To offer a more appropriate analogy, would you refuse to purchase a television because, in order to watch ESPN you must purchase services from a cable or satellite provider? Is it a deficiency of the television manufacturer? most televisions will display ESPN programming as long as they receive the appropriately interpreted signal information. Unfortunately however, most televisions sold in the U.S., without some accessories, are unable to pick up and translate the ESPN signal beamed down from satellites. The signal is there, why can't I watch ESPN? Some will say, the ESPN signal is scrambled for a reason; This is true but, even if the signal weren't scrambled, the television couldn't use the raw signal. Some are now complaining that they don't want to hear "a script can be written to do this." The fear is presumably that soon everything will require a script. To the JAWS users among this group, I offer the following challenge: Disable all JAWS scripts and see how much of your computer you have access to. I stand by my statement that it would be nice if the feature was available via a script. Building this feature into Window-Eyes is likely to result in problems down the road when copyrighted OCR technology improves or changes between Window-Eyes upgrades. Furthermore, if the feature is available through the scripting that is available in the current version of Window-Eyes, why would someone want to have to pay for an upgrade of Window-Eyes to utilize this capability?
-----Original Message----- From: David [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 2:53 PM To: Mike Pietruk; Richard G Applegate Cc: 'John Gunn'; [email protected] Subject: Re: Window-Eyes and OCR Wonder how many would have been buying their car, if the dealer told them the following: Since there exists so many manufacturers of tires, car glass, wipers, exhaust systems, head lights, seat covers, oil, and so forth - we are only going to sell you the very body of the car itself. You sure are welcome to buy all the rest from our store, or you could go somewhere else. If you are good at it, go ahead and invent some parts of your own. . . . Well, I am sure, very few of us would have been spending any more money in that store. True enough, the day our tires are getting worn out, it is a good thing, there exists choices. And we do appriciate that we don't have to go and buy a brand new car, just for the sake of some silly tires. Yes, it is a great capability of WE, that we have got the chance of apps. And, I doubt after all, that any of you want us back in the pre7.0 days, when we had to wait for GW to do everything. Let's not forget all the benefits of apps. But apps should never replace the need for a strong screen reader's "body". It would really be a pity, if we got that far - as one lister humouristically put it - that we get a 'shaved to the bone' scrren reader, and have to download apps for every small detail. A car comes with tires, headlights and wipers preinstalled. They are loose things; parts that the manufacturer had to fasten onto the body. WE, does ship with a few apps today. In many ways, we could tell them to be 'loose parts', that GW 'fastened' to the main body of the screen reader. Yes, it is a great thing, that whoever has a bit of knowledge, time and energy - could write apps. But we have to balance that, with the risk of ending up with the user having to deal with fifty apps. And, when something goes wrong? The first thing we are told, is to go and talk to this and that app developer. Bring your car to the garage, and then listen to them telling you, that: "Since you happen to put on this brand of tires, the fuel injection system does not work properly. Go and talk to your tire manufacturer, and we will change the battery for you." Smile! I am not saying all of this, just to push all the response onto the shoulders of gW. But quite frankly, we too often hear things like "write an app". Apps are great, in the sense that they can easily be updated, they can be written by anyone, and they can enhance the user's experience. But they can never - or at least should never - replace native functionality of the screen reader. Well just a reminder. Now said, I do see the great benefits of the OCR feature as an app. Unfortunately, I do not have the skills, nor the energy, to write such an app. Just hope someone will take it on. Seem to remember, there even was some kind of free-sourced OCR software on the net, last time I looked around for that stuff. If my memory goes right here, maybe that could be one thing to start out with, since you then would have no problem with licensing of the OCR software itself. Just an idea. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Pietruk" <[email protected]> To: "Richard G Applegate" <[email protected]> Cc: "'John Gunn'" <[email protected]>; <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 6:51 PM Subject: RE: Window-Eyes and OCR > Richard > > In some ways, we are getting into semantics here. > >>From the standpoint of marketing and non-techie users, the more features > that are built-in to a product, the more potential customers exist for > that product. > Since GWMicro is in the sales business, they naturally want to find as > many potential new customers as well as existing customers choosing to > upgrade. > Secondly, while aps are nice, I suspect that average user finds things > built-in the product less frustrating than having to download something > and then dealing with the idiocyncracies of individual ap writers.Aps, as > I see it, are often stopgap measures to do something; but if that > something is core to the product, they should become part of the > innerworkings of the product at update. > > > > > In the truest sense, Christian pilgrims have the best of both worlds. We > have joy > whenever this world reminds us of the next, and we take solace whenever it > does not. > C. S. Lewis > If 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. > If 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.
