1622 Improved Accessibility of Amazon Products (May 25, 2016)

Show Notes
New features being introduced into Amazon’s Kindle readers and Fire tablets will now make these devices readily accessible to the visually impaired. Hosts Nancy and Peter Torpey talk with Peter Korn, accessibility architect at Amazon, about the work that went into developing an enhanced user interface and how it has improved accessibility of these products.

1621 Evolution of Screen Readers (May 18, 2016)

Show Notes
This week, hosts Nancy and Peter Torpey talk with Peter Korn who traces the evolution of screen reader technology from the early text-based systems to today’s modern graphical interfaces. Korn, who has been a major contributor to the development of screen readers for many years, describes how a screen reader works and what challenges had to be overcome.

1620 The Vision-quest Experience (May 11, 2016)

Show Notes
Maribel Steel is an Australian writer and motivational speaker who is also blind. She designed the Vision-quest program which pairs blind and sighted people in a day of shared exploration to experience sites in their community. Hosts Nancy and Peter Torpey talk with her about Vision-quest and her role as an international peer advisor for AFB’s VisionAware.

1619 AudioScreen for NVDA (May 4, 2016)

Show Notes
The AudioScreen add-on for NVDA is based on concepts from the vOICe technology discussed in last week’s show. This week hosts Nancy and Peter Torpey talk with Mick Curran, co-lead developer of the NVDA screen reader, about how this add-on that he developed can be used to help the blind “see” maps, colors, and more. Mick also demos AudioScreen in action.