As i said earlier that braillenote is not the only note taker designed for
the blind, there are others too and some of them support chat clients.
I don't think the playing field is different for Humanware from the the
manufacturers of those devices.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex Hall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "James Scholes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
<[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, March 17, 2008 1:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Braillenote] skype
Okay. I have not been following this thread but let me try to put it to
rest:
mainstream tech devices such as smart phones or PDAs have been in
development for a long time. More importantly, they have thousands of
people working on them, from Microsoft to the developers of third-party
apps (like Skype) who adapt their products to all work together.
Microsoft provides the base, Windows, and gives programmers access to
Windows functions (through what is called an A P I) so that other software
can work with Windows on these mobile devices. They can beta test their
creations on a huge number of people as well.
Now we look at Humanware. They are a single company with one programming
division working on Keysoft. They use Windows but have to modify almost
everything they do to get ks to work correctly with Windows. Part of the
reason they have not upgraded our CE version is that it will require a
rewrite of Keysoft itself, which is a HUGE undertaking. They have no
third-party developers; they can't say, "Okay, you adapt your product to
work with keysoft while we work on other things" because no one else can
code for keysoft and writing an sdk (software development kit) to let
others write programs for ks (supplying a public ks api) would take a lot
of time which could be spent building other programs for us. This is why,
although it is very reasonable to expect our devices to behave just like
any other, they simply will not. If positions were reversed and the blind
tech market were the big fish in the pond, then the sighted would be
asking why they couldn't do all the stuff we could and it would come back
to the exact same thing: the smaller the market, the longer it takes to
catch up to the bigger market, but the biger the big market, the faster it
pulls ahead of the smaller. Not a very nice spiral, but there you have
it.
I get just as frustrated as the next person when I cannot instant message,
open certain web pages, have my work erased by keyword, and so on. I am
not saying that I am oaky and happy with it, but that is the way it is
until we get that sdk. Once that happens people will be able to write
their own ks apps, but providing that sdk could mean not getting the
upgrades we all look forward to.
Have a great day,
Alex
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Scholes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "BrailleNote mailing list" <[email protected]
Date sent: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:36:33 -0000
Subject: Re: [Braillenote] skype
Is it just me who is getting tired of this bloody topic? You
can't get Skype
on the BrailleNote, deal with it!
John Ramm wrote:
Hi Ann
I thought that was a little harsh.
In these days of Mobile phones that can do almost anything, is
it
really that unreasonable for a blind person to want their
braille
device to be able to do the sort of things that their sighted
friends
can do with their PDAs? I don't really think so.
Humanware are clearly thinking of the braillenote as far more
than a
notetaker, judging by the kinds of features they include.
Having said this, you could very well have your tongue firmly in
your
cheek.
Talk soon
John Ramm
At 11:26 17/03/2008, Ann K. Parsons wrote:
Hi all,
The BrailleNote is a notetaker, *not* a computer. You want a
small
device that you can add chat programs to, but give up complete
Braille support then sell your BN and get a PacMate and spend
the
rest of your life struggling to figure out if Windows CE will or
won't work on your product have one that comes in two parts,
have
one that doesn't mirror every single message in braille. Fine.
You
want computer programs, get a computer!
Ann P.
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