Special Technologies for Special People

Through Information Technology physically challanged people are getting benefit these days. Apart from facilities like narrator, sticky keys and text zoom there are many other services available for them on computer. There are many such softwares through which they can be benefitted. Lets see some of these services.



Braille surf 4.0
(http://www.snv.jussieu.fr/inova/bs4/) 

BrailleSurf 4 is an Internet browser for visually impaired users, which allows a simplified reading of the information available on the Web. BrailleSurf 4 shows this information in a text form. This information can then be displayed on a braille bar, or it can be spoken out by a speech synthesiser thanks to appropriate drivers. The text can also be presented on the screen according to the needs of partially sighted people. 
A further important use of BrailleSurf 4 is to allow a fast review of the accessibility level of a website for visually impaired people. 
BrailleSurf 4's technical principle is to analyse the source code of the HTML pages, in order to keep only the essential information and to design an optimal layout. The graphical objects are filtered and the page is rebuilt in a textual way. 
The BrailleSurf 4 browser exists in English, French and Spanish and it is compatible with Windows 95, 98, NT and 2000. It allows to drive different kinds of braille displays and of speech synthesisers, throughdownloadable optional drivers. 
BrailleSurf 4 has been developed by Emmanuel Schwarz, Gaële Hénault and Dominique Burger within the team Inova (Non Visual Interfaces and Accessibility) from the INSERM U483 at the Pierre et Marie Curie University (Paris VI).


Camera Mouse
(http://www.cameramouse.org/)

Camera Mouse is a program that allows you to control the mouse pointer on a Windows computer just by moving your head.

The program was developed to help people with disabilities use the computer. The main audience for this program is people who do not have reliable control of a hand but who can move their head. People with Cerebral Palsy, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, ALS, Multiple Sclerosis, Traumatic Brain Injury, various neurological disorders use this program and its predecessors to run all types of computer software.

Camera Mouse works as a mouse replacement system for Windows computers so it should work with just about any application program. For example people use Camera Mouse with entertainment programs, education programs, communication programs, web browsers, and so on.

Click n Type
(http://www.cnt.lakefolks.com/)

Click-N-Type is an on-screen virtual keyboard designed for anyone with a disability that prevents him or her from typing on a physical computer keyboard.  As long as the physically challenged person can control a mouse, trackball, touch screen or other pointing device, this software keyboard allows you to send keystrokes to virtually any Windows application or DOS application that can run within a window. The Click-N-Type Virtual Keyboard is a 32 bit application that requires Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista/Win-7 or later.  There are other onscreen virtual keyboards around but you'll find Click-N-Type the easiest to use for getting text into problematic applications.  Try them all.  You'll see they all work fine while typing into Notepad or WordPad, but when you attempt to do some real work, with all but the expensive ones, you'll get really annoyed really fast. The Click-N-Type Soft  Keyboard was designed with ease of use foremost in mind. 

E-Speaking
(http://www.e-speaking.com/)

These are exciting technologies that change the way you interact with your computer. Now you can speak to your computer and it can speak back. The speech that you and your computer exchange is scripted. In other words, you can't just ask your computer how he/she is feeling? Rather, you can talk to your computer using a set of pre-defined commands and instructions (i.e., a script). Your computer will respond in the same way (also using a scripted language). For example, you can say: "File Open", and the computer would respond: "Select the file". Or you can say: "Edit Find" and the computer would ask: "Find What?".


Super Magnify
(http://www.bit.ly/aZy0jJ)


Magnifies portions of your screen up to 15 times. With special interpolation routine to maintain detail when magnifying. Designed by Kevin Solwey and a free software. It will be liked by people who have weak eyesight.

Eye communicator
(http://www.icommunicator.com) 

The finest software ever developed for people who are deaf or heard-of-hearing.

iCommunicator makes effective two-way communication possible for persons who are deaf, hard-of-hearing or experience unique communication challenges

The iCommunicator translates in real-time:
• Speech to Text
• Speech/Text to Video Sign-Language
• Speech/Text to Computer Generated Voice