The fit-PC looks like a very interesting platform for ET projects. It is cheap ($285), small (4.7x4.6x1.6 inches), low power (3 to 5 watts) and very capable:

more...

Michael pointed me to announcements of WiiWare , a new facility from Nitendo allowing small developers (like us) to develop and distribute games for the Wii. I think the Wii will make a wonderful platform for accessible games.

more...

Firefox is the only browser I use, so when things don't work, I get worried. We're looking at Flash as a delivery vehicle for some of our applications for people with disabilities and ran into two potential show stoppers:

1. Flash doesn't get focus unless you click on it with the mouse; many of our potential users don't use mice!
2. Flash doesn't allow access to right click; many switch interfaces generate left and right click events to signal the user pressing the mover or chooser switch.

I surfed around a bit expecting to find some quick solution and only found despair. It seems that lots of people have encountered these problems in various forms and haven't found a solution.

I've found a very simple approach that works just fine for what we need; perhaps it will help someone else. The high bit is I'm using the Flash ExternalInterface object to allow JavaScript to catch keyboard and mouse events and then tell Flash about them. Flash never gets the focus and doesn't need it.

more...

Gretchen pointed out these videos at AssitiveWare , very interesting.

more...

Steve says check out MultiTouch Console an open-source project with camera input.

more...

Diane asked, so I decided to process our server logs to find out how many times our game for children who are blind and visually impaired, Hark the Sound , has been downloaded and, if possible, the country that requested it.

The quick summary is that Hark the Sound has been downloaded by 1537 unique IP addresses, we have mailed 169 CDs to the US and 9 to other countries, and we have given away over 500 at workshops. We encourage people to make their own copies so we must be approaching 3000 installed versions in the field.

Identifying the geographic location associated with an IP address is a shaky proposition but I decided to try anyway. I used the database at Hostip.info to extract the following stats.

Hark has been downloaded by IP addresses in 70 countries and 46 US States. The countries I can identify include:

more...

Pete sent some interesting links about capabilities of the OLPC. This is going to be a great platform for accessible games and literacy tools.

more...

Over at A List Apart (a very useful resource on all things web related), there is an interesting article on accessible web applications .

more...

In reference to my earlier post about the USB-driven visual alert for people who are hearing impaired.

more...

IBM is making a repository for course content teaching students to make accessible content.

more...