Software Deals, Sales, and News

Many small business owners are choosing to use square instead of a traditional credit card machine because the fees are lower and the square reader can be used with an iOS or Android device. The NFB of Massachusetts has decided to partner with Square to make their apps fully accessible to the blind community so that blind business owners can use Square with ease. Pasted below is the press release.

In this short video, Marco Zehe demonstrates how Mozilla is working towards making their mobile OS accessible. In the demonstration, we are shown that the device does have speech and that the basic gestures are the same as Android 4.1 and IOS. The company hopes to role out these features in the months to come.

A new podcast is available which describes Serotek's new Socializer system, a platform for communicating with friends and family on a wide variety of messaging platforms.
According to their website: "The socializer allows you to communicate with family members, friends, fellow-students, coworkers, and other SAMNet users. You can send and receive instant messages through Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, (also referred to as AIM), Facebook, Yahoo Messenger, GoogleTalk, and Jabber. In addition, you can send and receive both text and voice messages through Skype, as well as with any other user of the system Access Mobile Network; subject to their approval, of course. You can read and respond to messages in the Serotek Users Forum.. Socializer also provides access to Facebook and Twitter.

Sendero is very interested in hearing from it's customers. They have set up a page where you can vote on what features you want to see in upcoming versions of their new Seeing Eye GpS app. The features that you can vote on include:

Ability to add your own public and private POIs
Announcing of Sendero's existing User POI database
Increasing the number of items in the route history list
Favorite's list
Ability to add a route from your contact's list
Ability to run the app in the background
Announce intersections at more then 15 MPH
Vibrate alerts on upcoming turns and arrived at destination

You may vote for two of these 8 features. You can also submit one feature that is not on the list that you would also like to see.

Byron Lee, who works for Horizons for the Blind, describes a new Directions for Me app that should be coming to the android platform soon on this week's Serotalk podcast. He starts by describing the main screen which includes the buttons: scan, search, browse, and info. The scan button will allow you to scan bar codes with your phone's camera. Since it can be difficult to find the bar code, the scan mode is continuous allowing you to rotate the product until the camera finds the bar code. Once the bar code is found, you get the product name, description of the product, directions for how to use the product, ingrediants, wanrings and manufacture information. You can also search for a specific product or browse using the directions for me website.

Sendero announced today that the Seeing Eye GPS app has been submitted to the app store and is now available. The app can be downloaded for free, but you must have a subscription in order to use it. A one year subscription will cost you $69.95 and for three years the cost is $129.95.

According to the description of the app, some of the features that make this app particularly useful for blind users include:

Route, POI's, and Location are available at any time
At intersections the cross street and it's orientation are announced
Intersections are described such as four way or two way
Routes are available for both vehicle and pedestrian mode
To hear what is around you, point your phone in a direction and the LookAround Wand tells you nearby POI's
POI's and intersections are automatically announced as you get close to them.

GW Micro announced today a new app for the PC called SocialEyes. If you wish that you could interact with facebook better but you find the website too difficult and inaccessible, then SocialEyes is for you. According to the press release: "
SocialEyes offers Facebook users the ability to access their newsfeed, read comments, create comments, like posts, search for events, pages, friends, groups, and more. Users can also read notifications, messages, chat with their friends, write on timelines, manage friend requests, and access event information."

The app will be compatible with most PC screen readers and magnification software. For a limited time, a one year subscription can be purchased for $25. You can preorder SocialEyes today by calling 260) 489-3671. Once the promotional period is up, the yearly subscription will go up to $50.

To see SocialEyes in action, visit <a target="_blank" href== "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULm6DW4zAmw&feature=youtu.be"> GW Micro's You Tube Page .

If you haven't tried out Blind Square yet and you're going to either the NFB or ACB national conventions, then now is your chance. The makers of BlindSquare have come out with BS Event. This app will allow you to use the app in demo mode if you are attending events that are important to the blind. Some of the features include: learning about interesting places around you, access to phone numbers and addresses, ability to search for specific places, ability to input a destination into your favorite turn by turn app, and ability to checkin at your location using foursquare. This app is only intended for those who do not own the full BlindSquare app. If you're not attending a convention, a virtual mode is also available. The full BlindSquare App is available for $19.99.

There are a number of braille typing apps already available for IOS devices. Some may wonder then do we need another one. For me, MBraille is my favorite so far. Some of the benefits include: contracted braille, ability to type with the device on a table or facing away from you, free access to twitter and the clipboard, and a tutorial mode.

The app is very similar to Fleksy because it uses gestures to add spaces, new lines, and deleting of text. The help section of the app reviews all of the gestures and the other features that the app has available. One feature that speeds up the posting process are commands. For example, to tweet, write your message followed by a new line. Then write .twitter and the message will be sent.

The free version only gives you access to sending tweets and adding text to the clipboard. If you want the full list of features including email, Facebook, text messaging, and editing capability, the app will cost $30. The benefit of course is that you get to try out the app before spending any money.

It is important to note that the voice that you use for voiceover will determine your braille table. If you are using the Australian voice for example, you can only write contractions that exist in UEB.

There are a number of braille typing apps available for the app store, but some might say that none of them are perfect. Maybe MBraille will be the braille app of our dreams. The developer hopes that it will be released in the app store next week. Some of the features, according to the AppleVis post include: ability to type in contracted or uncontracted braille, ability to post to Facebook and twitter, ability to send emails and make calendar appointments, and copy and paste text to the clipboard. The post also points out that the app will be free for those who just want to type and tweet, but if you want the full list of features then the app could cost $30.

Echolocation is being talked a lot about these days. There's a new book on how to teach yourself to echolocate, and now from Swiss researchers, there may be an app coming soon that would map out a room using echoes. The app would be able to map out a simple room to help orient the blind person. The technology could also locate a person within a room because everyone's echo is unique. This could make finding our friends or learning the layout of a room that much easier.

Apple announced today that it's adding new content to the apple TV. If you have an HBO Go account, which requires you to be subscribed to HBO, you can now watch content on your apple TV. They have also added ESPN content. In both cases, you need a cable or satellite subscription to access these new features. Note that some people are reporting that the sign-up screen for HBO Go is not accessible with VoiceOver. Let us know your findings in the comments.

Christopher Toth, maker of Hope the Accessible Pandora and Q-read, has added Chicken Nugget, an accessible PC twitter client to his website. The app is still in beta, but you can now download the beta from the website. You can also purchase an official copy of the app for $15.00.

On Friday, Microsoft released its new version of office for the iPhone and iOS devices.
The app is called Office Mobile for 365 Subscribers and as the title suggests,
the app is only for current 365 subscriber's.
There is a way to buy a one month's or year's subscription within the app or on Microsoft's site. Students can also get a special 4-year license for $79.99. According to a post on Apple Vis from Bryan Jones, the app is usable, but there are a number of accessibility issues.

We have known for quite some time that twitter was going to change it's API and potentially make many twitter clients no longer work. As of June 11th, Easy Chirp and the Qube no longer are working. Q-Continuum, the developer of Hope the accessible Pandora and Q-read has come out with a new twitter client called Chicken Nugget. This link will take you to a dropbox page where you can download the file. The app is still in beta.

AI Squared has announced that the newest version of Zoomtext, version 10.8, is now available. For all current users of Zoomtext 10, this is a free upgrade. Some of the changes include: improved reading support for Outlook 2010, great improvements in Excel 2007 and 2010, and better support of IE 8 and Firefox. Depending on your settings, the update may happen automatically or you can select update in the menu.

VOStarter, the first app to offer training on the VoiceOver screen-reader for iOS has just been released to the app store. Developed by Michael Doise, VO Starter offers tips and hints navigating various iOS elements such as buttons, text fields, tabs and more. It also allows one to practice interacting with these different controls. VO Starter is currently free for a limited time.

HumanWare has released the HumanWare Communicator, an app designed to allow a sighted person to comunicate to a deaf blind individual using an iOS device and a braille display. The deaf blind individual writes messages on the bluetooth braille display, and the sighted person is able to respond using the touch keyboard. All interaction appears both on
the deaf-blind person’s refreshable Braille display, as well as visually on the screen of the iOS device. The HumanWare Comunicator app costs $99.99, and is available now from the iTunes app store.

aisquared.com offers 10% savings during their Spring Sale. Use coupon code "SPRING" to get the deal either online or when you call 800-859-0270.

This code is good on anything they sell: there's ZoomText (new products and upgrades), the ZoomText Large-Print Keyboard, the two brand new ZoomText Camera packages, the i-loview handheld video magnifier and ZoomText Express. Deal ends April 30.

Q Software Solutions, the developers of the Hope Accessible Pandora Client, have just released QRead, a fully accessible E-reding program for Windows. QRead offers fast and efficient access to several popular e-book formats, allows for an unlimited number of bookmarks, and interfaces directly with all major screen-reading software. We'll be posting a review of this program in the coming days. QRead can be purchased at an introductory price of $20. Click on the link to get more information, or head on past the break for the full press-release.