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BiMonthly Newsletter @Freedom Scientific is a free newsletter packed with the latest information about deploying and maintaining Freedom Scientific technology. Please feel free to send us your feedback. In this issue of @Freedom Scientific:
StreetTalk GPS Navigational Solution for the BlindThe use of GPS devices is becoming more established for every day use, including by those with visual impairments for whom GPS guidance offers a greater level of mobility independence. By adapting mainstream technology, Freedom Scientific has created a very affordable and accessible GPS solution for the visually impaired. Freedom Scientific's new StreetTalk GPS Solution will be available in September. Based on the popular Destinator™ GPS mobile satellite navigation system it offers ease of use, access to readily-available maps, and other features that have won Destinator the "Best GPS Navigation System Award" in Europe’s Pocket PC Awards for the past two years. With the next release of Destinator, StreetTalk can be installed to run on Freedom Scientific's PAC Mate with speech and Braille. It provides a simple and straight-forward interface to Destinator's applications and is designed for pedestrian and vehicle use. Destinator's proprietary compression technology will allow maps of several states to be carried on a standard CompactFlash card. A user can select which areas to install on the PAC Mate using ActiveSync. StreetTalk will take advantage of Destinator's millions of categorized "points of interest" for routing information to restaurants, post offices, hospitals, banks and other services and conveniences. The StreetTalk GPS solution will provide real-time point-of-interest details as they are passed or come into range, so the user won't miss the coffee shop or store just down the street or the closest ATM needed in a hurry. Telephone numbers are included, where applicable. The solution also integrates with Contacts on the PAC Mate, so it can make convenient use of the user’s address book. Because Destinator uses a GPS receiver equipped with Bluetooth® wireless technology, there is no need to be tethered to masses of cables or special straps. The receiver can be placed anywhere within 30 feet of the user, including on the harness of a guide dog. Destinator is a product of Homeland Security Technology Corporation, the leading provider of system solutions that identify, track and communicate simultaneously with people, vehicles and assets from a central or remote location. Freedom Scientific is offering StreetTalk at a special introductory price of $79.95 through October 31, 2004. Users can add a complete GPS solution to their PAC Mate for as little as $578.95. Compatible Destinator packages go for $499 for a Bluetooth® GPS receiver and maps of the United States and Canada. The same package plus maps of Western Europe is $699.
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Child’s Play: Introducing First-Graders to the PAC MateAs a trainer with the Utah Division of Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Ray Martin primarily assists adults with the use of access technology. But recently, he has begun seeing a new group of users who are eager to take advantage of the benefits of Freedom Scientific’s PAC Mate. The new audience is children, some as young as first graders. “It’s amazing,” says Ray. “Young people just grab right ahold of the PAC Mate.” Ray advocates beginning young children with PAC Mate’s simpler functions and letting them graduate to more advanced activities as they explore the PAC Mate and progress through their education. And because the PAC Mate is so portable, with the addition of a wireless card, it can be a learning tool that is never far away from the child. So when itinerate teachers and parents of blind children as young as six began asking Ray about the PAC Mate, he didn’t hesitate to urge them to “get a PAC Mate in their hands early and make it part of their lives, so they never have any constraints about using it and exploring what else it can do.” Among the benefits of beginning a child’s school years in tandem with a PAC Mate is encouragement of young children to explore the world around them through monitored Internet browsing. For more specific skill-building, Ray says, settings such as Key Echo and Word Echo that repeat typed letters and words aloud help children with beginning spelling. And as a tool to early development of reading skills – the backbone of all education – the PAC Mate can’t be beat, Ray says. The PAC Mate and a CompactFlash card “can give the child a world of books and literature. You can download books and get over 5,000 titles on a single CompactFlash card where, not so long ago, you had to wait six months for a book to be translated (into Braille).” Ray also reminds parents and teachers, “And you don’t need all that floor space for Braille volumes.” With the PAC Mate’s keyboard and access to books in their earliest school years, blind children can begin reading the same material as their sighted schoolmates from year one. “They don’t have to be eight years old, reading books that other children read when they were five,” Ray explains. “From the beginning, their world floats right along with the kids around them. If young kids have that same capability (to read along with their peers), I guarantee that their literacy will soar.” The PAC Mate also delivers benefits for the teacher, Ray says. “Many teachers today use hand-held PDAs. When a kid finishes his work in class, he can just ‘beam’ a file to the teacher’s PDA, and the teacher has it.” Conversely, the teacher can send lessons to the student without waiting for Braille conversion. “We have teachers who use (a PDA and the PAC Mate) a lot in classroom as a regular study tool,” Ray says. PAC Mate technology “is as exciting as anything I’ve ever seen for the classroom,” Ray adds. “I wish I had it 35 years ago.” Return to Top from Second Story
A Preview of the PAC Mate 2.5 Release Coming in SeptemberThe third major update for the PAC Mate BX and QX is coming in September. The update is free and brings some exciting new features, including: Braille Study ModeJust learning grade two Braille? Not sure what the symbol is on the Braille display? Just turn on the Braille Study Mode and press the cursor router above the symbol in question to hear the symbol’s title. Press the button behind that, and PAC Mate will say and spell out the title in Braille symbols. Multi-Language SupportStudying foreign languages? You can load a second language on your PAC Mate, and go to the Voice Settings applet to choose a speaker and rate that are most comfortable for you. With just a keystroke, switch to your language of choice at any time. Bookshare Unpack UtilityWith release 2.5, you will be able to directly log onto Bookshare to download and unpack books. There no longer is a need to transfer them first to your PC. Consumer Infrared Remote ControlA new application is coming at the same time as release 2.5 for those who want to install the capability to control their appliances and electronic entertainment devices with their PAC Mate. FS Commander, a consumer infrared remote control application, adds a special driver for the infrared module already onboard the PAC Mate. With the driver, the PAC Mate can send a signal to a TV, stereo, DVD player, or other device from a distance of up to 30 feet. The application comes equipped to control 1,300 common models of consumer electronics devices. If your device is not one of the 1,300, no problem. The PAC Mate can learn the codes from your current remote – the ultimate in couch potato accessibility. Return to Top from Third Story
New FSReader Applications Bring Greater Access and Features for DAISYImagine picking up a book you've put down a week before and having it open automatically to where you left off. Imagine being able to place multiple bookmarks or, in a book containing audio as well as text, rewinding or even speeding up a narrator. Now consider those advantages if you are a reader with a visual impairment or any other reading disability. Newly-developed Freedom Scientific FSReader applications soon will deliver those benefits and more to visually impaired readers who use DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) formatted talking books on desktop PCs and portable PAC Mate accessible Pocket PCs. Working with Freedom Scientific’s JAWS® screen reader, the new applications can navigate to a chosen point in DAISY 2.0 or 3.0 e-books through the table of contents or index or by browsing headings or flipping pages. It will even automatically open to where the reader stopped before. With DAISY 2.0 e-books and with ANSI/NISO standard DAISY 3.0 e-books like those available from Bookshare, the FSReader applications also can set multiple bookmarks fast forward, rewind, and even speed up books containing both audio and text. Switch between recorded audio and text with synthesized speech, or read along with the audio, using one of Freedom Scientific’s refreshable Braille displays or MAGic® screen magnification software. FSReader is compatible with the Freedom Scientific BX and QX series PAC Mate and is planned to begin shipping in September. US pricing for either the PAC Mate or desktop version is $79.95 or $119.95 if both are purchased together. Return to Top from Fourth Story
Ted Henter and the JAWS Revolution from a User’s PerspectiveRecently, 14-year-old JAWS user Chad Rohr wrote a classroom report about JAWS® and Ted Henter, the developer of JAWS and founder of Henter-Joyce, the predecessor to Freedom Scientific. Chad is a student in the Lee Summit, Missouri, school district. He lost his sight and an arm last October in a four-wheeler accident. Chad's counselor at the Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind shared his report with us, and we liked it so much that we decided to share it with you through @Freedom Scientific newsletter: "Take a moment to close your eyes, then imagine how the hundreds-of-thousands of people like Ted Henter and I feel. If you couldn't see, how would you go to school? How would you work? How would you function? Would you want to rely on other people to help you all the time? Or would you invent the tools you need for your everyday life? I’m going to tell you about Ted Henter, explain who he is, why he invented a computer program called JAWS, and how JAWS benefits the blind. Mr. Henter was born and raised in the Panama Canal Zone. He received a degree in engineering from the University of Florida and married his high school sweetheart, Mel. They have three daughters and live in St. Petersburg, Florida. Before his vision-taking accident, Ted Henter was an engineer by trade and was pursuing a career in motorcycle racing. In 1978, he was involved in a car accident and lost his sight. He realized that opportunities as a blind engineer were limited. He went back to school and learned computer programming. Ted started his own computer company in 1985, and a couple years later his company, Henter-Joyce, began developing a screen reader software that converts words to speech for people who have a seeing disability. Ted remains active in sports, regularly participating in snow skiing, water skiing, canoe racing and martial arts. He was the 1991 World Champion for Blind Water Skiers and six times the US champion. He has competed in eight Ocean to Ocean Cayuco Races through the Panama Canal. A cayuco is a canoe-like boat with a team of four. Henter’s team has placed as high as second in 2002. He serves on the Board of Directors at The Watson Center for the Blind and advisory boards at Mercantile Bank and the Crisis Pregnancy Center. In recent years, he has taken an interest in two Panamanian charities, the Helen Keller School for the Blind and the Patronato Luz del Ciego (Light for the Blind). As you can tell, Ted Henter didn’t just sit around and let other people take care of him. Ted Henter developed JAWS because he wanted to expand the opportunities of the blind to keep working in jobs involving computers. He also didn’t think it was fair that blind people couldn’t work at the same jobs where people can see. He saw to it that the blind could be as constructive in computer-based jobs as sighted people. Ted believed so strongly that this could be done that he always tried to recruit blind people to jobs at his company. Thus 40% of the 75 employees who worked at Henter-Joyce were blind or visually impaired. This was not only true of Henter-Joyce, but JAWS also has increased employment and educational opportunities and also helps employers meet requirements established by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Ted’s company merged with two other assistive technology companies in 2000 to form Freedom Scientific. The new company offers a broad line of products and services for people with disabilities. Its goal is to expand computer and opportunity access on an even wider scale. Ted serves on the Board of Directors and remains involved in an advisory role. JAWS is a screen-reader program, meaning it can take what you’ve typed into a computer and read it back to you out loud. JAWS stands for Job Access With Speech. It tells you what the screen is showing you, including browsing the Internet and reading or writing e-mail messages. The Freedom Scientific website describes it as "the most popular screen reader worldwide. JAWS for Windows works with your computer to provide access to today’s software applications and the Internet. With its internal software speech synthesizer and the computer’s sound card, information from the screen is read aloud, providing technology to access a wide variety of information, education and job related applications. JAWS also outputs to refreshable Braille displays, providing unmatched Braille support of any screen reader on the market." So think again: If you were blind, would you rather lie in bed all the time and not do anything or make your own technology, so you can do what those with sight can do? I hope you have learned from Ted Henter’s life why he invented JAWS and how it works. The impact of this technology has changed the lives of so many who cannot see. I also hope this report further shows that people with visual impairments have the same intelligence and abilities as people with sight. At the beginning of this report, I asked you to close your eyes. I hope I have now opened them to the world of opportunities that those of us with impaired vision now have. Now, let me leave you with this one thought: Remember to always buckle up in a vehicle, and always wear a helmet when riding. Be safe." By Chad Rohr Return to Top from Fifth Story
Tibetan Student Mountain Climb UpdateIn September, famed blind mountain climber Erik Weihenmayer and his team will lead an expedition of blind students from a school for the blind in Llasa, Tibet, on their first mountain-climbing adventure - to the top of the 23,100-foot Himalayan Lhakpa Ri mountain peak. The Tibetan climbing adventure has a thee-fold purpose: to promote Braille without Borders, the first education project for blind Tibetan students; to encourage the students who will climb the mountain to rise above seemingly impossible barriers; and, most importantly, to show that the blind have potential and abilities to do the extraordinary if they choose. In the May @Freedom Scientific newsletter, we introduced readers to this exceptional and exciting expedition. Now, the team and students have completed their initial exploratory training, a week-long training in rock climbing, trekking over a 16,000 foot pass, and a clinic practicing glacier travel. As they continue their training and progress toward the goal of climbing the Himalayas, you can follow their progress, peek into their journals and meet the climbers, as well as learning more about Braille without Borders on the expedition Web site, Climbing Blind at http://climbingblind.org. Braille without Borders, a 10-year-old independent humanitarian outreach operated by Sabriye Tenberken and Paul Kronenberg, teaches blind Tibetan students to surmount accessibility issues, to succeed with hope and promise, and to use Braille and computers with JAWS. The school operates on a shoe-string budget, mostly funded by donations. The concept of the Himalayan student climbing adventure began when Sabriye contacted Erik Weihenmayer shortly after his victorious climb of Mt. Everest, introducing her own ground-breaking Tibetan education for the blind project and proposed the Himalayan climb. The Braille without Borders Web site is http://www.braillewithoutborders.org. Return to Top from Sixth Story
Training Department Tips: Jump Start PAC Mate ProgramsJump Start PAC Mate ProgramsDid you know that there are keyboard shortcuts you can use to quickly start your most frequently used programs on the PAC Mate? The following list of commands shows the default keystrokes for starting some commonly-used programs.
You can change these keystrokes to fit your needs. For more information on how to do this, choose the "Buttons" link in the section entitled Setting Up PAC Mate in the PAC Mate User’s Manual. The manual is available on the User Documentation CD or on the Web at http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_support/doc_accessiblepda.asp After you have started two or more programs, you can quickly switch between them by pressing ALT+TAB on the QX or F5 on the BX. Return to Top from Seventh Story
Freedom Scientific's mission is to develop, manufacture and market innovative technology-based products and services that those with vision impairments and learning disabilities use to change their world. @Freedom
Scientific is published by Those having hardware or software technical support queries can address them to Support at FreedomScientific.com
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