Re: ACS for Linux

[Janina Sajka <janina afb net>]

This idea makes a lot of sense, and it's pretty good news for blind
users
if it takes off. After all, why should the web be restricted to personal
computer users only? Why not include the touch tone terminal users, too?!
<grin>

Actually, some of this work is already in progress in several sectors. PW
Webspeak has such a product for Windows. Lucent's Bell Labs people have
been working on this kind of thing. Take a look at
http://www-bell-labs.com/projects/MAWL/ -- beware the caps in this url, by
the way. Lucent has joined with motorola and others in the VXML standards
effort around these issues.

There are others, notably Web On Call, now owned by General Magic and in
use at the Vermont Department of Rehabilitation. 

There was an interesting story in Business Week back in March that talked
about a telephone industry lab somewhere "stripping" graphics off of web
pages in order that they might be transmitted as audio on cell phones, or
displayed better on small screens on personal data assistants. I have not
been able to chase this lab down, but I have the article. If there's
interest, I can post it--realizing that it takes us off topic.

Summation re Linux? Well, nothing specific as far as I know. Web On Call
was originally a Solaris product, I believe. But every one of these now
runs Windows of some flavor.


				Janina Sajka, Director
				Information Systems Research & Development
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

janina afb net


On Mon, 5 Jul 1999, Hans Zoebelein wrote:

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sun, 04 Jul 1999 03:41:14 -0700
> From: Michael Fair <michael775 cnmnetwork com>
> To: hzo goldfish cube net
> Subject: BLinux
> 
> Hello, I am a huge Linux advocate and had an idea that
> could help the Blinux project significantly, and rather
> than hold on to it until I could personally do something
> about it, I wanted to at least let someone else get started
> on it if they saw the same kind of possibility that I saw.
> 
> I couldn't find the address of someone more appropriate
> to send this to, so I apologize if this letter should really
> go to someone else.
> 
> It seemed to me that people who would like to access their
> computers using only a phone as the terminal are the functional
> equivalent to a blind person (except for the braille stuff).
> 
> Anyway, the reason that's significant is that their is
> a lot of funding for software that helps out road warriors.
> 
> BLinux could get a major funding boost, address
> increasing blind awareness, and solve many corporate
> communication problems, if it started targeting some
> of its efforts in the the digital assistant world, thinking
> that all the end user has is a cel phone in thier hands.
> 
> If BLinux worked with the guys doing the ACS (Adjunct
> Communication Server) project you could probably have
> a commercialable product based on service fees which
> would allow more funding of Blinux projects.
> 
> Anyway, I didn't want to sit on the idea although I can
> do nothing about it right now I wanted to at least get the
> word out, in case someone else could.
> 
> -- Michael --
> 
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