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March 20, 2009

Strange But True!

Q. Do the blind use e-mail?

A. Sure, along with surfing the Internet with screen readers that capture computer text and present it in braille or aloud via synthetic speech, say Courtney Goines and Steve Bauer of the Braille Institute of America. The blind use many of the same Web sites and e-mail providers as do sighted people. Screen readers cannot interpret graphics but work well with text in almost any language. They also echo back keystrokes to ensure accurate typing and offer navigation commands for accessing desired information quickly on a web page. These are available for Windows, Mac and Linux computers. “Hopefully as adaptive technology for people with disabilities continues to advance, subjects like this will no longer be relegated to the strange-but-true category.”


 
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