Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

Tell me software for Nokia N900, Maemo 5 OS, for blind people!
Thanks in advance :)

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

I suppose that the eSpeakCaller could qualify, but something build around a touchscreen, where touching means activating something, but that don't have "texture" to decide where to touch is not meant for blind people. Even for answering calls i have to actually see the phone screen, and sometimes i accidentally reject the calls pressing in the wrong spot.

Could be worse, the screen could be capacitive instead of resistive (even more sensible to touch), or could have no keyboard, but still should be the wrong kind of device for blind people.

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

Thnx for your time!

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

I think you should have a look on Symbian. Symbian does the best job for Blind users on mobile devices i think.

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

I proposed somthing similar a while back, don't remember getting any replies though (and i wouldn't know how to code the stuff myself)

If you want i could try looking for the thread

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

If you can make this job for me i will be grateful!

I have a friend for 30 years, father to two girls, is blind, soon I advised him to buy a nokia n900 with the idea that you find some programs (linux) easier to use for it in mobile phone use

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

This is the thread with some of my ideas: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=61195

I have the creativity, but not the coding skills to contribute

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

I see!! I will continue searching!!

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

I have no idea how a blind person could use an N900... it doesn't even have voice dial. This thread is full of fail.

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

xxts +1

n900 is probably the most blind unfriendly deviuce due to the congifuration fiddling u have to do, all of which require sight

if u r blind u want something that works - u wont br ocing or coding

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

You are full of fail.

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

How so? The N900 is a resistive touch screen device with a small keyboard and no accessibility features, the largest accessibility feature is eSpeak - and that is pretty much useless and under developed. Android would be much better for the blind.

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

You have no idea how it could be made useful for the visually impaired, in the first page of the thread i posted a link to a bunch of ideas.

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

Speaking without thinking must be something really important theses days. Andoid is even more built around touching (most of the android devices around have no keyboard at all !)

I second the suggestion of symbian. My e71 for example has a (built-in) application that actually speaks menus as you browse them. (at least the more important ones) also a no touchscreen qwerty device (or even number keypad with disabled t9) could proveto be much more useful - in that line you might want to check the e52, e72 and e5. I hope the app I'm talking about is still included with the newer symbians.

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

How about advanced-power on pr 1.3? After installing it I could no longer see my battery candle on the home screen.

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

get an iPhone, that's obviously something for blind people not able to see s**t in front of them. :D

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

The iphone actually has built in features for the visually impaired:

check it out

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

yeah, that's what I said, get an iPhone. Personally though, I'm not blind, deaf, lame and above all, not dumb, that's why I got my N900.

Geez, trying to be funny on account of handicapped people here and then you get serious on me. It's so boring...there are no REAL mean people left in this world.
Maybe Stevie could market the iPhone from that angle, it's more honest I think. "If you're handicapped somehow, we got the phone just for you".

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

You may not be blind, deaf, lame or dumb so what is your excuse for being a complete knob? Someone has to put down iphones in nearly every thread and it is becoming somewhat tiresome especially when there is no real justification for it. So grow up and think before you type!

Mean enough for you?

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

Nothing like the male ego. It makes just about any thread on any forum anywhere eventually spin off into a completely off topic war.

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

I've done a quick search on google for braille and linux and there seems to quite be a bit of progress in this field.

My first thought was that one could map the keyboard and other buttons to launch certain apps. eg using shortcutd one could map the camera button to bring up the phone app. A lot of work has been done by the maemo community to adopt the various keys, sensors and slides, and these could all be integrated into an 'maeccessibility' ui layer. This is along the lines of what TiagoTiago discusses in his thread (and I will duplicate this post there to try to keep any real ideas/development together on there).

But then I remembered the vibrating function of the n900, and obviously the vibrating screen function would have to be enabled, but the connection I made was with Braille. There have been great efforts made in the wider community to enable blind people to use computers, and within that the linux community is no exception.

From the link above I had a cursory glance at some of the links therein.

As alluded earlier on, there has been work in the Symbian world. Kurzweil KNFB Mobile Reader actually seems to meet exactly the OP's requirements. This is not opensource. There's also an Opensource GPS software for blind users called Loadstone built for the S60 platform. I bet these people will be looking to update their software for newer Nokia models, and which programming platform will they have to use? Qt4.7 of course.

Going back to Braille though and the really exciting area for me was SeebyTouch. Now this piece of kit does need a flat surface to work on, but it is lightweight and portable. It can work via Usb, which the n900 can now do. It is completely free - they have even included a complete spec of the hardware so anyone can build it. I wonder if Nokia were to get involved, maybe offering the developer a few R+D n900 devices, whether they would be interested in porting and adapting it towards a mobile device. If not I'm sure there is the talent out there to do it anyway.

I think the key thing here is that any progress made now can be ported across to future devices thanks to Qt4.7. So maybe it's not what the OP wanted (although some progress can be made through the development of Voice commands/eSpeak and adapting the various keys, switches, sliders and sensors) there is the possibility of really making a difference for Blind and Partially sighted people through the Open source movement.

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

Hey, me say have grown up now! May me pleeez comment here once more. Cross my thumbs won't say or type any bad or mean or any word at all that has the letter after H and before K anymore...ever. Me thunk before now.

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

Uffff:(:(:(:(:(:(

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

I find the whole thread somewhat disturbing actually. The very thought that a touchscreen-based device could be turned into anything useful for blind people is unrealistic. (Yes, I know about the iPhone 'solutions' here... and I find them unconvincing.)

Blind and visually impaired people can live with information being read to them, yes. But it's a lot easier and faster to use any kind of tactile information you can get. Of all the current smartphone OSs, good old Symbian S60v3 with its softkeys (and without a touchscreen) is the only one I would build a UI for blind/visually impaired users on.

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

Bumping this old thread because I'd love to be able to operate my phone without having to look at it all the time.

Anyone who doubts the usefulness of VoiceOver type solutions should pay more attention to the people who are actually using them:
http://behindthecurtain.us/2010/06/1...th-the-iphone/

I'm sure that a well-written, interruptable screen-reading interface is often faster to use that so many of our graphical menus that have to be animated, in windows that have to be scrolled because you can only fit so much text at a given size.

I bet there are plenty of sight-impaired geeks who would prefer something more linux-friendly the these closed source offerings.
It's doable. It's worthwhile. We just need to build it.


Another cool thing: One of the most vision- and space-agnostic virtual keyboards I've seen:
http://youtu.be/G_QWtUFFAFQ

Re: Nokia N900 Apps for Blind People!
 

A nice idea would be to use the touchscreen as a relative device (like computer touchpads) instead of absolute positioning device. Multitouch would help here but we can do without.

Let's assume you are in the Maemo menu. A swipe down would go to the next app down, a swipe right to the right. A screen reader should read the icon names and when you reach what you need you can tap to activate. Camera button can be mapped to cycle desktop, dashboard, menu shortcutd and keyboard can be used for typing. A double tap could be used for other interactions e.g. back button, or send button.