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The University of Washington has issued the following announcement:
Online service lets blind surf the Internet from any computer, anywhere
Visions of future technology don't involve being chained to a desktop
machine. People move from home computers to work computers to mobile
devices; public kiosks pop up in libraries, schools and hotels; and
people increasingly store everything from e-mail to spreadsheets on the
Web. But for the roughly 10 million people in the United States who are
blind or visually impaired, using a computer has, so far, required
special screen-reading software typically installed only on their own
machines. New software, called WebAnywhere, launched today lets blind
and visually impaired people surf the Web on the go. T he tool developed
at the University of Washington turns screen-reading into an Internet
service that reads aloud Web text on any computer with speakers or a
headphone connection. "This is for situations where someone who's blind
can't use their own computer but still wants access to the Internet. At
a museum, at a library, at a public kiosk, at a friend's house, at the
airport," said Richard Ladner, a UW professor of computer science and
engineering. The free program and both audio and video demonstrations
are at: http://webanywhere.cs.washington.edu
Ladner will demonstrate the tool next week in Dallas at the National
Federation of the Blind's annual convention. WebAnywhere was developed
under Ladner's supervision by Jeffrey Bigham, a UW doctoral student in
computer science and engineering. The research was funded by the
National Science Foundation. Free screen readers already exist, as do
sophisticated commercial programs. But all must be installed on a
machine before being used. This is the first accessibility tool hosted
on the Web, meaning it doesn't have to be downloaded onto a computer. It
processes the text on an external server and then sends the audio file
to play in the user's Web browser. "You don't have to install new
software. So even if you go to a heavily locked-down computer, say at a
library, you can still use it," Bigham said. In May, Bigham was named
the winner of the Accessible Technology Award for Interface Design for
the Imagine Cup, a student programming contest sponsored by Microsoft
Corp. The prize comes with $8,000 and a trip to Paris in early July. For
the past month WebAnywhere has been available on request. Bigham said
he's received inquiries from librarians who would like to make all their
machines accessible on a limited budget. He's also had interest from
teachers who struggle to find the time to locate free software, get
permission to install it on a school computer and then maintain the
program so that a single computer is accessible to a visually impaired
student. This software would make any computer in the lab instantly
accessible for Internet tasks. The Web-based service also eliminates the
need for local technical support: there is no software to install or
update because each time a person visits the site he or she gets the
latest version. To test the software, researchers had people use the
tool to do three things typically done at public machines: check e-mail,
look up a bus schedule and search for a restaurant's phone number.
People using WebAnywhere were able to successfully complete all three
tasks, using a variety of machines and Internet connections. Like other
screen readers, WebAnywhere converts written text to an electronically
generated voice. So far the system works only in English. But the source
code was released a few weeks ago and a Web developer in China has
expressed interest in developing a Chinese version. The UW team plans to
create updates that will allow users to change the speed at which the
text is read aloud and add other popular features found in existing
screen readers. The service is currently hosted on a server at the UW
campus. Bigham is also working with Benetech, a Palo Alto, Calif.,
technology nonprofit that distributes free electronic books, to make its
collection of more than 30,000 books accessible to blind users without
them having to install any screen-reading software. He believes this
could be the first of many Web-based accessibility tools. "Traditional
desktop tools such as e-mail, word processors and spreadsheets are
moving to the Web," Bigham said. "Access technology, which currently
runs only on the desktop, needs to follow suit." Ken Pope
Angelo Sonnesso M.A. M.S.
Social Worker for the Blind
