Back to Windows...

[Andy]

On 27/10/06, Eric S. Johansson <esj at harvee.org> wrote:
> And as I said before, the only reason I use
> Windows is because I need to use speech recognition.  I really need to
> get on the new accessibility mailing list to advocate for a hopefully
> easy to build tool that would make it possible to use Windows only for
> speech recognition.
Does speech recognition actually work?
I remember trying it a while ago (when I used to use Windows), the
thing wanted me to 'train it', and even then it was not very accurate.
However the best example has to be the Microsoft guy demonstrating the
new voice recognition
(Google Video: http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-1123221217782777472 )


> and the very last is tools for those who forced to use
> unicorn sticks and other cruel tricks developed by accessibility advocates.
ah obscure peripherals, that might be a problem.
I suppose it all depends on whether the manufacture is releasing the
specs for the devices or not.

If the specs are not available then the only way to develop a free
(and therefore redistributable driver) would be to reverse engineer it
from the binary device driver.

Personally I think this would be a huge waste of developers time. Its
not that we shouldn't be supporting accessibility, we really should
but if a device vendor is actively working to prevent its use on our
system should we really commit developers valuable time for a few
users who are financing a company who is trying to prevent our OS
existing?

I imagine there is probably something higher up the chain that needs
to be there instead of just a device driver but with no device driver
you may as well use the item as a paper weight.

If you have a device driver issue with such a special device maybe you
should write to the vendor asking for specs to the device and if they
won't provide such things make sure they know they have lost you as a
customer.
Seems less people buy such devices then logically the power per user
ratio should be higher.


> It's one of those Catch-22 situations.  Those who need it can't build it
> (fast enough to keep up with the evolutionary changes), and those who
> can build it, don't have the experience necessary to tell them what works.
That would be why you need to work closely with development people.
Although you may not be able to write the code yourself maybe you
could hire a coder to do it for you? Its one of the many advantages to
open source, you don't need to convince the vendor, you only need to
convince a developer.
(don't ask me to write the code though, although I have 8 computing
programming books near me I am not an excellent coder *yet* :) )

> Sucks to be human.
Wouldn't want to be anything else

Nearly forgot, are you on 6.06 or 6.10? I hear there are some
accessibility improvements in 6.10, but I haven't installed it yet,
doing a full system backup first (5.10 -> 6.06 left me with an
unusable system, so I am being extra careful this time)

- Andy

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