and exercise.

My Fitness Pal iOS App

Once the iOS app is installed and opened, you'll need to enter your user name and password. Once logged in, there's a "main menu" button at the top left corner. By flicking right there are other buttons such as "Previous Day," "Current Date," and "Next Day." After these buttons is the number of calories remaining for the current day. Next is an "Add to Diary" button followed by a "Diary" button and then your goal, calories per day, how many food calories you've had, how many calories you've used during exercise that day and the net amount of calories. Next are social media buttons.

Activating the "Main Menu" button brings up a list of options including Nutrition, Progress, Goals, Reminders, Settings, Help and Sync. Pressing the "Sync" button did not give any auditory feedback.

The Settings option allows for the control of many important features. The first item is your profile. When this is activated you can view and make changes to your profile and preferences. For example, you can change from pounds to kilograms on the screen. For each measurement you are presented with at least two options. As you flick to each option, VoiceOver will say that option is selected. Double tap on the one you want. Once all choices have been made, activate the "Save" button.

The Diary settings option presents ways to customize what is displayed. The first three controls have switch buttons. To change the switch, double tap on it. As you go through each item VoiceOver will say "selected." The first control is whether to show all meals in diary tabs. By default this is turned off. If it's turned on, everything you've eaten that day will be displayed. The next choice is to use Multi-Add by Default. This lets you add more than one food item at a time. The next option is whether to show your newsfeed on the home tab. This is only important if you've set up social networking.

The first item in the Diary settings menu option is Default Search Tab. There are five choices. As you review the tabs, they will say "Selected." Double-tap on the one you want. The first choice is Recent. Selecting this tab will display all the items you've recently added to your food diary. The next option is Frequent. If this tab is selected, the app will search its database for foods that you eat frequently. Chances are that you'll receive many results. You can search by brand name, type of food or specific food. The My Foods tab searches foods that you have added to the app database. The fourth choice is Meals. This tab displays any meals that you have created and saved. The final option is Recipes, for recipes you have created and saved.

The final option in the Diary Settings menu is Diary Sharing. This is for choosing who, if anyone, can see your diary. Each option will say "Selected" as you flick to it. Double tap on the option you want to use. Then activate the "Save" button in the upper right corner. In the main menu, the next section is Sharing and Privacy. This is where push notifications, newsfeed, Facebook and e-mail preferences can be set.

On the home screen, activating the Goals option will display your current weight, goal weight, calories per day, and other information regarding your nutrition plan.

Using the Diary

The Diary opens from the home screen. You use it to log food, exercise, and water. There's an "Add" button at the top right of the Diary screen. When the button is activated, a new screen comes up with two headings: Meals and Exercises. The Meals heading has options for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. The Exercises heading has two subcategories, Cardiovascular and Strength. After the exercise section there's a heading for Water and a heading for Food and Exercise notes.

Adding Foods

After the "Add" button is pressed, choose which meal you want to enter by double tapping on it. For example, if you want to add what you ate for breakfast, double tap the breakfast option. Several choices are displayed including Add a New Food and Add Calories Only. There is also a "display options" setting within the diary, but it isn't clearly pronounced. If the frequently search option is chosen, an edit box will appear where you can enter the name of a food. This is similar to the website. When you find the result you want to add, double tap on it. Nutrition information will be displayed and it will be entered into the diary. Tap the "Save" button in the upper right corner. Once the food is added, there are options for saving it as a meal or copying the meal for another day.

Adding Exercises

The first step in adding an exercise is selecting Cardiovascular or Strength. You can search Frequently, Your Exercises (which you already entered into the database), or both. Once an exercise is selected, a new screen will appear and you'll need to enter the amount of time you engaged in the activity. The app will compute the calories burned. Activate the "Save" button in the upper right to add it. For a strength training exercise you'll need to enter the number of sets, how many repetitions per set, and how much weight you used.

Conclusion

My Fitness Pal is a good option for someone wanting to get in shape. There's a lot of information on the website, but it's manageable. The iOS app is mostly accessible. Flicking around the screen is a good way to determine what's available. Even if you use the app, you might find it easier to create your account on the website. Another advantage of My Fitness Pal is that it's completely free.

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The first thing that users of refreshable braille devices will find appealing about the new Braille Sense U2 Mini from HIMS is its wonderfully portable size. Advances in technology are decreasing the sizes of our devices while increasing their power, and this innovation benefits braille users. There have been small refreshable braille products in the past, but none with such an impressive combination of power, speed, and multiplicity of functions.

The Braille Sense U2 Mini can slide into any purse, backpack, or even roomy jacket pocket with ease, and it weighs less than a pound. Measuring 6.7 inches by 3.5 inches by 1 inch, it sports a nine-key Perkins-style keyboard, 18 eight-dot braille cells with 18 cursor routing buttons, a secure digital card slot (supporting SD cards of up to 64 GB, although users report success with larger ones), an OTG USB port, stereo headphone jack, and built-in speakers with excellent clarity and volume for such a small device. Four function keys, four scroll keys, and a panel of media controls add up to the same versatility and flexibility of control that users of other U2 products will recognize. The U2 Mini offers so many features that I suspect I'll leave at least one out of them out in this product review.

Out of the Box

The Braille Sense U2 Mini arrives with its own carrying case, AC adapter, battery charger, two user-replaceable lithium batteries, a CD with documentation, and a spiral-bound hardcopy braille command summary. The AC adapter can be connected directly to either the power port on the left side of the unit (with a convenient braille "dc" noting its position) or to the supplied battery charger. Since two batteries are supplied, one can be in the unit while the other is charging. The battery compartment is at the back left edge of the unit; popping the battery in and out is a simple task.

The U2 Mini has both wireless and Bluetooth connectivity, and the usual applications we've come to expect in such devices: word processing, web browsing, e-mail, and organizing tools like a calendar, address book, and database manager. With both braille and speech output, you can read or listen to documents in a wider variety of formats than available in perhaps any other note taking device including .brf, .txt, .rtf, .doc, docx, .pdf, and even .xls. (It should be noted that, while most of these features are available on most HIMS notetakers, the Excel Viewer is only available on the U2 products.) You can listen to and record from your favorite FM radio station or play a music collection you've organized yourself. You can also play a variety of other audio and video content. You can access books from the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), Audible.com, Bookshare, Learning Ally and others. The DAISY player allows you to access books in DAISY, text, or audio formats.

Let's Talk about Those Extras

With the U2 Mini in your pocket, you can read books, documents, Microsoft Excel sheets, and your e-mail, or work on writing that novel you've been crafting in your head. Most of these are tasks we've come to expect in access technology products promoted as notetakers or personal organizers, but the U2 Mini offers a number of extra features that make it particularly attractive.

Under the menu HIMS calls Extras, you'll find quick launches for the following applications:

• Dropbox
• Google Maps
• Bookshare
• Excel Viewer for reading dictionaries
• Sense Navigation GPS

If you have a Bookshare account, you will be thrilled at the speed with which this little Bookshare application can locate, download, and have a book ready for you to read. Dropbox provides quick access to your account if you use that service. The optional dictionary is available in English, Spanish, French, or Italian, and includes a thesaurus, as well as some additional features like geographical and population information for major cities throughout the world. The Sense Navigation application features the well-known Sendero GPS functionality designed for navigators who are blind. (The dictionary and GPS programs are available as optional additional purchases, and are not included in the price of the unit itself.)

While these are the items HIMS has chosen to categorize as "extras," there are several other bonus features found under other menus.

First, as with any Braille Sense product, you can download and install for free five Bible translations. These five versions of the Bible can then be easily navigated by version, book, chapter, and verse. You can set bookmarks and compare translations with ease. As with all material stored in the unit, you have the option of listening to the clear text-to-speech voice, reading silently in braille, or combining the two modalities.

Another batch of extras is found under the Social Networking menu.

Twitter, in particular, is extremely easy to use when accessed through the interface. The other two options here are Google Talk, and Sense Chat, an application that enables communication between two HIMS notetakers.

The U2 line of products from HIMS offers the particularly entertaining capability of streaming certain audio and video content, including YouTube. Under the Media menu, along with the FM radio and DAISY player present in all the HIMS notetakers, U2 users have a YouTube option. As is the case with all of the online applications such as Dropbox, Twitter, Google Search, etc., the YouTube application is beautifully straightforward and easy to use.

Deafblind Appeal

There are a few features in the Braille Sense U2 Mini that will be of particular interest to deafblind users. Sense Chat mentioned above is one, providing one way for two users of Braille Sense products to communicate. Another innovative feature is the vibrating motor. Alerts and alarms can be set to emit sound, vibration, or both. This particular option, of course, will be useful to anyone not wishing to make noise in a meeting or other place where it might be disruptive, but also makes alerts and alarms fully accessible to individuals unable to hear.

The HIMS Chat free iOS app is designed for face-to-face communication between a deaf-blind person and someone who is sighted and hearing. Words entered on the iOS device appear on the U2 braille display, and words typed on the U2 appear on the phone's screen. It should be noted that, for this review, I found greater success using the built-in iOS Notes app for this purpose, but it warrants mentioning that HIMS is working toward this area of accessibility.

Connections

In addition to the communication functions mentioned above, the U2 Mini can act as a braille terminal for a computer or iOS device. By pairing it with your iPhone or iPad, you can read books, documents, or send and receive e-mail and text messages entirely from the braille keyboard and display of the U2 Mini. This extends the use of the iPhone to people not able to hear VoiceOver, but is also a welcome alternative to many braille users with or without hearing.

The U2 can be connected to a computer for transferring files back and forth as you would with a flash drive or other storage device, and you can send documents for sharing with others in hardcopy either to a conventional printer or braille embosser.

An Interactive Company

At the recent CSUN conference in San Diego, California, HIMS was celebrating the 15th anniversary of its presence in the United States. To mark the occasion, a robot was hired to mingle at a HIMS reception and introduce certain HIMS sessions. The company had an impressive presence in the exhibit hall, and a number of coffee shop gift cards were distributed randomly to keep presentations lively. The interactive and festive efforts were reflective of the connected persona the company has been establishing for itself in this country. On a HIMS Notetakers e-mail listserv, for example, company representatives are highly visible, fielding questions and providing information on a daily basis. In the two months that I had the U2 Mini for review, problems occurred with a variety of third-party applications—Dropbox, YouTube, Bookshare—and in each instance, employees representing the company were quick to inform list members that the problems were noted and being addressed. Also impressive was the speed with which developers addressed each of these issues restored functionality.

As problems were fixed or enhancements incorporated, announcements were distributed informing users of the patch or firmware upgrade, always accompanied by clear step-by-step instructions for installation. During the review period, I executed such upgrades, using both online and offline methods, and was impressed with the smoothness of the ride and quality of progress feedback. The latest firmware upgrade, incidentally, included a fix for YouTube, addition of access to the online DAISY collection for Canadians who are blind, a Power Point file viewer, and a Nemeth translator. These latest features were not available in time to be included in this review, but immediate feedback from users has been extremely positive.

Conclusion

As technology advances, products are decreasing in size while increasing in power, thus making it progressively easier to carry fewer and smaller pieces of equipment to stay connected. For people who are blind, the one-size-fits-all approach to technology is a bit more complicated than for sighted peers with the same requirements, but a product like the Braille Sense U2 Mini is bringing parity considerably closer. With this product and an iPhone, for example, there is little in the way of connectivity and information manipulation that cannot be accomplished. That said, it should be noted that, in order to maintain the attractive small size, there are only 18 braille cells on this braille display, and many braille users may find that inadequate for reading books or other large amounts of text. The additional battery was definitely a smart decision, and since the battery seemed to last only about 8 hours between charges, many users will prefer to carry that extra battery at all times.

The bottom line is that this is an extremely versatile, responsive, and robust product and, at $3,995, we could almost add affordable to the list of adjectives as well. HIMS Inc. is carving an impressive niche as a blindness products company that is engaged with its customers and responsive to customer feedback. That style will certainly factor in as users of braille technology update equipment. It is a style that HIMS will be wise to continue and one that other companies would be wise to emulate.

Product Information

Braille Sense U2 Mini
Price: $3,995
Available from:
HIMS
Phone: 888-520-4467
Fax: 512-837-2011
sales@hims-inc.com

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On March 27 of this year, Microsoft introduced the long-awaited Office for iPad. For many years MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook have been the go-to applications for both education and business productivity. Rare is the individual who attends high school or college, or who works in a business setting, who does not use MS Office daily. Combine that with the ever-increasing use of Apple products for working on the go and Office for iPad would appear to fill a definite need. But how does this suite stack up as far as accessibility? Let's take a look.

Getting Started

Let's start with the bad news. As the name implies, Office for iPad is available only for iPads running iOS 7.0 or later. It is not compatible with the original iPad, any iPhone, or any iPod touch. The good news is that Office for iPad is free—well, sort of. Anyone can use the apps to read and review Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations. However, to create, edit, and save documents—even those you reviewed for free using the app—you will need an Office 365 subscription.

Office 365 includes the latest versions of all of the standard Office Home Premium applications, only instead of purchasing a single version of the software, you pay a subscription fee of $9.99 (monthly) or $99 (yearly). The subscription entitles you to install the suite on five different computers, and to use the Office mobile apps for creating and editing Office documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. There is also a new Office 365 Personal subscription for $69.95 per year or $6.99 per month for use on a single computer plus mobile device. Additionally, if you are affiliated with a university or other educational institution (student, faculty, or staff), you may also qualify for the Office 365 University package, which costs $79.99 for a four-year subscription. Microsoft also offers a 30-day free trial of the suite at Office.com. You can subscribe to Office 365 there, or sign up in any of the iPad apps. Note, however, the apps only offer the yearly subscription option.

Office for iPad includes three apps: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Access, Publisher, and Outlook are not a part of the iPad suite. You will need to download each app separately from the App Store, and together they will use 672 megabytes of your device's memory.

An Office Overview

Upon opening each of the apps for the first time, you are presented with a brief slide show/advertisement for Office 365. Each of the slideshow screens voices automatically before moving onto the next slide. At the conclusion you are given the opportunity to log in to the Microsoft account you have registered to your Office 365 account, or you can skip this step by activating the "Sign in Later" button (but without an Office 365 account you will be limited to read-only mode in all of the Office for iPad apps).

At each of the main app screens you are presented with several basic templates, along with a New Document tab. Double-tapping the latter will call up the document creation screen, and the onscreen keyboard will appear. You can use the keyboard to type. You can even tap the "Dictate" button or double-tap the edit window to start dictation. However, in read-only mode none of my text appeared. The only place I could enter characters in ready-only mode was in the Search menu.

In read-only mode you can't open a document, spreadsheet, or PowerPoint presentation from within the associated app unless you sign in to your Windows account, which comes with 8 GB of free OneDrive cloud storage. You can save documents to OneDrive from your desktop Office sessions using either Office 2010 or 2013. These documents can only be viewed using the Office for iPad apps; to create and edit them you will need an Office 365 subscription.

There are also other ways to open an Office file on your iPad. Perhaps the easiest is to either e-mail or text a file attachment to yourself, then do a double-tap-and-hold gesture to call up the Open In menu, where you will find Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, depending on the file type you are trying to open.

You can also use the Open In menu option to open Office files using a third-party cloud storage service such as Dropbox, Box.net or Google Drive. The Office apps also showed up in the Open In menu when I clicked on a webpage download link of an appropriate file type using Safari.

With an activated Office 365 account you can create documents by invoking the New tab. You can also retrieve documents using the Open and Recent tabs. Additionally, the screen provides links where you can browse Office files you have saved on your iPad, and a link to the OneDrive account associated with your Windows login. Each Office 365 account comes with 20 GB of free OneDrive cloud storage. There is an "Add a Place" link on the file screen, but the only options are OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, and Add a SharePoint location. You can't open files directly from Dropbox or other cloud services, and if you use your cloud service app to open a file in Edit mode, before you can work with the file you are required to resave it first on your iPad or OneDrive. Note: in read-only mode you can't save documents, you can only review them.

Each of the Office iPad apps presents a slightly abbreviated version of the standard ribbon interface across the top of the screen, populated with app-specific toolbars. In read-only mode most of these ribbon options have been disabled, with the exception of the "View/Search" button.

Controls for the currently open toolbar appear just beneath the ribbon. You can touch and explore, or swipe left or right to access the various tabs and controls. Invoking one of these controls causes a pop-up to display sub-options that are accessible both with Explore by Touch and left and right swipe gestures.

Unfortunately, the ribbon is extremely close to the iPad status bar, and I found it took a while to be able to locate the tabs using Explore by Touch. More often than not I found myself locating one of the tabs, then swiping left or right to find the tab I wanted, which could be very time consuming.

Autocorrections are handled by VoiceOver. Text marking is also done via VoiceOver text highlighting commands. Basically, you perform a double-tap-and-hold gesture at the place where you want the action to begin, then with that finger firmly on the screen, slide a second finger in a spreading outward gesture to add letters, words, lines, etc., depending on the option your VoiceOver rotor is set to. You can then rotor to the Edit option, which will allow you to cut, copy, and paste. You can also invoke one of the Office ribbon options, such as adding a style, centering text, underlining the text, etc.

Unfortunately, I found this very difficult to do. Trying to locate the ribbon option I would invariably touch the Edit window and lose my highlighting. Even if I did catch the correct button there wasn't any audio feedback to alert me to my success. An additional and more serious issue is that you can't monitor attribute changes—font style and size changes, heading text, or bullets in a bulleted list—using VoiceOver. In my opinion this is a major shortcoming of Office for iPad and needs to be fixed. Here's one possible solution: The VoiceOver rotor contains an option called Actions. In Mail, doing a one-finger swipe up or down invokes options such as Delete, Forward, and Archive. Perhaps Microsoft should consider adding a few VoiceOver-specific Actions options, such as Enhanced Sound Feedback, Announce Attribute Changes, and Begin Highlight Here.

One last feature of possible interest common to all three apps is located in the file menu, where you will find a link to the Help and Support screen. Under the heading "Help and How to" there is an option labeled "Turn on Accessibility Options." Unfortunately, there are no Office specific accessibility options—this page merely describes how to set accessibility options in VoiceOver. Hopefully, this section will contain additional, Office-specific accessibility settings in future updates of the suite. Meanwhile, at the bottom of this screen you will find a section titled "You can use keyboard shortcuts instead of a mouse." We will discuss using external keyboards with the Office for iPad apps later in this review. For now we'll merely wonder: How many users of Office for iPad does Microsoft suppose will be relieved to learn they don't have to use a mouse?

MS Word

When reviewing an open Word document in Word for iPad, you can't navigate by swiping left or right. Doing so will kick you out of the document window. You can only use the up and down swipe gestures with character, word, or lines options. The lines option moves through the document one paragraph at a time, assuming the text is single spaced and also that there are no line breaks mid-paragraph. You can also use a two-finger swipe down to read the entire document from beginning to end, or a three-finger swipe to scroll screen-by-screen through the document.

As mentioned, Office apps do not announce font, style, or other text attribute changes. It is possible to learn this information for a single spot, however. The Home tab includes options to add styles, fonts, and such. It will announce the current font, and say "selected" if either bold or underline is active at the current spot. In my opinion, however, checking a block of text character-by-character for these attribute changes is utterly impractical.

I was able to create a table in a new Word for iPad document, and to review tables I had created in other documents. Using the line option in the rotor, VoiceOver would read one cell with each swipe down gesture, moving left to right, then down at each column end. Header and footer information cannot be reviewed mid-table, however.

Excel

Spreadsheet navigation in Excel for the iPad is straightforward and effective. Double-tap the file to open the edit window, and then use the left and right swipe gestures to move from column to column. VoiceOver announces the cell number and the contents for each cell as you pass over it. If you don't already have the "vertical Navigation" option in your VoiceOver rotor, be sure to add it via the VoiceOver settings menu. Rotor to this option and up and down swipes will move you from row to row. Cell navigation does not scroll, however. You will need to do a three finger scroll gesture to move from screen to screen. I could find no way to have VoiceOver read out entire rows or columns.

I was completely unsuccessful using the VoiceOver text marking gestures to mark a block of Excel cells. I might be at cell A1 when I performed a double-tap-and-hold gesture, but by the time I finished moving my other finger and lifted it, Excel might announce the block of text that was selected as D6 through I27.

Many Excel workbooks contain multiple sheets. To get to them you have to find the last cell of the visible spreadsheet, then swipe right. You can also find them running vertically along the right edge of the screen using Explore by Touch.

Excel for iPad does not allow macros, so you can't create them, and if a spreadsheet you open includes them, they will be stripped from the workbook before you can begin using it.

I opened a very small worksheet consisting basically of a short column of numbers in Row A, and a formula in cell B1 that would compute their average. I could swipe down the column of numbers, and over to the result, but I could not move the cell selection away from cell A1. I could change the data in that cell and then read the new average. I could not review the formula, however, or create a new formula in cell B12 to total the column of numbers.

After an hour of struggling I decided there must be something fundamental I was missing. I called the Microsoft Accessibility Answer Desk, where a service tech explained that there are several limitations to current Office for iPad accessibility and the ability to create or edit an Excel worksheet are among these limitations. During my evaluation I called the Accessibility Answer Desk a number of times, and nearly all of my questions were answered with "current accessibility limitations."

PowerPoint

I had high hopes for PowerPoint for iPad. After all, the opening screen for each of the three Office apps began with a PowerPoint-like presentation, and each page voiced and scrolled perfectly.

Unfortunately, when I loaded a PowerPoint file and double tapped the "Play Slide Show" button I was faced with a mostly blank screen. Touch navigation spoke "Slide show" at nearly every point. I did finally find an "End Slide Show" button at the extreme upper left of the screen, but even then a double-tap did not always work. Often the only way I could close the slide show was to close the app, remove it from my running apps list, and then reopen PowerPoint.

The Home tab offers a list of slides, and double tapping one of your slides calls up the presentation window. There is a "Notes View" button beneath this text window. Use it to toggle back and forth between the presentation and the notes windows. VoiceOver does not announce the state of this button, however, so you will have to glean from context which of these windows you are currently editing.

The lack of attribute change announcements throughout the Office for iPad suite is particularly missed when you create or edit a PowerPoint presentation, since most contain headings, centered text, and bulleted lists, none of which you can review using VoiceOver.

You will need a special adapter to connect your iPad to a projector to run your PowerPoint presentation for group viewing. You can also use an Apple TV by invoking the Airplay option. Office for iPad does not fully support Airplay, however, so you can only show your entire PowerPoint screen—you can't access your notes and keep them to yourself. For now, at least, it would seem that the iPad is not a viable way to create, edit, or present a PowerPoint slide show.

Using a Bluetooth Keyboard

As mentioned above, you can use a Bluetooth keyboard paired with your iPad to create and edit documents in Office for iPad. Keep in mind, however, that you will not be using your doubtless well-practiced Office for Windows keyboard shortcuts for Word. Instead you will use a mix of Office for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint shortcuts and the standard, iOS VoiceOver keyboard shortcuts.

Mac users will be familiar with pressing Control + Option + M (usually abbreviated VO-m) to move to the menu bar. I did find another way, however. The VO + I Item Chooser called up a list of all command tabs, the displayed toolbar, and the open document itself. This made it considerably easier to locate and open command tabs and settings using a keyboard instead of touch.

During my testing I discovered that some of the Office shortcut keys worked, others did not. Pressing Command + Up Arrow, for example, is supposed to move you to the top of a Word document. This did not work with VoiceOver turned on, but when I turned VoiceOver off briefly and issued the command, it worked fine. Pressing Control + B for bold or Control + U for underline also worked as advertised. However there is no audible alert that bold or underline is toggled on or off, and even using a keyboard there is no way to have VoiceOver announce attribute changes.

In Excel I was still not able to create or edit a spreadsheet with a Bluetooth keyboard. Using a keyboard with the Quick Nav rotor set to vertical navigation, whenever I moved up to the top and pressed the Up Arrow again instead of scrolling the sheet, I was tossed out of the editing window and into the app controls.

Final Thoughts

Microsoft acknowledges that Office for iPad is not yet fully accessible. I find this both disappointing and discouraging, especially considering the length of time this product has been under development. From what I have read, the code base for the iPad suite is the same one that will be used for the Office for Mac suite, which is due to be released later this year. Hopefully, the Mac suite will be much more VoiceOver accessible from the start.

The Office iPad apps are free, so it won't hurt to install one or more of them so you can follow along as Microsoft attempts to improve accessibility. To get the full use of the suite, however, you will need an Office 365 subscription. For sighted users, the ability to open, create, and edit Office documents on the go is a strong enticement to purchase a subscription. For the sight-impaired community, however, the enticement is simply not yet there.

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Recently, My Blind Spot, Inc., has been working closely with Intuit, the makers of the popular QuickBooks accounting software for small businesses, to make the program accessible to people with vision loss and other print disabilities. In the past, screen reader users could use the software with version-dependent work-arounds. With recent versions, the program became unmanageable with a screen reader. Albert Rizzi, founder of My Blind Spot, began working with Intuit to bring accessibility to QuickBooks. My Blind Spot and Intuit have made amazing strides in QuickBooks accessibility through a blend of accessibility fixes applied directly to QuickBooks code as well as screen-reader specific scripts developed by John Martyn and Steven Clark.

In this evaluation, I look at select aspects of QuickBooks Pro Version 2014. Note also that QuickBooks accessibility is still a work in progress; the My Blind Spot and Intuit teams have focused their efforts on the aspects of the program that are used on a regular basis. Infrequently required aspects—such as installation and company setup—remain challenging. For this evaluation, I review some of the more commonly used facets of the program. My Blind Spot supplements internal QuickBooks accessibility by working with screen readers to add accessibility through scripting. JAWS is the screen reader used in this evaluation; currently, it offers the most advanced QuickBooks scripts and provides the best access to the program.

Documentation and Tutorials

My Blind Spot is in the process of producing documentation and tutorials developed by Vita Zavoli and Richard Kelly to assist users of Accessible QuickBooks. I was able to review a chapter of the documentation as well as the initial tutorials. The chapter concerned reports. This was useful as reports are slightly more advanced than other screens with better native accessibility. The chapter briefly described the relevant screen, followed by lists of instructions for accomplishing various tasks when working with reports. The instructions were clear and easily understood and the list structure makes it easy for a user to find a specific task. The chapter was also rendered in Microsoft word format making it easily navigable with a screen reader.

My Blind Spot is also producing video tutorials that provide extensive overviews of various tasks that can be accomplished in QuickBooks. At the moment of writing, two tutorials are available on YouTube: Selecting Chart of Accounts as Home Screen and Recommended Basic Settings and QB Check Writing. For these tutorials, each action is described and the JAWS screen reader is used so that a screen reader user can follow along with the tutorial. Each keystroke is described to add further clarity for viewers with visual impairments. It is extremely easy to follow the lesson and accomplish the tasks described, and the instructor, Richard Kelly, is excellent, clearly describing the program.

Initial Setup and Menu Bar

Once you have installed the QuickBooks program and created your company profile, you can open your company's profile when the program launches. QuickBooks opens to a list of QuickBooks company files on your computer. You can navigate this list using your up and down arrow keys. Once you have selected the QuickBooks file you want to work with, you can tab to the "Open Company" button and activate it with the spacebar key. If you have set a password on your account, you will be prompted to enter it here. When the file loads with the default home screen. This screen is very inaccessible but luckily, it is not needed; close it with Ctrl + F4. The items on the home screen can be accessed from the menu bar, which is presented as a Windows standard menu bar, so it's accessible to screen readers. After this, you should set some recommended settings to make QuickBooks easier to navigate with a screen reader. The first setting to deactivate the What's New setting in the Help menu. To do this, press Alt + H to open the Help menu. The What's New item is the second item in the list. If it is checked, press Enter to uncheck it. It is also recommended that you change some items in the View menu. You can open this menu by pressing the Alt + V keys. The first item you should check in this menu is the Hide Icon Bar item, listed fourth in the menu. Next, have QuickBooks only display one window at a time (this is the second to last item on the menu).

Creating a Bank Account

To create a bank account, first open the Chart of Accounts screen by pressing Ctrl + A. The screen displays the list of your current accounts. To create a new account, you can activate the "Account" button and select New or you can press Ctrl + N. When the new account screen appears, you first must select the account type via a list of radio buttons. The possible choices are: Income, Expense, Fixed Asset Major Purchases, Bank, Loan, Credit Card, Equity, and Other Account Types. For this evaluation, I created a standard Bank account. Below the list of radio buttons, there is a combo box for selecting the type of account for the Other Account Types. Below this is a "Continue" button that you must press to continue account creation. Note that there appears to be a second combo box after the combo box for selecting the Other Account Type, but it is not used. Once you select the account type and activate the "Continue" button, you move to a screen where you can enter your account information, starting with the Account Name field. Below this is a check box that allows you to make the account that you are creating a sub-account of another account. If you check this box, you are presented with a combo box just below the check box in order to choose the parent account. Next is a Description field, followed by a field labeled "Bank Act. No.," where you enter the bank account number. The following field is for the routing number, followed by a combo box for selecting the tax line for this account. The field is simply labeled "Select From Examples." To discover what this field referred to, I used Manual Navigation (described later). Following this combo box, you can enter an opening balance for your account. Instead of a field, this option is a button that launches a dialogue where you can enter the opening balance information. Note that the fields in this dialogue are not automatically read and some, including the field where you can enter the opening balance, are not read at all. Using Manual Navigation, it is possible to read these fields and enter information. After this button, there is a field where you can enter the check number that will alert you to order new checks. Below this is a check box that allows you to choose to order checks that can be printed with QuickBooks. After this box you can save the account by using the "Save and Close" or "Save and New" (Alt + A and Alt + S, respectively) buttons. You can also cancel the account by using the "Cancel" button, which is located after the "Save and New" button.

Writing Checks

Press Ctrl + W to launch the check writing screen. This screen is like all other data input screens; you can navigate by either using the arrow keys or the Tab key. The first field is the Bank Account field, which is automatically populated with your bank account. Following this field is the date field, also automatically populated, then the Pay to the Order Of field, where you can enter the payee. As is true for most fields of this nature, you can begin to type the name of the vendor and the list will populate with names of vendors matching the letters you have typed. Note that if you have purchase orders for vendors, you can have that information automatically entered into the form. Below the vendor name is the Amount field. This may be populated with data, depending on your settings and the decisions you made in the previous field (such as using a purchase order to populate the check). Next is the Address field, which should be populated with the address of your selected vendor. Below this is the Memo field, followed by the Account field for selecting the account from which you would like to expense this check. Next is the amount to be expensed followed by another Memo field, which is followed by additional fields for entering other transactions. The fields include those for customer job, account, amount, and memo. Once you have completed entering your transactions, you can print the check by pressing Alt + T, or save it by either using Alt + A or Alt + S to save and close or save and begin a new check, respectively.

Navigating a Report with Manual Navigation

For several screens, QuickBooks currently requires the use of a scripted feature called Manual Navigation. This feature allows a user to navigate a screen's visual layout by using keystrokes. Here I describe using Manual Navigation to access a Profit and Loss report (which otherwise would not be accessible). To launch a Profit and Loss report, press Alt + R to open the Reports menu. From here, press the F key to open the Company and Financial submenu. The first item is labeled "Profit and Loss Standard." Activate this item to launch the report. From here, you need to use Manual Navigation to read the report. In the current iteration of the scripts used during this evaluation (R46), you must first toggle Manual Navigation by pressing Ctrl + Shift + M. Once Manual Navigation has been activated, you can press Ctrl + Shift + an arrow key to move in that direction. For example, the down and up arrows move vertically along the page and read each line completely; the left and right arrows move left and right across the screen, element by element. Note that when you reach the end of a line while moving left and right, you are moved to either the proceeding or succeeding line. When you navigate vertically, you are always placed at the beginning of the line of elements for the row to which you just navigated. When Manual Navigation is first activated, it begins at the top of the screen. The first item is a title bar followed by Minimize, Restore, and Close icons. One row below contains the Menu bar. A row below this is the text "Account Quick Report" and a Close icon. Following this is a list of action buttons for manipulating the report. These are as follows from left to right: "Customize Report," "Share Template," "Memorize," "Print," "E-mail," "Excel," "Hide Header," and "Refresh." Below this row is a listing of your current display settings including the range of time that the report covers and the method used to sort the data. You can use the Right Arrow while using Manual Navigation to edit these settings from this row of controls. The "Customize" button will display a more complete list of settings. Below this list is the time the report was generated, followed by the name of the QuickBooks user. On a row below this is the rest of the date the report was generated and the name of the report. The next row states accrual basis and the dates that the report spans. The following row restates the report dates followed by the report itself. You can navigate the report using Manual Navigation and the report may include items such as the following depending on the data you have chosen to display. My report displays income and expenses. The word "Income" is in a row by itself followed by accounts from which I gained income and their values. The total income is also displayed. The same is true for expenses. At the bottom of the report, my net income and net ordinary income are displayed. The information is easily read using the Manual Navigation cursor and it is also useful that you can directly interact with buttons using this cursor; it makes navigating such screens much easier than using the JAWS cursor.

The Bottom Line

My Blind Spot and Intuit should be commended for their efforts to improve accessibility. Not only have they made great strides towards developing an accessible product, they have also produced a product that is very usable. I am a QuickBooks novice yet I was able to learn to operate the program quickly including performing such additional tasks as making a deposit, creating an invoice and adding a customer. A long-time QuickBooks user should find using the accessible aspects of the program effortless. The inclusion of tutorials and extensive documentation also should make the program easy to learn for those accountants with visual impairments who are new to the QuickBooks program. If you have experience with QuickBooks and screen readers (JAWS/NVDA/Window Eyes) and would like to take part in QuickBooks testing for accessibility, send an email to Info@myblindspot.org.

Product Information

Product: QuickBooks Pro 2014
Price: $249.95
Manufacturer: Intuit

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