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Re: JAWS 14 FSCast

Peter Donahue
 

Good afternoon everyone,

Unless the legal use of captchas is challenged particularly if it means
jeopardizing jobs, and making parts of software unusable by us things won't
change. Since I design Web sites I know there are captcha alternatives that
can be used some of which involve no user interaction. The ColdFusion
CFFormProtect Utility is one example of this. I know because I've installed
it on several Web sites. If more developers rolled up their sleeves, screen
reader vendors quit giving us the same old horsepucky with the line that if
their product could read captcha characters so could a spam bot, and the
blind demanded an end to the use of these things in place of screen
reader-friendly alternatives captchas and their kin could soon be on the
endangered species list. I'm also tired of hearing the line about comparing
apples and oranges. They're different fruits but can grow in the same
orchard so let's not go there!

Since I design Web sites I know for a fact that there are alternatives that
are just as effective against spam bots as are captchas. Some of them like
the ColdFusion CFFormProtect Module can stop spammers without any
interaction by site visitors. Perhaps the same technology used by
textcaptcha.com could be modified to allow JAWS to recognize captcha images
so users can read them but spam bots cannot. These folks have obviously
found a way to make that happen. When I submitted a feedback form on
www.withheart and voice.com JAWS read the captcha question perfectly along
with my response and I was successfully able to submit the form without
sighted help. Someone has all ready done what I keep hearing "Will never
happen", etc. Garbage! Screen reader developers need to implement it in
their products. Anyway let's see what FS has developed with this shiny new
Web access toy.

Peter Donahue

----- Original Message -----
From: "George B" <gbmagoo@...>
To: "'The Jaws for Windows support list.'" <jfw@...>
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2012 3:54 PM
Subject: RE: JAWS 14 FSCast


that one will never happen with a p c it will always have to be done with
site or audio

-----Original Message-----
From: jfw-bounces@... [mailto:jfw-bounces@...
jdh.com] On Behalf Of Peter Donahue
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2012 08:12
To: The Jaws for Windows support list.
Subject: Re: JAWS 14 FSCast

Good morning everyone,

I'll be curious to see what kind of new Internet access tool
they're
adding to JFW 14 when the October FS Cast is available. Solving
captchas has
been something we've waited for screen reader vendors to address for
once
and for all. If FS has finally cracked this for us with this new
Internet
access tool they will have done something needed for a long time.
Recently I
have encountered captchas that are readable with screen readers. It
would be
interesting to know how the creators of such captcha applications are
able
to render the image characters so they can be read by screen readers
yet be
hidden from spam bots. Check out www.withheartandvoice.org particularly
their feedback form where you can see an example of this in action.
They're
using a service called www.textcaptcha.com.

If FS has developed an innovated Internet access solution that
addresses
this issue and other concerns great. If this thing is nothing more than
a
SamNet.com look-alike what a waste of time and resources that could
have
been used to fix other JFW problems. Guess we'll need to be sure to
check
out the October FS Cast when it becomes available.

Peter Donahue



----- Original Messag
From: "Adrian Spratt" <Adrian@...>
To: "'The Jaws for Windows support list.'" <jfw@...>
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2012 11:06 AM
Subject: JAWS 14 FSCast


Thanks to Dean Martineau's newsletter today, I learn that there is an
FSCast
on JAWS 14. I am in the school that wishes FS would fix problems rather
than
add new features, but the ones in JAWS 14 look very promising.

FS is making available Vocalizer voices, still being developed by
Nuance.
(Neither Eloquence nor RealSpeak has been upgraded in years.) Based on
the
FSCast demonstration, they sound more pleasing and appear more
responsive to
commands than RealSpeak. There may finally be a viable alternative to
Dectalk Express, which I have clung to through the years.

The demonstration of JAWS 14 and Windows 8 is also encouraging, and FS
has
made a change to how JAWS handles Outlook messages that might finally
convince me to upgrade from 2003.

The improvements to Text Analyzer look as though they'll simplify the
visual
aspects of editing documents.

Here's the link:
http://www.freedomscientific.com/FSCast/episodes/fscast069-
august2012.asp
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