Sao Mai AccessTech Issue 49

Opening Message

Dear Readers,

In this issue beside the news of technology for the blind, we bring articles about Rollback – tool for backing up and restoring the system, the way to turn off the touch pad on the laptop, continue fixing issue - Windows 10 app won’t open, how to switch between multiple synthesizer in NVDA. On touch devices, we introduce the Select to speak feature of Talkback and Eye-d, an Android app for finding places around your location, recognizing text and more.

From now on, we are happy to welcome a new contributor, Mr. Tran Ba Thien. We are looking forward to receiving more contributed articles from him for the magazine. In addition, from issue 50, we will have one new section called New Apps which will introduce to our readers accessible apps running on different platforms. Hope you all enjoy this publication.

With regards,
Sao Mai AccessTech Editorial Team

News Section

From Sao Mai

From 7/31 – 08/03, 2017, Ms. Tien and Mr. Phuc attended the second International Conference on Special Education and joint the ON-NET – ICEVI country coordinators meeting in Kuching, Malaysia. The conference was hosted by the SEAMEO and had many presentations sharing different models and activities to support the students with disabilities from countries in the Southeast Asia region. Mr. Phuc also had a speech on support activities of Sao Mai for visually impaired students in higher education program in Vietnam on the 1st of August. Some of the photos and presentations can be found at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B0N4PEmrfnrDQVE4VUNlcDRGWVU

End of July, Sao Mai finished the translation of the Microsoft Excel with NVDA training module into Vietnamese. We will distribute freely this module to all blind individuals who already registered to obtain this module. For other Vietnamese visually impaired users, can register to receive it for free at: https://saomaicenter.org/vi/nvda/request_training_modules

Since August 10th, Sao Mai has signed the agreement with the Dot Incorporation to develop engines to convert text to Braille and Braille to text for their Braille products. This Korean company is developing smart and low-cost Braille devices for visually impaired users. Some of their products are the smart Braille watch, Dot Watch and Minipad, the low-cost Braille display.

Sao Mai is also supporting the Myanmar Blind Association (MNAB) to develop the simple SAPI-compliant Burmese speech engine. We have released the sample version at the end of July and we are planning to meet with the MNAB team and their language specialist in early September in Yangon to finalize the development roadmap.

Sao Mai also would like to inform that our Braille production service will be back from the beginning of September, 2017, which will provide Braille printing service for all individuals and organizations in need. Besides, currently, we are also supplying Braille and English/Vietnamese talking watches with new and fashion designs. Please contact our Products and Services team: +84-28-7302-4488 (extension: 104); or call Mr. Hoang at: +84-908-882-553 for more information.

Searching for Free WIFI with Facebook App

recently update version of Facebook has included free WIFI feature. This located in the Facebook’s application. Tab on the More icon on the Facebook main interface. In the Application section, tab on Find WIFI, Facebook will list all of free WIFI near your location.

More Accessible with Moovid App

After many updates, the Moovid app – bus searching on Android devices has made significant improvements in accessibility to screen readers. Specifically, users do not need to disable the screen reader for tabbing the search button or choose the bus route to ride with.

Guide for Taskbar on Windows 10

David Bailes has released the Guide to the taskbar for Windows 10 creators update. People who interested can read this material at http://vip.chowo.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/jaws/Taskbar-10-Guide.html

Collection of Run Commands on Windows

David Ferrint, the administrator of the Jaws-users.com site has collected the run commands on Windows 10, and posted to this site. People who interested can download this resource at: http://jaws-users.com/text/Windows/10/files/Windows10Commands.zip