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From: Doug.Geoffray@f8.n369.z1.fidonet.org (Doug Geoffray)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Closing the Gap
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Date: 6 Nov 90 14:09:14 GMT
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[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

 LI> Hi, Doug!  Hope you had fun and learned a lot at Closing the
 LI> Gap. When I lived in Minnesota, I always wanted to attend one
 LI> conference, but never got there.  I hope you can tell us
 LI> something about the conference.  I know you probably won't be
 LI> objective on screen readers--understandable, of course--but,
 LI> did you see any other types of products that might be of
 LI> interest to us?

Linda,
  Yes I had a great time at Closing the Gap.  This was the first time I
had ever gone to this conference.  It is amazing to me how computer
literate everyone there is.

It was amazing when I looked into some of the conference rooms.  There
were close to 75 or so IBM in one room and as many Apples in another.
Just unbelievable!  IBM and Apples booths had so many computers.  I
thought I had it tough carrying around one desktop and two laptop systems.
(grin)

Also, it was a good feeling because people were making it a point to see
our booth.  When we first started people did not even know who we were.
They thought Vocal-Eyes was just another attempt at a screen reader.  Now
people are seeing Vocal-Eyes for what it is.  Also, it was nice to see
that Arkenstone was using Vocal-Eyes to demonstrate their product.

Because of the volume, I did not have as much time as I would have liked
to look around.  Mainly what I did look at was either a product which
directly competed with ours or could possibly enhance our products.
I did look at the two main large print programs, PC-DOS
and ZOOMTEXT.  PC-DOS did not have a booth but Dan stopped by.  I would
like to make Vocal-Eyes as interactive with these types of programs as
possible.  I am sure this will happen.

As for what is new in the field, actually very little.  As David Andrews
wrote, Humanware was showing their mastertouch.  This is a revolutionary
idea but in my option thats where it stopped.  The screen reader was
what I would call average.  It certainly was not bad but lacked some of
the newer features found in other screen readers.  Also, the price seemed
a bit high.  But never-the-less an interesting idea.  Something to think
about.

Many vendors were talking about new versions which will be available
shortly.  But these have already been talked about here.

We were directly accross from the Reader Project.  I guess they first
introduced themselves at the A E R conference.  I did not see them
there though.  It sounded like a pretty neet program.

There were also two speech recognition devices by us.  Dragon Dictate and
Voice Connection.  Both had pretty good demos but I still believe speech
recongnition has a ways to go.

Sorry I could not be of more help Linda.  It's kind of tough to be impartial
with these things.  (smile)

Regards,
  Doug

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