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Web-based program gives the blind Internet access – Shared by Darius Del Rosario

The exact site URL for WebAnywhere is:

http://webanywhere.cs.washington.edu/wa.php

WebAnywhere is an alpha release so it’s still in its infant stage and bug infested. Also, please note that that this is a web based screen reader program so it only reads pages inside your browsers and cannot replace JAWS or Window-Eyes where they work in all your programs in Windows. This free screen reader is basically the same as FireVox extension. The only difference is that

it works in both browsers unlike FireVox that is exclusively FireFox. I haven’t tested it with Opera and Safari.

Once you enter the site, WebAnywhere automatically be initialized and is ready to use. It requires no new software to be downloaded or installed. It works right in the browser and comes in handy. It means you can access it from any computer, even heavily locked-down public computer terminals.

The system works best when a recent version of Adobe Flash is installed but will also work with embedded sound players, like Windows Media Player and Quicktime.

Because WebAnywhere is released right on the web, you’ll always have the latest version when you visit this site.

I’m not sure if there will be command conflicts with those computers that are installed with JAWS. The first thing that appears on screen is a two-framed site. The top static part is a form where you type the URL of site you want to visit. After pressing enter on Go button, the bottom part will be redirected to the site you entered. It then reads the content of the site. You can use the tab key to jump from one link to another.

News Item Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080716/ap_on_hi_te/tec_techbit_blind_web


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