How can the XO be made accessible to blind

[Mitch Bradley]

David W Hogg wrote:
> On a somewhat related note, is there any way to attach an external
> monitor to the XO?  I would love to give my astronomy research
> seminars in the spring from my G1G1 XO; but this would also be useful
> for those with impaired sight (some of my colleagues need to immensely
> magnify images, diagrams, and figures in order to see them).  From my
> XO, Hogg
>   

Three solutions:

a) Display the XO's graphics on another computer using X or VNC.

b) Purchase a USB graphics adapter.  (Google for "USB graphics adapter" 
to find some).  It is reported that Linux drivers are available for some 
of them, but as far as I know, nobody has tested one on an XO.

c) Dismantle the XO, install a suitable VGA connector at CN12 at the top 
left of the board (looking from the back), and cut a hole in the plastic 
to make room for the VGA cable to get out.  A modification to the X 
configuration file will then enable VGA output.  (Yes, it would be nice 
if this feature were easier to access, but providing such a connector as 
a standard feature would have increased the cost for our target market 
of developing world children, and compromised the industrial design and 
water resistance.)

> On Dec 30, 2007 12:52 PM, Hemant Goyal <goyal.hemant at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Hi,
>>
>> We have been working on a simple screen reader for the XO and have made some
>> headway. We have ported and customized eSpeak for the XO. A text to speech
>> server has been written and methods exposed through Dbus . I have documented
>> the work done till now at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Screen_Reader. The DBUS
>> api may be changed in the future. However, we still need to do some
>> extensive testing and refine the structure of the speech server.
>>
>> We had initially planned to provide a simple highlight and speak option for
>> the xo. We now think that we should scale up and structure the project to
>> use eSpeak in a much more effective manner to provide accessibility to
>> blind/low vision students.
>>
>> I think it would be brilliant if activity developers could exploit the
>> underlying speech server to write accessible activities. For example, an
>> activity at present can connect to the speech service through dbus and send
>> it strings of text to be spoken. We hope to prepare some guidelines for
>> activity developers to write accessible activities that could use the speech
>> server. What would be best way to do this?
>>
>> We are also planning to explore Orca.  We dont want to rush into development
>> now, and would like to take some time in properly planning our approach and
>> creating some design documents first.
>>
>> It'll be nice if experts could share their ideas and provide us with some
>> direction for this project.
>>
>> Thank you and wishing you all a very Happy New Year.
>>
>> Warm regards,
>> Hemant Goyal
>>
>>
>>     
>>> Message: 1
>>> Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 15:57:38 +0000
>>> From: "Gabey8" <accessibility at lists.laptop.org>
>>> Subject: [laptop-accessibility] How can the XO be made accessible to
>>>        blind   users?
>>> To: accessibility at lists.laptop.org
>>> Message-ID: <1198857458.m2f.4754 at olpc.osuosl.org >
>>>
>>>
>>> I have some deaf-blind friends who use braille attachments to access their
>>>       
>> computers.
>>     
>>> What needs to be done in order to permit the XO to work with a braille
>>>       
>> terminal or notetaker? What screen reading programs are available for Linux?
>>     
>>> And if said screen reading programs don't like working with Sugar (yet,
>>>       
>> anyway), is setting the XO up to boot to the terminal screen and going with
>> text-only a viable solution for braille users?
>>     
>>> Donna
>>>
>>> ------------------------
>>> Donna -- purple outline with orange fill color. If you see me in the
>>>       
>> Neighborhood, say hi! :)
>>     
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>>
>>     
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