Here is a short list of some of the important software that needs to
be done for Mac to get better acceptance with in the blind community,
Feel free to add your own:
1. Support for braille display: In progress
2. Braille translation: Finished
3. DAISY playback: In early progress
4. DIASY production: Finished
5. Spreadsheet program: Unknown
6. OCR program: Work needed I would like to port Google's open source
OCR to Mac at some point and build a true reading application from it.
I feel we will have a good chance at picking up about 10% of the blind
market and a much greater percentage of the dyslexic market, which
have traditionally been Mac users anyway, if we can provide free open
source solutions to DAISY, braille and OCR.
In some ways the dyslexics are a key here they more than double the
number of potential users and their needs, outside of braille, are
closely alined with those of the blind on most issues. Further
dyslexics are traditional users of Macs. The problem with dyslexics
are that they are far less organized than are the blind and therefor
are much harder to reach even if they exist in larger numbers. Also,
with rare exceptions, they are not reachable in schools (K-12) which
are by and large focused on trying to teach as much print reading
skills to them as is possible. Unlike the blind the dyslexics have no
rehabilitation centers that teach them how to use talking books and
such and are as a rule not in the traditional rehabilitation system.
Greg Kearney
