Jan Engelen

Optical recognition of Braille writing using standard equipment

The reproduction of Braille writing has been, up until now, a purely manual job. To overcome this problem, many researchers have tried to develop a Braille reading machine in some way or another. Their efforts have not given a satisfying solution. The goal of the research described in this text is to develop a system that converts, within acceptable constraints, Braille (image) to a computer readable form (text). Having the text on a computer, a Braille printing house can reproduce it using an electronic Braille embosser. >

Fundamental Changes in Society

In our times we have witnessed the tremendous change from an industrial age to the age of information and knowledge. Just the differences between the 1990s and the present are impressive. Science and technology were the basis for that development. Smaller and smaller computers with ever higher power are produced at breathtaking speed; wireless connections of various kinds enable us to connect to global networks and make use of services or exchange information and communicate and interact with other users. Not only that, but mobile networks allow us to do all of this on the move. ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and other new technologies like nanotechnology and biotechnologies provide new sensors for various applications. All these technological developments have left the laboratories and become part of everybody’s daily life. A symbol for this age and its potential might be the Smartphone. At the same time, many of the technologies, products, applications and networks are now globally available, and products and services flow between the different parts of the world. In Europe, integration progressed rapidly following the breakdown of the iron curtain. The former EuropeanCommunity, which originally consisted of only Western European countries, has expanded to become a real and enlarged European Union, with updated policies. As of January 2007, the population of the 27 European Union countries had

Standardization as a prerequisite for accessibility of electronic text information for persons who cannot use printed material

Describes the whole field of accessible text formats for reading-impaired persons. A broad overview of existing code systems ranging from ill-defined basic ASCII up to 16- and 32-bit multilingual character sets (ISO and Unicode versions) are given, as well as details on the standardized ISO formats for structured documents (SGML and ODA). In order to underline the importance of electronic text standardization, a few current systems, both diskette and electronic mail implementations, are reviewed. Within this framework, the authors situate the activities of the ICADD committee, an international body that promotes the accessibility of text information through the use of global standards for structured texts. In Europe, the TIDE-CAPS project is mainly concerned with document access for the print-disabled. An SGML DTD for newspapers, called CAPSNEWS, has been developed; this DTD describes a fully general newspaper structure. This DTD also has some special provisions for visually impaired persons, which enables them to navigate through digital newspapers by means of large print on screen, voice synthesis, and Braille display readers. The benefits of structured document formats, both for the print-disabled and for publishers, are stressed throughout a new European Horizontal Action TIDE Program, HARMONY, which started in Autumn 1994. >

SGML as an enabling technology for access to digital information by print disabled readers

The reasons why SGML is a significant technology for the print disabled community (that is, the blind, partially sighted, dyslexies, and some with motor impairments) to access information presented in an electronic form have been extensively discussed in previous papers [1-3]. In this article, the authors wish to present the methods and techniques they have used to create a prototype Reading Station by which the print disabled can access SGML documents. Several ways to create a general access technique have been investigated by the authors. The objective was to be able to give people with print disabilities access to any document marked up in SGML according to any specified DTD through a Reading Station (at that time still to be designed). Among the methods investigated were the use of attributes, the LINK mechanism, new element or entity declarations, a mechanism developed by the International Committee on Accessible Document Design (ICADD) or the use and enhancement of existing related standards such as DSSSL (draft) or HyTime. After careful comparison of all these techniques in relation to their applications domain, that is, braille, large print or synthetic speech, we came to the conclusion that the ICADD mechanism was a sound base. Furthermore, the ICADD technique is included in the ISO 12083 Standard, which should guarantee widespread dissemination of the concept.

An accessibility checker for libreoffice and openoffice.org writer

OpenOffice.org Writer and LibreOffice Writer both implement the OpenDocument Format (ODF) and support output formats such as PDF and XHTML. Through the extensions odt2daisy and odt2braille (developed in the context of the AEGIS project) Writer can also export to DAISY (audio books) and Braille. In order to output usable DAISY or Braille, authors first need to create an accessible source document. The objective of AccessODF, the accessibility checker developed in the context of the European AEGIS project, is to support authors in creating accessible ODF documents and to prepare these documents for conversion to DAISY and/or Braille. The paper discusses the user interface options that were explored, describes how authors can repair errors and warnings, gives examples of automatic and semi-automatic repairs supported by the checker, and describes which errors and warnings are implemented.

Evidence of speckle in extreme-UV lithography

Based on reflective optics at 13.5 nm, extreme-UV lithography is the ultimate top-down technique to define structures below 22 nm but faces several challenges arising from the discrete nature of light and matter. Owing to the short wavelength, mask surface roughness plays a fundamental role in the increase of speckle pattern contrast, compromising the uniformity of the printed features. Herein, we have used a mask with engineered gradient surface roughness to illustrate the impact that speckle has on the resulting photoresist pattern. The speckle increases the photoresist roughness, but surprisingly, only when the mask surface roughness is well above existing manufacturing capabilities.

Generating DAISY books from OpenOffice.org

odt2daisy is an open-source extension for OpenOffice.org Writer that converts word processing files into digital talking books in the DAISY format (ANSI/NISO Z39.86). odt2daisy produces Full DAISY 3 (text synchronised with audio), DAISY 3 XML (text without audio) and Full DAISY 2.02 (for compatibility with older DAISY players). The extension also supports mathematical content (MathML). odt2daisy works on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris. For the production of audio, odt2daisy relies on the DAISY Pipeline Lite, an open-source software developed by the DAISY Consortium, the LAME MP3 encoding technology, and the operating systems text-to-speech (TTS) engine(s). The supported languages depend on the TTS engines available on the users system. On Unix-based systems odt2daisy relies on the open-source eSpeak TTS engine, which supports 27 languages. odt2daisy enables the production of DAISY books with only open-source software. Vincent Spiewak started working on odt2daisy at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris, France) and continued the work at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Leuven, Belgium) in the framework of AEGIS, a research and development project co-financed by the European Commissions 7th Framework Programme.

Non-visual access to GUIs: leveraging abstract user interfaces

Various approaches to providing blind users with access to graphical user interfaces have been researched extensively in the past 15 years, and yet accessibility is still facing many obstacles. Graphical environments such as X Windows offer a high degree of freedom to both the developer and the user, complicating the accessibility problem even more. Existing technology is largely based on either a combination of graphical toolkit hooks, queries to the application and scripting, or model-driven user interface development. Both approaches have limitations that the proposed research addresses. This paper builds upon past and current research into accessibility, and promotes the use of abstract user interfaces to providing non-visual access to GUIs

Using XML as a Reading Enabler for Visually Impaired Persons

Reading large texts like books, newspapers and magazines, is still a hard task for visually impaired persons. Accessibility software such as screen readers and screen magnifiers are a valuable aid, but they give the reader only small parts of information at a time. Since XML (Extensible Markup Language) can add structure to information, it can be used to help visually impaired readers cope with large amounts of information. A special XML Viewer application can give the reader additional navigation and search possibilities, enabling a personalised and fast reading experience for visually impaired persons.

Increasing access to information for the print disabled through electronic documents in SGML

There is a growing conviction that the Standard Generalized Markup Language, SGML, can play an important role as an enabling technology to increase access to information for blind and partially sighted people. This paper reports on mechanisms that have been devised to build in accessibility into SGML encoded electronic documents, concentrating on the work done in the CAPS Consortium—Communication and Access to Information for People with Special Needs, a European Union funded project in the Technology Initiative for Disabled and Elderly People (TIDE) Programme—and by ICADD, the International Committee on Accessible Document Design.