Hello,
This is one of my sleepless nights where I fall asleep listening to
tech news podcasts and such (yes I am a real nerd), and I just wanted to
comment on the following:
Note in advance this is not a rant, I and anyone else have to admire
the work that GW Micro does in trying to insure compatibility of products over
a very wide market. I may express frustration at times with things like
anybody else as an end-user, however the work that a screen reader developer
has to do is staggering.
I am however very concerned with the prospects of Windows 8. There are
a few reasons for this which I will explain as follows.
I've listened to a podcast that someone did on an unreleased build of
Windows 8. Don't ask me how they got ahold of this, I do not know. I suspect
they were certainly not authorized by Microsoft to have it. None the less they
had it and this is what we now know. I learned of this through the Serotalk
podcast and those who are interested can refer to that for more information or
to listen for themselves. No, this podcast is not by Serotek, they just refer
to it. Microsoft is puting some real genuine effort in to improving Narator in
Windows 8. I'm guessing that Apple really played them hard in terms of
accessibility and now they look really sorry compared to what Apple has done.
Apple of course has an easier time of it as all their hardware is uniform and
released by them and thus controlled by them, so Voice Over works great because
they know exactly how it wil behave in various situations and can predict it
very precisely. However, Narator will no longer be that sluggish program which
can barely do anything. Granted it is in no way able to compete with what
Window Eyes can do, but what they're doing with it is impressive, based on this
early beta. This in itself can only be a good thing for me. As a computer
nerd and tech and someone who installs Windows and does far more than just uses
a computer at a casual user level, having a more powerful screen reader built
in can only be a good thing. I originally got System Access exactly for this
purpose, because I could plug it in to a customer computer and not have to
install anything, and other than some temp files when I remove my U3 drive at
the end of my work session, their computer has not been modified or had
anything extra installed on it. I do not use System Access for daily use, but
it certainly is good for that short computing session where you don't want to
change someone's computer with intercept drivers and such. So having Narator
is a good thing.
However, some of the other things that Microsoft is doing are quite
frankly really scary for us as blind Windows users. According to the Windows
Weekly podcast, Windows 8 which is scheduled to ship in mid 2012 will employ a
whole new user interface. They apparently are adopting a look something like
that which you get on a Windows Phone 7 device or tablet device, along with
multi-touch features and tiles. This interface will apparently be available on
all Windows platforms, from desktops and laptops up to tablets. Fortunately
this interface can be switched off and Windows will behave much like Windows 7
does, however as we know if DOS and command line applications are any
indication and as indicated in the podcast, the old style of user interface
with a desktop, start menu and system tray, will be going away, probably with
Windows 9 in 2015. On top of this, I was told that the new Windows 8 will not
allow mirror drivers which most screen readers today rely on for functionality,
so a whole new way of accessing screen information will be necessary.
Apparently Microsoft considers mirror drivers to be a security risk. Hopefully
this is not true. This new Windows is going to be pushing for more
applications which are cloud-based and rely on HTML 5 standards.
Again this is not a complaint, I'm sure GW Micro already knows these
things and likely already has some preliminary plans in place for dealing with
them. But I just wanted to stress that definitely I believe that improving
Window Eye's ability to handle HTML should definitely be a major priority for
the next release. If this is done ,this I would assume would not only help
Window Eyes deal with web browsing better, but also applications in general,
especially if all the new Windows applications are going to be based on this
new HTML 5 standard, along with APIs to interface to them. The good news is,
that in the demo of this pre-release of early Windows 8, the podcaster had
Jaws, NVDA and System access working with moderate success, with System Access
being the winner due to its virtual mouse feature. He was supposed to
demonstrate Window Eyes but didn't, I think he got side tracked by some of the
issues he was having.
Either way, things like this are still a good way off and not something
people should worry about as an immidiate concern, but at the same time I'm
sure and hope that GW Micro is aware of these issues and preparing for what
they will have to do to keep Window Eyes working in such a drastically changed
user interface. Although a good thing that could come out of this might be
opportunity for Window Eyes to find itself on to new tablets and more portable
computers. Window Eyes on a windows 8 tablet to compete with the Ipad would be
very cool.
Just some thoughts, I hope nobody is offended by this.
Cory
Sent from my iPhoneIf you reply to this message it will be delivered to the
original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your
message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to
[email protected] so the entire list will receive it.
GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can manage
your list subscription at http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv.
