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The AccessiBlog is one of five Joe Clark Weblogs (Axxlog, Bookblog, fawny.blog, NUblog).
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> Captioning and media access
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Web AccessiBlog > Screen readers
Updated 2002.11.26
Screen readers, used by blind and visually-impaired Web-surfers,
read text, menus, links, and other visual interface elements out
loud in a selection of voices. If your page doesn’t work well
with a screen reader, it isn’t very accessible.
- “Introduction to the Screen Reader”: Enjoyable and somewhat informative QuickTime video (with optional captions) on screen-reader usage (2002.03.28)
- Linux with speech? Accessible text mode applications: “The nice thing about screen readers written for Linux are that they are under the Gnu Public License like Linux itself.... Several years ago, T. B. Raman had the idea that he could make Linux ‘speak’ to the blind. He came up with the idea of having a speaking environment that operated from within Emacs, a powerful Unix editor. The user could then issue shell commands from within Emacs, thus gaining nearly full control of the system. This had the advantage that it would run on many different UNIXes including Linux. It had the disadvantage of requiring the new user to learn emacs commands,” and so on, and so on, in endless discursion (2002.10.12)
- Screen readers
open Windows for the blind: Good explanation of the differences
between Jaws and Window-Eyes screen readers (2001.01.11)
- Screen readers
comparative chart (just what it says, but limited to Jaws and
Window-Eyes; 2001.01.11)
- A guiding standard: Squib on
Microsoft Active Accessibility (2001.01.11)
- Talking browser
speaks to blind Net users: “WeMedia said Tuesday it had
launched a talking browser to make Internet surfing easier for the
visually-impaired” (2001.03.07)
- Screen-reader manufacturers’ pages
- IBM Home Page Reader (official
page); also technology
background
- Jaws (Freedom Scientific)
- Window-Eyes (GW Micro)
- Outspoken
(ALVA Access Group; Windows and Macintosh, though the Mac
version is old)
- Emacspeak (freeware for Linux; T.V. Raman)
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