Entries from April 2007
April 14th, 2007 — Blind, Enabling Technology
Diane asked, so I decided to process our server logs to find out how many times our game for children who are blind and visually impaired, Hark the Sound, has been downloaded and, if possible, the country that requested it.
The quick summary is that Hark the Sound has been downloaded by 1537 unique IP addresses, we have mailed 169 CDs to the US and 9 to other countries, and we have given away over 500 at workshops. We encourage people to make their own copies so we must be approaching 3000 installed versions in the field.
Identifying the geographic location associated with an IP address is a shaky proposition but I decided to try anyway. I used the database at Hostip.info to extract the following stats.
Hark has been downloaded by IP addresses in 70 countries and 46 US States. The countries I can identify include:
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April 13th, 2007 — Enabling Technology, Links, Literacy, Programming
Pete sent some interesting links about capabilities of the OLPC. This is going to be a great platform for accessible games and literacy tools.
Software specs
Developer LiveCD
Hardware specs
April 10th, 2007 — Enabling Technology, Links
Over at A List Apart (a very useful resource on all things web related), there is an interesting article on accessible web applications.
April 7th, 2007 — Deaf, Enabling Technology, Ideas
In reference to my earlier post about the USB-driven visual alert for people who are hearing impaired.
Using the INSTEON api we can control any appliance plugged in to their receiver. I believe the receiver can be plugged in to any outlet in the house. On the computer, we’ll just need to look for incoming email or IMs. While we could implement something that actually checks for mail (requiring their password) and interfaces somehow to whatever IM client they use, I’d rather try to do something independent of all that.
I suggest we try allowing the user to draw one or more small watch boxes anywhere on the desktop. If the pixels in the box change, we activate the signal. This would allow us to monitor whatever visual indication the applications already provide. For example, on GoogleTalk I have a small “balloon” icon down in the system tray; it blinks when a new IM comes in. Likewise my email client changes its taskbar button when new mail arrives. I’m suggesting we could simply watch for changes on the display to drive the signal.
If it turns out that doesn’t work, we should try using our pyAA interface to watch for events on the accessibility interface.