http://www.lioncourt.com The Mac-cessibility Site Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:19:33 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The BBC is reporting on a new technology being developed by a team of Japanese researchers which uses focused ultrasonic waves to produce the illusion of solid objects in mid-air to the sense of touch. While still in its infancy, the researchers believe the technique could be used in video games ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/09/03/virtual-tactile-objects-hope-for-touch-screen-computing-for-the-blind/ Last week, the National Federation of the Blind settled out of court with Target Stores Inc. regarding access for the blind and visually impaired to its website and online store for an amount in excess of $6M. In an insightful entry to their blog, Disability Nation points out the shortfalls of ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/09/01/disability-nation-takes-a-look-at-nfb-v-target/ Through the unconventional medium of a comic book, Google announced a new open source web browser called Chrome. The browser is scheduled to debut on Wednesday, 03/September, and it uses the same HTML rendering engine as Apple's Safari browser. That engine is the open source project WebKit. Although no ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/09/01/google-announces-a-new-open-source-browser/ The popular cross-platform OCR and scanning application VueScan from Hamrick Software is now completely accessible with VoiceOver and Mac OS X. 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 ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/08/28/vuescan-now-voiceover-compatible/ Over the years, Audible.com has made some changes to its site. SOmetimes these changes have improved accessibility. Sometimes, they have not. One of the changes in the last couple of years was to change the sample clips of their audio books to play in an Adobe Flash ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/07/19/play-samples-on-audiblecom-with-voiceover/ Assistiveware has released Keystrokes 4.1, an update to their onscreen keyboard application for Mac OS X. Keystrokes is intended to assist persons with physical impairments type using an onscreen keyboard with a mouse or stylus. Keystrokes 4.1 is a Universal binary and includes support for Spaces, and automatic layout switching ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/06/28/keystrokes-41-released/ The popular Opera web browser has been updated to version 9.5, and includes VoiceOver support. Our initial findings show some areas where Opera excels, but several problems as well The first positives are the fact that Opera appears to be able to move focus to any item on the page, ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/06/12/opera-browser-released-with-voiceover-support/ Apple announced that they will be replacing their aging .Mac service with a shiny new MobileMe service, starting in July. This service includes an easy way to synch your address book, mail, calendar, and more across multiple devices, as well as 20GB of storage space online. The question ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/06/10/mobileme-will-replace-mac/ On Monday, APple took the wraps off of the longanticipated iPhone 3G. The phone sports a new design, better performance, 3G speeds, GPS, and a whole lot more. Most unfortunately, it does not seem to include any additional accessibility for blind or visually impaired users. It does, ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/06/10/apple-announces-iphone-3g/ Apple announced this week that Mac OS X 10.6 is code named Snow Leopard, and will be shipping in about a year. Unlike the last several versions of Mac OS X, Snow Leopard ill focus on improving the operating system and fixing problems, instead of introducing tons of new ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/06/10/snow-leopard-the-future-of-os-x/ Today, Apple release Ma OS X 10.5.3, which contains a significant number of enhancements and fixes for the operating system, including VoiceOver. Some changes in VoiceOver include: 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 ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/05/28/apple-releases-mac-os-x-1053-with-voiceoverenhancements/ Mac-cessibility Quick Tips is a feature of Lioncourt.com to provide brief tips and tricks to assist blind and visually impaired Mac users improve their Apple experience. Not all tips will be specific to VoiceOver, and most will work on either Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or Mac OS X ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/05/28/mac-cessibility-quick-tip-19/ Most VoiceOver users are well aware of the wildly inaccurate and blatantly bias review of VoiceOver published by the American Foundation for the Blind back in 2005. There have also been allegations from multiple and separate sources that representatives of the AFB have commented that they would attempt to ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/05/21/afb-continues-their-negative-spin-of-voiceover/ Mac-cessibility Quick Tips is a feature of Lioncourt.com to provide brief tips and tricks to assist blind and visually impaired Mac users improve their Apple experience. Not all tips will be specific to VoiceOver, and most will work on either Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or Mac OS X ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/05/21/mac-cessibility-quick-tip-18/ This Saturday, 24/May/2008 at 10:00 AM, a new Apple Store is opening at the Pacific Centre mall in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The new store is located on the upper level. As usual, the first one-thousand guests to attend the grand opening will get a free T-shirt. Apple Stores ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/05/20/vancouver-apple-store-opens-this-saturday/ We'd like to welcome our newest editor to Lioncourt.com, Cara Quinn. Cara has written our latest editorial piece, "A Key to Leopard". In this article, Cara explores a myriad of ways to navigate Mac OS X using the keyboard. Newcomers to the Mac as well as seasoned ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/05/20/editorial-a-key-to-leopard/ The most recent nightly builds of WebKit have repaired many longstanding access issues. The most notable of the current fixes is the exposure of some web form controls to access solutions, including VoiceOver. When these changes make their way into the official WebKit release, and then into Safari and Mac ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/05/20/webkit-repairs-accessibility-flaws/ The most recent issue, (#4), of the Assistiveware Newsletter focuses on persons with visual impairments and their solutions to access issues on the Macintosh platform. The newsletter is comprised of contributions by users of Assistiveware products, and includes no advertising. http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/05/20/the-assistiveware-newsletter-focuses-on-access-for-those-with-vision-impairments/ Today, Assistiveware released their first product under the Convenienceware banner, version 1.5 of their popular GhostReader. 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 ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/05/14/ghostreader-15-is-released/ Mac-cessibility Quick Tips is a feature of Lioncourt.com to provide brief tips and tricks to assist blind and visually impaired Mac users improve their Apple experience. Not all tips will be specific to VoiceOver, and most will work on either Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or Mac OS X ... http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/05/14/mac-cessibility-quick-tip-17/