{"id":1215,"date":"2008-11-25T07:14:19","date_gmt":"2008-11-25T06:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/wordpress\/?p=1215"},"modified":"2008-11-25T07:14:19","modified_gmt":"2008-11-25T06:14:19","slug":"computing-and-blind-persons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=1215","title":{"rendered":"Computing and blind persons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I recently had occasion to visit the London Head Office of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rnib.org.uk\/xpedio\/groups\/public\/documents\/code\/InternetHome.hcsp\">Royal National Institute for the Blind<\/a> (RNIB) as a result of an invitation from a colleague of mine on the new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.communicationsconsumerpanel.org.uk\/\">Communications Consumer Panel<\/a> (formerly known as the Ofcom Consumer Panel). <a href=\"http:\/\/www.communicationsconsumerpanel.org.uk\/smartweb\/panel-members\/leen-petre\">Leen Petre<\/a> works for the RNIB as Principal Manager: Media and Culture.<br \/>\nI was shown the use of two pieces of software in particular that enable a partially sighted or a blind person to make full use of a computer and the Web.<br \/>\nThe first piece of software is called <a href=\"http:\/\/onlineshop.rnib.org.uk\/display_item.asp?n=11&#038;c=0&#038;sc=0&#038;id=1508&#038;it=1&#038;l=3\">ZoomText<\/a> and was demonstrated to me by Tim. This software enables large print users to magnify the contents of their computer screen and listen to it read out in synthetic speech at the same time. It costs \u00a3535.<br \/>\nThe second piece of software is called <a href=\"http:\/\/onlineshop.rnib.org.uk\/display_item.asp?n=11&#038;c=0&#038;sc=0&#038;id=3133&#038;it=1&#038;l=3\">JAWS<\/a> and was demonstrated to me by Paul. This software works with a PC to provide access to software applications and the Internet by using a speech synthesiser and a sound card. The user can alter the tone and speed of the voice or choose the language of the speech.  It costs \u00a3704.<br \/>\nI was impressed by how useful these software packages are but surprised at how much they cost &#8211; effectively doubling the cost of a PC to a partially sighted or blind person.<br \/>\nThe RNIB sells a range of other ICT equipment specially designed for blind or partially sighted persons such as talking watches and mobiles with large keys. You can check out their shop <a href=\"http:\/\/onlineshop.rnib.org.uk\/\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\nMore generally, I have a short essay on my web site entitled <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/specialneeds.html\">&#8220;Access For All: Computing And Those With Special Needs&#8221;<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently had occasion to visit the London Head Office of the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) as a result of an invitation from a colleague of mine on the new Communications Consumer Panel (formerly known as the Ofcom Consumer Panel). Leen Petre works for the RNIB as Principal Manager: Media and Culture. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}