While still in its infancy, the researchers believe the technique could be used in video games to provide a more immersive experience. Audio and visual sensory input has been a major part of gaming for years, but the sense of touch has been hard to fully tap into. This technology could provide a way to more fully realized virtual experience.

However, to the blind, this technology could mean more. As the technology matures, it is easy to envision ways in which it may be used to provide tactile cues on touch screen devices like the iPhone or iPod Touch, or provide a less expensive and more easily maintained alternative to current Braille display technologies.

In an insightful entry to their blog, Disability Nation points out the shortfalls of this settlement, particularly where the NFB stands to gain. Most notable to VoiceOver users on the Macintosh platform is that this settlement only pertains to access to the Target.com site with Jaws for Windows from Freedom Scientific. This fails to take into account the millions of visually impaired users of alternative access solutions such as VoiceOver, GW Micro’s Window-Eyes, or any number of other commercial or open source screen access products.

Check out the entry by clicking here. Let us know what you think.

Although no details on what platforms the browser will be available for, it is very possible that this browser will be compatible with VoiceOver, as it will be sharing key components with Safari, if it is indeed available for Mac OS X.

Google and Apple have a history of strong ties, so we do expect a Macintosh version of Chrome to be available.

As soon as we know whether or not it is accessible with VoiceOver, we will report. The browser, along with additional information, will be available later from www.Google.com/chrome

VueScan has a myriad of powerful scanning features. The OCR (Optical Character Recognition) feature being the most obviously useful to the blind and visually impaired. It supports eighteen languages and is available in Standard and Professional editions for $39.95 and $79.95 respectively. To find out more click here.

Here’s a way to work around this problem with VoiceOver. It isn’t the most elegant solution, but it works.

• Search for the audio book you wish to sample at Audible.com
• Navigate with b>VoiceOver to the "Listen" text within the search result entry for the audio book of your choice.
• Press VO-Command-F5 to move the mouse to the VoiceOver cursor.
• Turn off cursor tracking with VO-Shift-F3. THis is not required, but will eliminate some potential problems.
• Turn on control-option lock with VO-Semicolon. This is not required, but will make the next step much easier.
• Using the physical mouse or the operating system’s Mouse Keys feature, slowly move the mouse to the left, checking your progress with the VO-F5 command. If control-option lock is on, you need only press F5.
• Repeat the previous step until VoiceOver announces "Scroll Area". This takes a little practice, but is easy once you have the hang of it. If using a MacBook trackpad, use the top edge of the mouse button to insure you are moving straight to the left and not wandering slightly up or down. You do not need to move far to reach the Scroll Area.
• Press and hold the Control key, and click the physical mouse, or press the center key of the numeric keypad if using Mouse Keys.
• A menu will appear with many options. Choose the "Play" option to start the playback. Remember if Control-Option Lock is on, you will need to press space to activate that menu option.

We hope this helps you use Audible.com more effectively with VoiceOver.

Keystrokes 4.1 is a Universal binary and includes support for Spaces, and automatic layout switching through the Input menu. It is a free upgrade for licensed users of Keystrokes 4.0.

Keystrokes 4.1 is available from Assistiveware for $299.00 US.

The first positives are the fact that Opera appears to be able to move focus to any item on the page, presumably eliminating the Safari issue that causes focus to jump back on a page as Voiceover reads further down. The way in which tables on web sites are handled is spectacular, borrowing from the table views we’re used to in applications like iTunes or Mail. Apple, are you listening? THis is how tables should be done.

But there are some show-stopping problems.

Using Group mode to navigate HTML content seems to change very little in Opera aside from scrambling the order of the elements, a huge drawback to those who depend on VoiceOver’s ability to group elements on a page. Even in DOM mode, elements are not always in the order you would expect them to appear.

Popup buttons, (AKA drop down menus), do not read properly with VoiceOver either. THere is no way we can determine to select an item from one of these common elements.

Still, Opera has clearly put a lot of effort into accessibility, and the browser could be a very powerful alternative to Safari for VOiceOver users once the kinks are worked out.

There’s very little information at this point, but there are a whole heap of rumors. The most intriguing discusses the possibility that APple may move the entire OS, (presumably meaning the user interface portions), to Cocoa. This could potentially mean even better access across the board for VoiceOver users. Apple’s keeping quiet on this point though, if the rumor is true.

In all, though, this is good news for VoiceOver users. If Apple is focusing primarily on improving the exist architecture, that can only mean better access in the end.

• Braille Update 1.0 which enables GW Micro, HandyTech, HIMS, Nippon, and Papenmeier Refreshable Braille displays.
• Addresses an issue with Braille dot 7 and 8 underlining.
• Fixes an issue in which HTML page anchors may be ignored by the VoiceOver cursor.
• Fixes an issue that prevented Hot Spots from being used in text areas.
• Resolves an issue with spell checking in which VoiceOver may only announce the first misspelled word if there are multiple words spelled incorrectly.

We’ve also noticed that Voiceover no longer crashed in the "Get Info" dialog for folders and volumes when navigating to the "Sharing and Permissions" section.

There may be other improvements as well. We’ll keep you up to date if we find them. You can let us know as well.

As always, you can update to the latest version of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard through "Apple Menu->Software Update".

Safari’s Bookmarks Bar places a row of buttons beneath the Safari toolbar for quick access to your most important or frequented bookmarks. You can have fast access to the sites on your bookmarks bar by holding down the Command key and pressing one of the number keys across the top of your keyboard. Command-1 opens the first bookmark, Command 2 opens the second, and so on. This is a fast way to get to your favorite web sites.

If the bookmarks bar is hidden, you can choose to have it displayed from the "View" menu, or by pressing Command-Shift-B.

Until next time!

In the May 2008 issue of Access World, an online magazine published by the AFB, they once again play down the capabilities of VoiceOver. The comments come in a piece entitled "From Vinyl to Digital: My First Experiences with Electronic Audio Players" by Darren Burton. To his credit, Mr. Burton’s comments are not nearly as outlandish as those put forward by Jay Leventhal, but it is important to call attention to a couple of the most inaccurate.

The most notable of the misstatements in this piece is also the most transparent. Mr. Burton writes that VoiceOver will give access to "some, but not all" of the applications on the Mac. While perfectly true, the same statement holds true for any screen reader for any platform. Not every piece of software will be wholly accessible with any screen access solution. This statement, coupled with his emphasis that VoiceOver does not provide as complete access as Windows screen readers serves no purpose but to undermine how powerful Voiceover is in reality without providing any real evidence.

The above is compounded by the fact that Mr. Burton says that he could not load songs onto his iPods with iTunes and VoiceOver, excepting the iPod Shuffle. This seems to indicate that he did not take the time to learn VoiceOver and its full functionality, as there are several ways of loading tracks onto your iPod through iTunes and all of them are perfectly accessible with VoiceOver. These include VoiceOver’s drag-and-drop functions, as well as iTunes myriad of methods for synching music in your library to your iPods.

If Mr. Burton did not take the time to learn VoiceOver, he is clearly in no position to claim that it is less capable than the Windows screen readers he is familiar with.

We encourage those of you who feel strongly about insuring that Access World publishes the facts about VoiceOver and accessibility on the Mac, to contact Access World.

In Mail, you can quickly jump to the top or bottom of the mailboxes table with Option-Up Arrow or Option-Down Arrow. This is a great way to quickly get to the mailbox or RSS feed you wish to peruse, particularly if you have a large number of folders, mailboxes, and feeds to organize your mail.

Until next time!

Apple Stores are a great way to try out Macintosh computers, as well as VoiceOver. Press Command-F5, and check out how it works.

When these changes make their way into the official WebKit release, and then into Safari and Mac OS X, we will be able to enjoy these fixes with VoiceOver. In the mean time, you can download the nightly builds of WebKit and use them without risk to the OS’s core installation of the HTML engine from WebKit.org. The nightly build will install an application in your "Applications" folder to allow you to run a dedicated test browser with the latest fixes to WebKit. Of course, as this is a nightly build, there will be bugs, stability, and other issues, so you will likely want to continue using Safari or whatever your browser of choice is, as your default.

The newsletter is comprised of contributions by users of Assistiveware products, and includes no advertising.

GhostReader converts text to speech, both in real-time or sending the output to iTunes/iPod/iPhone compatible formats for easy playback on the go. It works with a variety of document formats, and can speak selected text in any application. It is available in multiple languages and includes high-quality voices.

This update offers new voices for Czech, Polish, Swedish and Finish languages, enhancements to previously available voices, a pronunciation dictionary, direct exportation of documents to iTunes at different encoding qualities, support for more document formats, and iTunes exports are now handled in the background. Other minor enhancements and bug fixes are also included.

GhostReader V1.5 is available as a free upgrade for existing users, or may be purchased for $39.95 US from Convenienceware.

When navigating the Songs table in iTunes, you can quickly move the Play Target to the currently selected track by pressing Enter. The track will immediately begin playing. Using the Spacebar will only pause the currently playing track, or start playing the track which is currently marked with the Play Target, regardless of which track is selected. The Play Target can be found in the Status column of the Songs table.