Blind people generally use computers with the help of screen-reader software, but those products can cost more than $1,000, so they’re not exactly common on public PCs at libraries or Internet cafes. Now a free new Web-based program for the blind aims to improve the situation.
It’s called WebAnywhere, and it was developed by a computer science graduate student at the University of Washington. Unlike software that has to be installed on PCs, WebAnywhere is an Internet application that can make Web surfing accessible to the blind on most any computer.
The developer, Jeffrey Bigham, hopes it lets blind people check a flight time on a public computer at the airport, plan a bus route at the library or type up a quick e-mail at an Internet cafe.
To get WebAnywhere running, a blind person has to manage to get online, which can be complicated on a computer not already set up to give verbal feedback. But Bigham’s research found that Web-savvy blind people often know plenty of keyboard tricks and when to ask for help.
Once online, a blind Web surfer can use the WebAnywhere browser, which can link to and then read out loud any page — as long as the computer has speakers or a headphone jack. The program can skip around the section titles, tab through charts or read the page from top to bottom.
WebAnywhere could benefit from some tweaking but it’s a big improvement over a total lack of public access, says Lindsay Yazzolino, a blind Brown University student who has a summer job at the University of Washington.
Yazzolino, 19, would like to see a better search function and fewer keystrokes required for navigation around Web pages, but she loves the fact that the program is free.
Robots take to the streets in Pittsburgh: A green roller coaster twists above the entrance to the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. But this attraction isn’t for human riders — the coaster’s cars are filled with plants and a solar panel that triggers the ride to stop and start.
The coaster is one of 11 “BigBot” robotic art installations in a two-week citywide celebration of robotics, dubbed Robot 250 to coincide with Pittsburgh’s 250th anniversary.
“It bends the idea of what robotics is about and who it’s for,” said Illah Nourbakhsh, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute and one of the originators of the Robot 250 idea. He hopes the project shows that rather than just being for industrial automation or tinkering engineers, robots can give everyday people a new way to express themselves.
The prelude to Robot 250 included workshops for dozens of teachers so that kids and adults could create their own robots. The results were robots big and small, complex and simple: One woman used a Polaroid camera and other parts to create a robot that took pictures of cars speeding in front of her home. One group made a conceptual robot that would automatically salt the city’s bridges in the winter, to encourage more people to walk them.
More exposure for indie filmmakers: Retired AOL executive Ted Leonsis is turning his passion for documentaries into an Internet service meant to give independent filmmakers broader viewership.
His new Web site, SnagFilms, will take professionally produced documentaries such as “Super Size Me” and some from National Geographic and PBS and show them for free at the site — or embed them in profile pages at Facebook, MySpace and other social networking hangouts.
Fifteen-second ads will run every eight to 10 minutes, with revenue split between SnagFilms and the filmmakers.
Leonsis, who explored the Internet’s distribution potential as vice chairman at Time Warner Inc.’s AOL, said the idea for SnagFilms grew out of his work on “Nanking,” his entry into filmmaking.
“Nanking,” which won an editing award last year at the Sundance Film Festival and was released in theaters, chronicles the brutal Japanese occupation of the Chinese city in 1937.
Leonsis said the experience opened his eyes to the plight of filmmakers, particularly for documentaries.
The Associated Press
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