I don't think Symbian will see many of these technologies and applications. It is a dying platform no matter what Nokia says. In fact, they are trying to move to a different platform called Meego which is Linux based. Having used an iPhone for a while, I can't imagine myself going back to a Symbian phone. Of course, it isn't possible for everyone to afford the iPhone. That is where Android comes in. We are beginning to see mid to low end handsets running Android. There are some screen reading solutions already but there are not good at all. All Advocacy organisations like RNIB and AFB are pushing Google to improve Android Accessibility.
I think this is one area that blind and partially sighted users in India can have their say as well. We are going to be a large user base and it is about time to make our voices heard. I suggest that every one of us who are either using a mobile phone or is planning to use in the future write to Google's Accessibility team and ask for a full-fledged screen reader and magnification features in Android platform. In this day and age, we do not have to rely on 3rd party software for our accessibility needs. Apple have demonstrated that it is possible to include accessibility features in an operating system at no extra cost. There is no reason why Google and other major IT companies can't do it as well. So, lets start writing to [email protected] individually asking for accessibility features in Android. Alternatively, we could assemble our individual requests and one of us could submit them on behalf of AccessIndia. Sorry for deviating from the topic but technology is evolving rapidly and if we don't take our concerns to the right people at the right time, there is a risk of blind and partially sighted users being left behind. Regards, Kiran -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Harish Kotian Sent: 16 December 2010 01:54 To: [email protected] Subject: [AI] What is Google upto? Hello Check out on the links below and get a feel of exciting days ahead for us. These technology are in its infancy but surely there is more we can expect from it. Presently the concern is all these buzz are focused around Android and IPhone and not symbian centric. Anyways: http://www.google.com/mobile/goggles/ www.google.com/latitude Harish Kotian To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
