Thursday, July 17, 2008

WebAnywhere - A Tool For Blind People To Get Online Anywhere




The catch phrase is WebAnywhere: A Screen Reader on the Go and this is exactly what it does. Tools for the visually impaired are few and far between so nobody should begrudge Richard Ladner, a University of Washington professor of Computer Science and Engineering and his doctoral student Jeffrey Bigham from a bow.

The mentor and the student developed this web tool keeping the needs of the visually impaired in mind. Blind users generally use their own computers with screen reader software installed. WebAnywhere aims to correct this through its independent platform and web based application.
WebAnywhere is not only a screen reader but its uniqueness lies in the fact that it is a web-based application. That means :

- It does not need any software to be installed in the client machine. The only requirement is a browser and the ability to play sound.

- It works with any operating system - Windows, Mac, whatever

- It requires no special permissions; the computer should only be net enabled and should have audio.

- It works on any web-enabled device including any mobile that supports web access.

- With a data size of 100Kb for the home page, it has a fast loading time (less than 5 seconds)


No comments: