The promised Jibbigo English-Spanish Translator update was released Monday with restored VoiceOver accessibility for blind users.
The new version, numbered 1.11127, explicitly fixes the VoiceOver issues and represents a change to the company’s version numbering scheme.
The company has made a commitment to ensuring the ongoing accessibility of its apps, so blind users can look forward to new enhancements and features with greater confidence.
This enterprise story was recently published on a local Phoenix-area news website.
Going to work, getting an education, visiting friends and relatives and other activities could be severely cut for disabled valley residents when July transit services reductions go into effect.
Transit officials said the service cuts are necessary due to declining city sales tax revenue and a loss of state funding.
“The state Legislature repealed the Local Transportation Assistance Funds in March,†said Bryan Jungwirth, chief of staff with the Regional Public Transportation Authority. “We’ve become one of five states that no longer provide funding for public transportation at the state level. The others are Alabama, Alaska, Colorado and Hawaii.â€
Susan Tierney, RPTA’s public information officer, said the loss of the $22 million from the state funds, which came from lottery proceeds, hits some Valley communities particularly hard.
“The state took away a funding source we had for 30 years,†Tierney said. “So, what happens is that anyone who was using these funds for operations is impacted immediately. The city of Chandler doesn’t have a dedicated funding source, so they were relying on this money to support transit.â€
“We’re concerned that cities like Chandler and rural communities like Yuma may be forced to completely shut down their transit services due to the loss of these funds,†Tierney said.
Tierney said the service cuts include fewer bus and light rail trips each day, reduced service hours for the entire transit system, the elimination of some bus routes and significant restrictions on the availability of Dial-A-Ride, a paratransit system that transports people with disabilities and senior citizens who are not able to ride the bus.
She said Dial-A-Ride served nearly 11,500 Maricopa County residents with disabilities in 2009.
“The Americans with Disabilities Act requires that we provide door-to-door transportation to people who are unable to ride the bus whenever they live within three quarters of a mile of an existing route,†Tierney said. “We must respond to funding cuts by readjusting Dial-A-Ride as our other services are reduced.â€
According to a 2009 transit performance report, providing Dial-A-Ride service comes at a steep price. Each trip taken on Dial-A-Ride costs $36.44 as compared to $4.49 for a ride on the bus.
David Carey, advocacy specialist with Arizona Bridge to Independent Living, said Phoenix will implement cuts and restrictions to Dial-A-Ride on July 26.
“We’re losing two hours of service from 10 p.m. to midnight,†Carey said. “Senior citizens without disabilities are no longer able to use Dial-A-Ride and we’re also no longer allowed to choose to go somewhere whenever we want because we must now make reservations at least 24 hours in advance.â€
Carey said using Dial-A-Ride is challenging enough without these new cuts.
“Suppose you have a doctor’s appointment, but they’re behind schedule and you’re not seen for a couple of hours,†Carey said. “You allowed two and a half hours for this appointment, but your ride arrives before you are finished. Now, either you have to leave before your business is done or you’re just stuck without a ride home. You can’t just call Dial-A-Ride and ask them to pick you up later.â€
Donna Powers, senior program coordinator with the Arizona Statewide Independent Living Council, said the reductions in bus and light rail service will greatly extend her daily work commute and aggravate a spinal cord injury that makes it dangerous for her to travel long distances outdoors.
“Part of the spinal cord injury is the inability to control internal body temperature,†she said. “When it’s over 100 degrees, it becomes a life-threatening event to have to travel a far distance.â€
She said three seemingly minor changes will turn her 50-minute commute from Tempe to her office near 50th and Washington streets in Phoenix into a trip lasting at least an hour and a half.
“They’re proposing changing the frequency of the No. 81 from 15 minutes to 20 minutes, but it’s not exactly the most timely route so it’ll probably be more like 30 minutes,†Powers said. “This is going to delay my transfer to the light rail, which is also reducing in frequency from 10 to 12 minutes. If I’m really lucky and I make every connection, I have an 8-minute wait to catch my last bus. That’s going to blow everything out of the water because they’re proposing that the frequency of the No. 1 change from 30 minutes to 45 minutes.â€
She said the presence of the light-rail route alongside the No. 1 doesn’t help because the stops are too far apart.
She said she wouldn’t trust Dial-A-Ride as an alternative to make it to work on time.
“In this case it’s not consistent,†Powers said. “I may get to work on time one day, be 25 minutes late the next day and get there 30 minutes early the next.â€
Tierney said a good public transit system is a key part of any vital metropolitan area.
“Only about 25 percent of the funding for transit, on average, comes out of the fare box,†she said. “The rest of it is subsidized by local sales taxes and state funding just like other critical services such as the fire and police departments. You may never use it, but many in the community need it in order to get to jobs, school and medical appointments.â€
Andy Lane reported Thursday on the VIPhone e-mail discussion group that the latest update of the Jibbigo English-Spanish translator broke VoiceOver accessibility for blind users.
“When I start Jibbigo, VoiceOver is silent and won’t say anything again until I double click home and close the app,” Lane said. “Even pressing home and entering a new app doesn’t get VoiceOver going again. Breaks it on the entire phone until you can close the app. If you have no vision at all this will be very difficult to do I would imagine.”
Jibbigo consultant Miriam Sachs Martin responded to communications from members of the blind community in less than 24 hours.
“Our latest update had a slight incompatibility with Apple’s new OS4 software. Our engineers have already submitted the fix to Apple, and it should be re-released within about 3 days,” she said. “In the interim, we have taken the precaution of completely removing Spanish-English Jibbigo from the app store so that no other customers should be inconvenienced.”
Martin said Jibbigo is committed to accessibility.
“Jibbigo remains deeply committed to its blind and low-vision users, and we are proud to have a product that is of service to this community,” she said. “We have a high standard of excellent customer service. Anybody with questions or concerns may contact me at info (at) jibbigo.com. They can be assured of a quick reply.”
Lane said he appreciates Jibbigo’s affirmative response.
“You guys won’t believe how good this company have been and how much they clearly care about their users,” Lane said. “I now cannot recommend this company and their product highly enough.”
Mobile television provider MobiTV said it plans to incorporate VoiceOver accessibility in its iPhone app by September.
The company streams live and on-demand content from media companies including ABC, ESPN and Nickelodeon to smartphone users.
Blind sports fan Liam Erven said his interest in MobiTV’s iPhone app centers around their extensive coverage of sporting events such as the World Cup and pay-per-view UFC fights.
“Mainly for me there’s ESPN coverage. There’s a lot of stuff they do with sports,” Erven said. “I like to be able to get news and entertainment when I’m out and about and that’s the whole point with the iPhone is to have the world at your fingertips.”
Erven was surprised to find MobiTV’s iPhone app unusable with Apple’s built-in VoiceOver screen reader that enables Braille and speech accessibility for blind users of the iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone.
“I was really disappointed when I found out I couldn’t use it (MobiTV’s iPhone app) because I didn’t understand why small accessibility concessions couldn’t be made,” he said. “I know a lot of companies don’t understand that, hey, there’s this whole interface you can use to make things accessible.”
Ray DeRenzo, chief marketing officer with MobiTV, Inc., said the company understands and will be taking action in the near future on requests to add VoiceOver support.
“We’ve had other inquiries in the past and we’re very sensitive to the fact that we’re not serving a valued segment of the consumer base,” he said. “We published the MobiTV application on the iPhone in April of this year and it was just a matter of trying to get a product to market in an aggressive time frame so we could be able to present content like the World Cup through ESPN.”
DeRenzo said accessibility was always on the company’s roadmap.
“It was always our intent to use the VoiceOver capability on iPhone and we’re going to do that in a subsequent release of the application,” DeRenzo said. “It’s not available presently. We’re going to be doing a release on July 15. It will not be available in that release. In the next release, which is probably within 60 days following the July time frame, we’re going to be enabling VoiceOver capability.”
DeRenzo said MobiTV would like to make its apps for other smartphone platforms, including Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile, available to blind users as their operating systems become accessible.
“We’re going to try to make our products more accessible as device manufacturers enable VoiceOver-like capabilities in their operating systems,” DeRenzo said. “This is the way we’re hoping the industry evolves where each of the device manufacturers and their operating systems have a voice enablement capability that becomes part of the software development kit we can utilize. That’s certainly the case with devices like the iPhone on iOS.”
Erven said making apps like MobiTV accessible could start to bridge the gap between blind users and traditional cable or satellite providers that don’t accommodate customers with disabilities in the set top boxes they use to deliver content.
“The on-demand stuff is nice and that’s one thing you can’t get access to right now on a traditional cable system without a lot of sighted assistance,” Erven said. “More and more companies are going with this entertainment over IP platform. I thought it was really important that these companies know that, hey, look, we’re out here and we use this technology, too.”
Apple provides a free accessibility programming guide to all developers who are willing to make their applications accessible to blind customers.
The Freedom Pro Bluetooth keyboard from Freedom Input may be used as an alternative to the touch screen for typing text. This can be particularly helpful for performing text entry tasks such as taking notes and writing e-mail.
As of June 28, Freedom Input has not provided instructions for connecting the keyboard to the iPhone in its knowledge base or manuals. This document provides those instructions in a format that is especially useful for blind people.
The gestures and instructions in this document assume VoiceOver is enabled.
Preparing the Keyboard
Follow these steps to prepare the keyboard for use:
Pairing the Keyboard with the iPhone
Follow these steps to pair your keyboard with the iPod Touch or iPhone:
Now that the keyboard has been paired successfully, you can use it to type in apps such as Mail and Notes. Simply locate Mail or Notes on the Home screen, double tap and start using the Freedom Pro keyboard anywhere you would normally have to use the on-screen keyboard.
Major thanks go to Jon, a technical support representative with Freedom Input, for his patience and thorough assistance with the Bluetooth pairing process on the keyboard.
Please feel free to add a comment to this post if you encounter any problems following these instructions or I can help in any other way.
Arcadia commercial real estate professional Lawrence A. Lippincott saves lives through his frequent donation of blood platelets.
The platelets, which are a part of the blood that enables clotting after a cut, scrape or other injury, are most often needed by cancer patients.
“There’s definitely a shortage of platelets because it takes about two to two and a half hours to donate them each week,†Lippincott said. “I think most people who do this donate whole blood, which only takes about 15 minutes.â€
Lippincott donates platelets about once per week at United Blood Services’ Commerce Center location at 1405 N. Hayden in Scottsdale.
He said donating blood is a comfortable and easy way to give back to the community.
“They make you as comfortable as possible. You get a snack and beverages afterwards. You can read, listen to music or watch TV,†Lippincott said. “The room has to be kept cool because of the blood products, so they put heating pads on your back and a blanket over you.â€
He said blood donation is even more convenient for him because of the slow commercial real estate industry in the valley.
“You’re giving blood so it’s not a form of economic hardship on a family or a person,†Lippincott said. “It’s not like giving aid to Afghanistan where sometimes it ends up stuck on the dock, they’ve bought the wrong products and it goes to waste because there’s a lot of bureaucracy. But you know this blood goes to a good cause. We’re saving lives.â€
Lippincott said he has been donating blood on a volunteer basis for over 20 years.
“I had just moved to California and gotten a job as a shopping center manager,†he said. “I just saw one of those blood mobiles and decided to donate. I’ve been doing it ever since.â€
Scottsdale real estate professional Branden Lombardi said he relied on donated blood during his three-year battle against bone cancer, which was diagnosed at age 17.
“You have to be very conscious of your blood counts while going through treatments because the idea behind chemotherapy is to target all rapidly dividing cells in order to kill the cancer,†Lombardi said. “It also kills the white blood cells that help you fight infection, the red blood cells that deliver oxygen throughout your body and the platelets which help prevent blood from flowing when you cut or scrape yourself or brush your teeth too hard.â€
He said he received frequent transfusions of red blood cells and platelets after each of his chemotherapy treatments.
Lombardi said a stem cell transplant put his cancer into remission.
“They gave me ultra-high doses of chemotherapy to wipe out all the cancer,†Lombardi said. “When I was done with the chemotherapy, they introduced the stem cells into my body with the idea of building me back up.â€
“After the transplant, I received daily transfusions of red blood cells and platelets to help me recover faster,†he said.
At age 29, Lombardi said he appreciates the generosity of blood donors like Lippincott.
“I’m not speaking hypothetically when I say blood donors helped save my life,†he said. “In October I will have been nine years post-transplant, there have been no reoccurrences of cancer, and I am as happy and healthy as anyone can be.â€
Sue Thew, media and public relations specialist with United Blood Services, said the demand for blood in the valley always outstrips supply, especially for platelets.
“We fill the needs of 54 hospitals in this state and it takes about 700 blood donors each day to do that,†she said.
Thew said United Blood Services always finds a way to meet the needs of the community.
“Arizona is quickly becoming the epicenter for cancer research and modern medical treatments,†Thew said. “The increased demand in platelet transfusions for those patients is currently being met with the assistance of out-of-state resources. To accommodate this surge, we are expanding facilities for platelet donations and are actively looking for more platelet donors.”
She said it’s a race against time.
“Platelets have a shelf life of five days,†Thew said. “The first 24 to 36 hours are spent testing and preparing the platelets, so we don’t have much time to get those donations to the people who need them most.â€
Thew said platelets are just one of several possible ways to donate blood.
“You can also give red blood cells, plasma or whole blood, with whole blood taking as few as 15 minutes to donate,†said Thew. “The component of your blood you would be donating depends on your blood type and our most pressing needs.â€
Thew said she recommends anyone interested in donating blood to call United Blood Services at 877-448-4483 or visit the organization’s website at unitedbloodservices.org.
“I’m happy to be giving something that I know is going 100 percent to the end user,†Lippincott said. “I think the important thing is that it’s not about me. It’s about getting the word out that there is a shortage in the community and there’s always a need. This is something people can do to give when money is tight.â€
This story, which I originally wrote for my news writing class, was just published on a local news website.
The new Maricopa County Court Tower will be designed to safeguard the rights of crime victims.
The 16-story tower located at the corner of First Avenue and Madison Street in downtown Phoenix is slated for a Feb. 2012 opening.
Criminal court administrator Bob James said separation of defendants and victims is a key design feature of the new building.
“We have provided spaces that are private for the use of victims,†James said. “If a person is uncomfortable with being in the courtroom, they can be in
an adjacent victims’ room where they can watch all the proceedings.â€
He said this separation is important in areas people might not think about.
“Victims told us that sometimes they feel apprehensive when they have to use the bathroom,†James said. “The nearest restroom may be where the defendant
or his or her family goes.â€
He said the victims’ rooms address this concern by providing separate restroom facilities.
James said every effort has been taken to maintain separation when victims must appear in open court.
“If the prosecutors decide the victim needs to testify, they would actually need to come into the courtroom,†James said. “But, even then, we’ve created
an entrance separate from the gallery or the one used by defendants.â€
James said security is critical in a courthouse that will also hold defendants whose cases are coming up for trial.
“One of the lower levels will be a holding facility for the Sharif’s department,†James said. “They will have the holding capacity for up to 1,400 defendants.
so the only time the traffic flow of the in-custody defendants meets with the judges, staff and the public is in the courtroom itself.â€
Special Court Counsel Jessica Funkhouser said the need for separation of defendants from victims goes beyond comfort and safety.
“Victims are regularly cautioned by judges and prosecutors to avoid showing their emotions in the courtroom so as not to cause a mistrial,†Funkhouser said.
“They can retreat to the victims’ room and watch the trial on a video monitor without having to worry about the jury or anyone else in the courtroom seeing
them.â€
Criminal defense attorney Michael V. Black said he has reservations about the preferential treatment of crime victims in the courthouse.
“There’s a whole lot of types of victims and they’re just another witness,†Black said. “I don’t see why they should be given any more consideration than
an ordinary witness in a particular case. If they treated everyone the same, that would be fine with me.â€
He said he would be concerned if it turns out a courthouse designed to protect victims interfered with a defendant’s constitutional right to face their
accuser.
“The Supreme Court said the victim has to be there (in court) and they have to testify in front of the defendant and have to be cross-examined in front
of them, so they can’t do anything to interfere with that,†Black said. “If the courtroom impedes on that, it will not pass constitutional muster.â€
Funkhouser said separating defendants and their families from victims and their families benefits everyone.
“You’ve seen videos where fights break out in courtrooms where the families of defendants and victims jump over the rails and attack each other,†she said.
“The whole idea is that a courthouse that’s safe for victims is going to be safer for everybody.â€
Funkhouser said the design of the new court tower has been carried out in direct compliance with Arizona’s constitution and legislation addressing the need
to minimize contact between defendants and victims.
“I don’t know of any other court buildings in the United States that have gone to this extent,†Funkhouser said. “Arizona is the first state to have a victims’
bill of rights amendment. So I think this courthouse is the most innovative in terms of addressing victims’ needs and their rights.â€
Guest article contributed by Darrell Shandrow and Jordan Moon, Students
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Tempe officials explained options for cost-cutting reductions in bus and light rail service and heard concerns in a Tuesday evening public comment meeting.
The proposed cuts include increased wait times on buses and light rail and the complete elimination of Sunday service.
Around 40 Tempe residents and those who pass through the city’s transit system told officials how the service reductions would impact their lives.
Tempe resident Jeff Sargent relies on the blue neighborhood buses to get around the city.
“I always use the Orbit to get downtown because parking and traffic is a zoo,†Sargent said prior to the meeting. “I rode down here on Orbit Earth.â€
Sargent said his biggest concern is keeping the Orbit buses running every day on a reasonably frequent schedule. He said he does not like the idea of eliminating Sunday service.
Sargent said Tempe might lose him as a transit customer if cuts run too deep.
“In that case, I’ll have to use my car, and that’s sad,†he said.
Greg Jordan, transit administrator for the city of Tempe, said the goal is to cut costs in ways that cause as little impact on customers as possible.
“Ridership is a key factor in determining which routes we change or eliminate,†Jordan said in the meeting. “It’s about efficiency and productivity.â€
Jordan said there has been an average nationwide 12 percent dip in transit budgets while Tempe is coping with a 29 percent drop in funding.
Tempe funds transit service through a half-cent sales tax enacted in 1996.
“There is a firewall between the funds for transit service and those for the city’s general fund,†Jordan said. “The city can’t draw from transit, and the reverse is also the case.â€
Tempe resident Rachel Phillips said prior to the meeting that she doesn’t like the cuts, but is grateful for the service.
She expressed concerns about her continued ability to get to work and take her children to the Boys and Girls Club.
“I would not be able to get to work and my kids wouldn’t be able to utilize an after-school program,” she said.
She said she was surprised with the meeting’s low turnout.
“The customers who complain, but aren’t here, I tell them I don’t want to hear anything about it because you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem,†Phillips said.
Jordan said the public comment meetings are held in two rounds.
Round one involves the presentation of 18 options for reducing transit service.
The feedback from the first round will be used to aid in refinement of the options into proposals for consideration in the second round of meetings to be held in late March.
The next first-round public comment meeting will be held on March 1 at 6 p.m. in the Pyle Adult Recreation Center at 655 E. Southern Ave.
Information about the proposed July 2010 service changes, the dates, locations and times of public comment meetings and an online survey are available on the city of Tempe’s tempe.gov Web site.
A new art exhibition at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport features clothing made from recycled materials.
The artist, Nancy Judd, an environmental educator with over 20 years of experience in the recycling industry, began her career in art school.
“I watched the garbage can next to the pop machine fill up with cans and that felt wrong to me,†Judd said. “With the blessing of the art school’s administration, I put a recycling bin next to the machine and was wondering what happened to the material and what it got made into.â€
Commissioned by companies such as Target, Toyota and the Glass Packaging Institute, Judd spends hundreds of hours making each couture garment from materials including aluminum cans, canvas, crushed glass, paper and reclaimed thread.
She said the airport exhibition includes 14 pieces from her collection representing over ten years of work.
“There’s a dress here which is made from 12,000 pieces of crushed glass that are individually glued to a floor-length evening gown made out of upholstery remnants,†Judd said.
She said the goal of her business, Recycle Runway, is to make garments that attract attention in public venues to the issues of environmental stewardship.
“It’s our everyday, moment-to-moment decisions we make, that have caused the environmental crisis we’re in now and it’s those same moment-to-moment decisions that can help us hopefully move out of this little pickle we’ve gotten ourselves in,†Judd said.
She explained the environmental impact of a simple decision to eat an orange.
“Did you buy it from a big-box store where it was shipped in from Florida or Mexico, or from a local farmer who is keeping the money in your community,†Judd asked. “After you eat it, what do you do with the skin? Do you throw it in the landfill where it sits for as long as 20 years or do you compost it and make it into a valuable nutrient that adds back to the land?â€
Judd said she goes into schools to talk with children about environmental awareness.
“I bring dresses made out of aluminum, plastic and paper and I use each garment to talk about recyclingâ€, she said. “I have them write down a pledge on a strip of recycled white office paper stating their name and something they’re going to do, which they haven’t been doing before, to help care for the planet. Those strips of paper are being made into paper link chains that will be sewn to this huge Scarlett O’Hara-style dress. It will be exhibited in the Atlanta airport next year for 12 months.â€
Judd isn’t alone in her reliance on recycled materials.
Professional artist Sherrie Zeitlin of Phoenix said money for materials was tight when she started working with K-12 children in schools around Maricopa County 15 years ago.
“What I found was the schools had no money,†Zeitlin said. “I would empower the schools, before I came in, to collect the ribbons and wrapping paper left over from the December holidays, or to collect newspaper, plastic, zippers and even old socks for use in art projects. These materials would be cut up and woven into wall pieces.â€
She said this early history was the basis for her 2004 founding of the Art Resource Center.
“I put together a center where I could collect the detritus from industry, corporations and individuals to offer back to any nonprofit organization to be able to make art projects,†Zeitlin said. “It’s all offered free of charge.â€
She said she has used recycled materials in her own weaving business making large-scale constructions for architects and interior designers.
“I would go to salvage yards and buy metal and plastic for use in weaving,†she said. “I remember I did a huge weaving for a Dillard’s department store all out of plastic. It looked like a big bride and it went into the lingerie department.â€
Zeitlin said the use of recycled materials is a huge trend in the art world.
“It’s a necessity,†she said. “In Feb. 2010, where nobody has any money anymore, it’s a financial issue. â€
“With all the detritus in this world, it’s necessary to just use it up in a different way,†Zeitlin said. “One of the mantras for the Art Resource Center is ‘recycling art worthy materials for creative minds’.â€
Lennée Eller, program manager with the Phoenix Airport Museum, said her organization hosts exhibitions by studio artists like Judd and Zeitlin in 25 spaces around the airport system including locations in Terminal 4, Terminal 3, Terminal 2, the rental car facility and even the Deer Valley and Good year airports.
“We showcase the artist’s work through the changing exhibition program for 6 months, then we bring in a new group of work,†Eller said. “The idea is that every artist, gallery and museum has an opportunity to have their work displayed. Over the years it’s been wonderful, because I’ve shown a multitude of diversity.â€
Eller said most of the museum’s displays are located outside the security areas for easy access by the airport’s nearly 20,000 employees and 40 million passengers who pass through annually.
“What you see are people who have come early and are getting ready to go down the concourse,†Eller said. “Here’s an interesting secret. If there are a lot of people in line (at the security checkpoint) people will panick and go stand in line. If there are not a lot of people in line, they will stay and go shopping or stop to look at the art.â€
Eller said the art draws local residents who are looking for something free to do.
“I have people come and just do the airport tour,†she said. “They come to have coffee and do a walk about just looking at all the shows.â€
“We’re the gateway to the state,†said Eller. “It’s really about putting our best foot forward when you’re welcoming people and you want to show them what you’re about.â€
Nancy Judd’s Recycle Runway exhibition is on display through Aug. 8 in Terminal 3, Level 2 of the airport next to Starbucks.
Eller said the Phoenix Airport Museum strives to reasonably accommodate people with disabilities who need special assistance accessing exhibitions. They are invited to call 602-273-2105 to set up an appointment.
Shownotes
Enjoy this podcast of the Wednesday evening gathering meeting of the 2010 National Federation of the Blind Washington Seminar, where you may hear me make a fool of myself by trying to badly sing along to the old Federation songs I once knew years ago.