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Dr William Tan first man to complete North Pole Marathon on wheelchair
Valarie Tan
April 11, 2007
Source: Channel NewsAsia

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SINGAPORE: Dr William Tan has become the first man to complete the North Pole marathon on wheelchair.

The Singaporean, who suffers from paraplegia, finished the 26.2-mile race in 21 hours and 10 minutes.

The race is part of his global challenge to finish 17 marathons in 7 continents, including the Arctic and the Antarctic.

By taking part in the races, Dr Tan also hopes to raise S$2 million for “Global Flying Hospitals”.

This is a humanitarian organisation that provides free medical services to developing countries, by turning aircraft into surgical hospitals.

Dr Tan is now recuperating in Norway.

“It’s a great feeling having survived the ordeal. It turned out to be tougher than expected – extremely cold over there, minus 25 degrees Celsius. The terrain was also very challenging,” Dr Tan told Channel NewsAsia via telephone.

“I constantly developed numbness on my toes and fingers. There was one occasion where I took off my goggles and my glasses….. and then icicles started to develop on my eyelashes and it was terribly painful. And there were many occasions during those 21 hours that I wanted to give up, especially in the initial period,” he added.

“But, even though I had those kind of emotions, I was very conscious that I was doing something beyond myself. I was doing something bigger than just a marathon, I was raising money for a very worthy cause. I was out there on a special mission to conquer to go beyond the limit. So it gave me that extra energy every time I think of the positive aspects of it.

“There were 43 other runners who were running along the course as well. And their kind of drive gave me a lot of energy too. It was very inspiring to see them overcoming the same kind of problems as I have. They were running on snow shoes and they had just as much challenges as myself too,” said Dr Tan.

Dr Tan will be taking part in the Boston Marathon next Monday, before participating in the London Marathon. – CNA/ir

Singapore, Thailand launch first global convention on technology for disabled
Valarie Tan
April 11, 2007
Source: Channel NewsAsia

SINGAPORE : Singapore and Thailand will launch the first International Convention for Rehabilitation Engineering & Assistive Technology (i-Create).

The three-day exhibition and conference is the first joint effort by both countries to promote technology for people with disabilities and the elderly in Southeast Asia.

It will showcase the latest state-of-the-art equipment in the field of Assistive and Rehabilitative Technology.

10 workshops will also be held by well-known experts on the technology.

i-Create will be held at the National Library from April 24-26.

Guests of honour include Singapore’s Community Development, Youth and Sports Minister Dr Vivian Balakrishnan and Thailand’s Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. – CNA /ls

Make Google Maps your maps.
Create and share personalized, annotated maps of your world. Learn more.

Mark your favorite places on your map.

Draw lines and shapes to highlight paths and areas.

Add your own text, photos, and videos.

Publish your map to the web.

Share your map with friends and family.

This technology uses a GIS computer system to collect, store, and manage maps link with a database. You can read my previous entry how Google’s My Maps and GIS applications affects the disability community.

But what is GIS? Geographic Information System (GIS) is a computer system that has functions to store, capture, analyze, managing data and associated these attributes to a database which are spatially referenced to a Cartesian map. For additional information on GIS, check out its Wikipedia.

Emerging GIS Technology and Accessibility: Online Mapping for Everyone
Christopher J. Andrews, MWH Global, Inc.
March 08, 2007
Source: Directions Magazine

The GIS profession has always maintained a community-focused perspective that pervades both the development and use of geospatial technology. That perspective undoubtedly grows out of the fact that working with map data leads to the realization that the world is fundamentally finite and has few insurmountable barriers. As the GIS community has evolved over the last decades, pioneering companies like ESRI have encouraged the development of a GIS professional archetype; one who, while recognizing the value of a paycheck, also keeps in mind the simple interconnectedness that is obvious on a map and the resulting implication that local actions may have far-reaching effects.

Geospatial technologists currently find themselves in the whirlwind of Web 2.0 technology, which has popularized Web-based GIS in a manner that threatens to wrest the concept of the GIS developer away from the GIS community. The GIS establishment has the responsibility to bring its heightened level of community awareness to these new technologies and applications of GIS. An easy place to start would be to address an area that has been underrepresented in GIS technology but which addresses fundamental characteristics of GIS data openness and sharing: making Web-based GIS tools more accessible to visually impaired and blind users.

Many writers have described the Internet as a leveling technology that improves access to information for everyone. The reality is that the Internet offers a variety of technologies for information sharing, some of which are accessible to anyone who can read text and some which are not as accessible.Companies are rapidly adopting Web development techniques such as Adobe Flash, graphic design and JavaScript to enhance the user’s experience.Unfortunately, poorly designed Flash animations, images with no descriptive, alternative (‘ALT’) text, and JavaScript-masked hyperlinks (anchors in a Web page that use JavaScript to redirect the page instead of simpler HTML) will impede the ability of blind users to access Internet-based information.Also, poor color choices and fixed text sizes may render websites useless for colorblind or moderately visually impaired users.

The population of Web users with some sort of visual impairment may be larger than you realize.It’s safe to say that at least 5.5% of the Web-surfing population is colorblind (based on a calculation of the proportion of the general public that is colorblind – male-to-female Internet usage ratios actually suggest that the number may be closer to 7% or 8% in the US). According to the American Foundation for the Blind, approximately 1.5 million American computer users are blind or visually impaired. Furthermore, consider anecdotal evidence such as this: during a casual conversation, a friend of mine mentioned that the CEOs of her two former companies both needed to adjust Web browser fonts to the maximum size to read Web pages. Some of the current Web technology trends include so-called AJAX user interface tools that heavily employ JavaScript, complex style sheets that use fixed font sizes, and even mapping applications with built-in Flash and other less accessible technologies. Because of these trends, a gap has developed that threatens to make Web-based GIS and non-GIS applications less accessible to the blind and visually impaired.

Aside from the need to be good corporate citizens, there are compelling legal reasons for GIS developers to build Web-based mapping applications that provide access to the range of visually impaired and blind Web surfers. Numerous localities including the U.K., the U.S. and many individual states have legislation that has been interpreted by their respective courts to require that websites used by government employees or served by the government to the general public must be accessible to Internet users with visual disabilities. (The SAP Design Guild offers an interesting discussion of international Internet accessibility efforts.) Most of the Web-based and stand-alone GIS applications that I have built fall within one or the other of those categories. Not surprisingly, none of those projects included the requirement that accessible techniques be applied to those applications to accommodate visually impaired users. Although it is my understanding that there have been relatively few lawsuits to date, the implications of an aging workforce which has greater Internet acumen, increasing levels of visual impairments, and greater lobbying power may expose the GIS community to more pressure to increase the accessibility of mapping technology.

Once the need for creating accessible GIS websites is recognized, the next step will be to figure out how to evaluate a website for accessibility. For legally blind Web surfers, a website needs to be “readable,” in that an assistive technology application is used to speak aloud all of the readable text on a page with some context information to support navigation. A combination of straightforward HTML element use and nuanced page layout combine to facilitate website readability for such users. Additional techniques improve readability for colorblind and visually impaired users.

Fortunately, many tools exist that will help evaluate a website for compliance with Web accessibility standards, such as those being developed by the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative. The Ohio State University Web Accessibility Center offers a compilation of Web-based tools to help developers analyze accessibility compliance for websites, including tools that will show a developer how a page actually looks or behaves for a visually impaired user. IBM, Adobe and other software vendors offer guidelines for building applications and websites that improve accessibility.

Figure 1. Wickline’s Colorblind web Filter offers the develop the ability to see a website as a colorblind user might see it (filtered version on the right). Clicking on the map in this particular website leads to a Flash mapping tool that is completely inaccessible to the blind user. (Click for larger image.)

Although many projects may not budget the time for accessibility development and the expense of acquiring text-to-speech software for Web browsing, the Lynx text-based Web browser can show the sighted user a rough idea of the website text that will be read to a blind user. While not used heavily by the blind or visually impaired community, the Lynx browser is free and offers sighted users some insight as to how informative and navigable the text information in a Web page may be. Lynx won’t process AJAX, JavaScript-based hyperlinks or Flash, so it also gives the developer a feel for what functionality simply won’t work in JavaScript-disabled Web page reading software. Be aware that some page reading software will process JavaScript and Flash, so Lynx is not a complete representation of how a website reads to a blind surfer.

Figure 2. The Lynx Web Browser reveals that one well-known, but unnamed, company has a website that may appear to be attractive to the sighted user but is complete gibberish to any Web surfer who only has access to text information. This also happens to be a poor design for search engine optimization, as there is no text information to index for content-based search. (Click for larger image.)

Once the GIS developer has digested all the tools to assess website accessibility, the realization strikes home that ultimately GIS has one simple problem. The most popular representation for GIS data on the Internet is an image. Is it even possible to make an image more accessible to blind or visually impaired users? In fact, there are many techniques available to GIS developers to make map applications compliant with accessibility laws and standards.

The simplest approach, tackled in an article by Seth Duffy while making his mapping website more available to search engines, is to provide text-based tabular information for critical map coordinates matched to descriptive text that any Internet user may access. Given that many developers are already going through hoops to parse their GIS data for inclusion in JavaScript-based tools such as Google Maps, it should be trivial to provide a link to an alternate page that simply prints out a table of coordinates with descriptive text.

Other techniques that could assist the visually impaired user would be the ability to switch to higher-contrast map coloring, access to toggles to increase symbol and label sizes, and the ability to resize and redraw a map to spread out the map information over a larger page area. Even though these techniques may be obvious, the difficulty in finding mapping websites that employ them suggests that the issue of accessibility is generally missing from the development criteria that drive the online mapping world.

New technologies, such as the recently introduced Google KML search, may also open up the interaction between the Web and the real world for the blind mapping enthusiast.Future Web mapping applications and GPS sharing sites might keep in mind the use of technologies such as voice- and GPS-enabled PDAs and touch tablet technology that open up geospatial data collection and analysis to the blind. The AFB website offers reviews of geospatially enabled technologies. The Royal National College for the Blind’s T3 Talking Tactile Technology also offers templates for teaching geography. The GIS industry has long recognized the leveling ability of mapping data and technology. The industry must ensure that its traditional community-based ethics perpetuate, even as inevitable changes in technologies and applications take GIS in new directions. Ensuring and enhancing accessibility to Web mapping applications for blind and visually impaired Web users seem like the obvious place to start.

The article does a great job highlighting some of the programs and developments the city has to offers for people with disabilities. However, the article did not mention one unique accessibility feature the city offer, that is the automatic handicap push button inside & outside all new stores built in Berkeley since 2005.

City wins disability award
Kristin Bender / MediaNews
March 27, 2007
Source: East Bay Daily News

Berkeley was the first city in the nation to provide curb cuts for wheelchairs. But that happened more than 35 years ago and the city has done much more to help disabled people in recent years, according to a national disabled rights organization.

For its efforts, Berkeley today will receive a $25,000 check from the Washington, D.C.-based National Organization on Disability in recognition of its focus on disability issues and design of successful programs, services and facilities for residents and visitors with disabilities. Chicago was runner-up and will receive $10,000.

“It’s a really great honor and I think it’s really appropriate that Berkeley be receiving it,” said Dmitri Belser, chairman of the city’s Disability Commission and president of the Ed Roberts Campus, a one-stop center for disabled people being built at the Ashby BART station. “Berkeley has been a real mecca for people with disabilities for many years.”

The money could be used for an accessible City CarShare vehicle, but plans were not firm late Monday, city officials said.

Earlier this year the National Organization on Disability named Berkeley the most “accessible city in the United States” because it had the first universally designed affordable housing development, free and reduced-price taxi services, and emergency attendant care and transportation services funded by a self-imposed tax. The city also has programs promoting artists with disabilities, and internship and mentor programs for youths with disabilities.

What’s more, Belser said, many agencies such as Through the Looking Glass, the Center for Independent Living and Belser’s own the Center for Accessible Technology started in Berkeley. “From those agencies, national agencies started,” he said.

While Berkeley has made strides for disabled people in the past, it now is looking to improve their future by building the $45 million Ed Roberts Campus.

The 86,000-square-foot center will house the offices of seven disability service and advocacy organizations, including legal advocacy, job training, parenting support and wheelchair sports.

It will have fully accessible meeting rooms, a computer/media resource center, a fitness center, a cafe and a child care center.

Fundraising for the project is now 75 percent complete, with groundbreaking expected by the end of the year, said project manager Caleb Dardick. The center is slated to open in fall 2009.

Fundraisers have secured $33.7 million in grants and pledges so far, but more is needed, Dardick said.

The center’s namesake, Roberts, had polio and was an early leader in the city’s independent-living movement, as well as a student who helped pave the way for disabled student services at the University of California, Berkeley. Roberts died in 1995 at age 56.

Berkeley was chosen as the most accessible city in the nation by national disability advocates and experts. Criteria for receiving the honor included access to jobs, education, religious worship, voting, transportation, housing and emergency preparedness planning.

“There is a lot of things that happen here that are very innovative and a lot of very powerful thinkers here,” said Belser.

Among those attending the ceremony today will be Belser, Mayor Tom Bates and Susan O’Hara, the former director of UCB Disabled Students program who has done work with a documentation project on the disability rights movement at the Bancroft Library. Representatives from the National Organization on Disability also will be at the event.

[Full feyboard view]

[Applications shortcut buttons]

[Keyboard with the video game Quake functions]

[Keyboard for Adobe Photoshop]

Access denied
March 1, 2007
LiveWire
Source: www.theage.com.auMost websites don’t make it easy for the disabled, writes Lia Timson.

A NEW study has found that most websites fail to meet basic accessibility guidelines. The audit – commissioned by the United Nations – reviewed 100 leading travel, banking, media, government and retail websites in 20 countries including Australia.

It found only three sites measured reasonably against the benchmark for web accessibility (w3.org/TR/WCAG10). They were government sites in Germany (bundeskanzlerin.de), Spain (la-moncloa.es/default.htm) and Britain (www.primeminister.gov.uk).

The audit found 78 per cent of sites used colour combinations of poor contrast, making it difficult for those who are vision-impaired or colour-blind to read content.

About 87 per cent of sites caused pop-up windows to appear without warning, causing disorientation for those using screen magnification software, and 92 per cent of the sites failed to provide keyboard shortcuts, making it impossible for those who can’t use a mouse to navigate the sites.

It also found 93 per cent of the sites did not provide adequate text descriptions of the images. These are required so that text-to-speech software used by the vision-impaired can interpret the images.

“The simple truth is that the leading websites around the world are not accessible to many persons with disabilities,” the report concluded. “Many of the sites could be easily upgraded to remove obstacles … however, the majority of sites need considerable work.”

Andrew Arch, manager of online accessibility consulting at Vision Australia, says he is not surprised by the findings.

“This is quite common, unfortunately,” he says. “It happens because web designers are not aware that blind people or people who can’t use a mouse actually want to use their site or (designers) don’t know what to do or their technology doesn’t allow (accessibility).”

Mr Arch says all internet users need better colour contrast and larger typefaces after the age of 40. “After 40 our ability to see contrast decreases,” he says. “Use of pale colours means older people are unlikely to see the content.”

Anyone should be able to press the tab key and navigate to any page on a site without the need for the mouse, Mr Arch says. “We have all the technology in the world but if we can’t use it, it’s not worthwhile.”

A Forrester Research study commissioned by Microsoft in the US found that one in four adult computer users has difficulty with vision and one in four has problems with dexterity.

The research helped shape the upgrades in the recently released Vista operating system. It now includes a better screen magnifier and a narrator, which reads on-screen text in a more natural voice than the robot-like rendition of Windows XP. It also has speech recognition to help those who cannot type.

Windows XP’s features are described by Microsoft as being at a “minimum level of functionality”. Mr Arch says despite improvements in operating systems and web browsers such as Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox, disabled users need specialist speech-recognition software such as Jaws (freedomscientific.com) and Dragon Naturally Speaking (australia.nuance.com) if they use computers regularly.

The maker of Dragon hopes to revolutionise the way everyone, including disabled people, uses mobile phones. Dragon’s manufacturer, Nuance, has launched a speech-recognition system for mobile phones. Users will be able to speak into their 3G handsets to conduct internet searches, send text messages, dictate and send emails, and navigate other features. The product is more accurate than some phones’ voice recognition functions and is not limited to the device’s address book, power or memory capacity.

The regional director of Nuance’s speech division, Peter Chidiac, says the system installs Dragon directly onto teleco networks. Some companies have already adopted it and he hopes telcos such as Telstra, Optus and Vodafone will take it up as well.

“Typing on the mobile is unnatural,” Mr Chidiac says. “The big issue is people sending an SMS in a car. Now they’ll have eyes-and-hands-free control.”

The proposed alternative hands-free computer control system ACCS – Alternative Computer Control System – is being already effectively used by SCI (spinal cord injury) patients who have become completely immobilized. If incorporated into personnal computer, home electronics and personnal movement control systems, ACCS will provide a person with an additional control contour, which will allow for continuous computer control.”

…

ACCS is placed in a person’s mouth (and comprises a tongue controlled directional command module along with 12 additional commands). It does not interfere with breathing, talk and consumption of fluids.

Without resorting to outside assistance, users can operate his or her movement accessory device, independently make telephone calls and respond to them. They can even be virtually present in any part of a house and actively participate in the life of their family, as well as use unlimited capabilities of the computer and INTERNET.

click for additional images

The four-wheel drive hybrid wheelchair
April 20, 2006

Technology is beginning to yield many new and wonderous devices to make life better, safer and more fun, but few can compare to the life-enhancement offered by a new wheelchair which offers mobility-impaired and aged people an unprecedented level of freedom. It is comfortable, all-terrain and safe – a four-wheel drive wheelchair with hybrid motor and electronic assistance system has the immense potential to enable the physically disabled live more independent lives, to enable Octagenarians to bushwalk, and paraplegics . The innovative system even checks pulse rate and blood values and calls for help in emergencies.

“This technology offers wheelchair users a level of freedom previously unavailable,” says Prof. Jürgen Wernstedt of the systems engineering applications center of the Fraunhofer Institute for Information and Data Processing IITB, who together with Otto Bock HealthCare GmbH developed the novel assistance system. “Our test driver, a multiple sclerosis patient who has been wheelchair-bound for many years, was enthused. For the first time in a long time, he was able to visit the Thüringer Forest with his family without having to rely on outside help.”

Superfourin, as it’s called, looks like a small all-terrain vehicle with wide, deep-treaded tires, four-wheel drive and roll bar. The robust wheelchair is not shy when it comes to traversing gravel, rocky or snow-covered paths. And with a high-performance hybrid motor, Superfourin can negotiate inclines of up to 40 percent without even breathing hard. The vehicle was designed and built by engineers at Otto Bock HealthCare GmbH.

Researchers from the ITTB developed the electronic monitoring and emergency call system, which successfully underwent testing in the rugged conditions of the Thüringer Forest.

For the physically disabled, the new technology means not only independence, but security. The vehicle is equipped with a GPS system that continuously transmits its position to a control center, where a digital map shows its exact location. A display provides up-to-date technical information such as the fuel and battery levels, incline of the axles and the two or four-wheel drive setting. Vital parameters such as pulse rate and blood oxygen content can also be superimposed on the display.

In emergency situations such as when the wheels are locked, the wheelchair flips over or if the patient’s pulse suddenly begins to race, the system automatically sends out an alarm. “The system is even designed to enable individual drivers to monitor an entire fleet of wheelchairs,” explains Dr. Andreas Wenzel of the IITB. “The technology creates the basis for offering new services such as a Superfourin rental service,” adds Wernstedt. “This opens up a new market targeted towards the physically disabled and their families. With its versatility, the all-terrain wheelchair can drive over snow-covered mountains, mud flats and sand dunes.”