Friday’s State-wide Cox Outage Inconveniences Customers

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Some Cox Communications customers throughout Arizona woke up Friday morning to find themselves disconnected from their digital lives. Technical support calls were greeted by a recorded message that stated: “We are currently experiencing outages affecting high speed Internet and digital telephone state-wide. Our engineers are working to resolve this issue. There is no estimated time of repair.”

Tempe resident Lauren Peikoff, an Arizona State University journalism student, wanted to go online before leaving for class.

“I needed to check to see if I had any assignments posted,” said Peikoff. “I wanted to find out if there was anything else I needed to do. What if my instructor said class was canceled?”

She was also concerned about an assignment in her online class due Friday evening.

“I was thinking ahead. OK. I am going to have to go to the library to submit my homework,” Peikoff said.

She was relieved to discover she could complete the assignment at home after service was restored sometime between 1:30 and 2 p.m.

Tempe resident Corey Nava also experienced the outage.

“I was trying to check my e-mail at the time and I couldn’t even get to it. It was just a pain, really,” Nava said. “I was actually looking for a car online, too, so, it kind of put a damper on that.”

Cox representatives said the service interruption was caused by a software problem.

“It disrupted service to around 10 percent of our customers,” said Michael Dunne, Director of Media Relations, Cox Communications, Southern Arizona. “It wasn’t geographically located. It was kind of all over. Our techs immediately started working the issue.”

Cox Media Relations Director Andrea Katsenes prefers not to classify the incident as an outage. “The interruption was intermittent,” she said.

“We’ve been talking to our customers on a case-by-case basis,” Katsenes said, declining to provide details on any steps Cox might take to compensate customers.

Nava said he won’t ask Cox for any credit to his account. “I probably won’t even follow up on it. It was an inconvenience and it’s not the first time it happened.”

Let’s Ask Twitter to Enable Us to Moderate Follow Requests

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Hard-working, honest Twitter users are getting sick and tired of all the bogus follow requests they receive on a daily basis as they post updates to Twitter. It seems there are automated computer programs, AKA bots, that search for interesting topics and try to follow everyone who tweets about them in hopes the favor will be reciprocated. Once the user follows the bogus Twitter account, their time line can be spammed with unwanted links to advertising and marketing from a strange company with an unknown reputation. What measures can we take now to protect ourselves and what can Twitter do to help?

Some people I know take a conservative, guarded approach to Twitter. These users protect their accounts. They may be followed only by request and their tweets may be viewed only by approved followers. Users in this camp restrict their followers to close friends and relatives, limiting their participation in all that Twitter has to offer. These users can’t be followed by others with a legitimate interest in the topics about which they tweet and are unable to meet new people. It would seem they lose out on most of the benefits of social media. While a portion of these users really do want a private Twitter experience, others feel the need to employ these measures as protection against spammers.

In contrast, other users wish to avail themselves of all the social media benefits Twitter offers, putting up with the junk in the process. They allow everyone to follow their public tweets and revel in the prospect of connecting and communicating with people they met online. The public profile of these users exposes them to phishing, spamming, social engineering and other forms of abuse. How can public users protect themselves while enjoying all of Twitter’s benefits?

There are currently a number of ways for public Twitter users to combat abuse, but all may require significant time and effort. How does one avoid unscrupulous users while ensuring they allow participation by those who have a legitimate interest in their tweets? While much of the abuse is perpetrated by bots, it seems the defense must be conducted manually, on a case-by-case basis as attacks are attempted.

Good protection seems to start at the point where a user makes a follow request. The requester is asking for permission to see your updates on their Twitter home page or in their Twitter application. Once the user follows you, he or she typically hopes you will return the favor in order to form a connection. When two Twitter users follow each other, a two-way relationship exists permitting the private exchange of direct messages and the public swapping of Twitter updates. The malicious user can abuse this new relationship by posting pushy marketing information to all their followers or by attempting to lure their followers to questionable Web sites that try to collect usernames, passwords and other personal data.

The key is to ensure you are only forming healthy relationships on Twitter by carefully evaluating each new follow request and keeping these guidelines in mind before approving anyone:

  • Check the Twitter username. If it contains several numbers after the name, this may represent a red flag. Proceed with caution. Bots can create accounts based on a name, adding numbers until an unused one has been found.

  • Look for nonsensical names or missing biographical information on the user’s Twitter home page. If you don’t like what you see, by all means ignore the follow request.

  • Consider taking a look at the Web site linked in the user’s profile. Exercise caution, though, as this link might point to a malicious page or an attempted social engineering attack. Do not trust the page’s content and avoid entering any personal data.

  • Review the updates the user has posted. You can quickly see the 20 most recent tweets on the user’s Twitter home page. Red flags include a large number of links without context, little or no conversation with other users and a lack of information you deem interesting.

  • If you believe the user is malicious, press the Block button. If you just find the user’s content uninteresting, simply ignore the follow request but do not block. Blocking can have a negative impact on a user’s reputation and may potentially limit their future ability to use Twitter.

We can ask Twitter to develop an easy solution that would allow us to strike a balance between the limitations inherent in a protected account and the anything-goes nature of a public account. The solution is moderated following. In a moderated following scenario, anyone making a follow request would be asked to explain why they should be granted that honor. The proposed feature would work like this:

  • A user wishes to follow someone on Twitter.

  • She visits the person’s Twitter home page and presses the Follow button.

  • She is asked to provide the reason she wishes to follow the other person.

  • Twitter notifies the recipient of the follow request, including the stated reason.

  • The recipient is given a chance to accept or reject the request.

  • If it is accepted, the requester receives appropriate notification. If denied, the requester receives nothing.

Let’s all think about how a moderated follow scenario might work and, if it’s something worth pursuing, ask Twitter to consider putting it in place as a new feature. All comments are appreciated as always.

FeedBlitz Adds Audio CAPTCHA, Tears Down "No Blind People Allowed" Sign

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In a Sept. 24 post on the company’s news blog, the self-proclaimed “Email Marketing Service for Blogs, Social Media and RSS” announced it has added an audio CAPTCHA. This facility delivers an audio alternative to the distorted text sighted users are asked to enter during registration or subscription, permitting access for blind and visually impaired users to the same resources available to the sighted.

“FeedBlitz has added an audio version of the visual CAPTCHA (which has also been slightly updated) used on all FeedBlitz subscription forms,” according to the statement.

The new audio verification system can be heard on the company’s registration page. A clear voice is used to announce the letters and numbers to be entered. No background distortion is heard. Audio playback is delivered in the form of a standard MP3 file that can be opened and played according to the user’s needs and preferences.

FeedBurner, a Google property competing with FeedBlitz in the RSS space, continues to lack audio playback functionality, thus barring access to blind people.

Opportunity to Ask Google for More Blogger Accessibility

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Though Blogger already has a lot to offer blind and visually impaired audiences and content creators, there continue to be some nagging unresolved accessibility issues, including missing alt tags and unlabeled Flash controls. All blind and visually impaired readers, and those who care about us, are asked to take the Blogger user feedback survey and use the comment fields to ask Google to improve the accessibility of the service for blind and visually impaired people.

Should Focus be Placed on Concrete Accessibility Issues or on an Abstract Fight Against Blindness Stereotypes?

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Many in the blind community are enraged after discovering an article entitled How to Care for a Blind Person on a popular how-to Web site, but are the misconceptions and stereotypes found in such content the most important issues we should be addressing? Several blind people have spoken out on Twitter.

“We all have to set our priorities, we think that people need to know that blind people are not retarted invalids,” said Bat. “You can have access to every bit of tech, if people think you are an idiot how much luck do you think you will have?”

Bat continued: “Both (accessibility and perception) are equally important and must be addressed at the same time. Progress in one makes progress in the other easier.”

Ricky Enger said: “The concrete and the abstract are both important. But with concrete battles, seems you always have to start from the ground up. By addressing the underlying abstract concept, which is that we should truly be viewed as equals, the concrete issues take care of themselves. People then address accessibility issues because it makes sense, not because it’s been mandated. Example: we could advocate for access to Kindle all we want. But if people consciously or unconsciously believe that we are all low income and have caregivers, as portrayed in the eHow article, we’ll be perceived as an unimportant share of the market and not worth satisfying until failure to do so brings about legal action.”

“A great mentor of mine always taught me that perception was stronger than reality,” Ranger said. “Swinging at every pitch results in a lower batting average instead of waiting for the right pitch to hit.”

“I think the two are very different issues,” said Steve Sawczyn. “Why choose one or the other? Why not work on both fronts?”

Shannon C. said “Well, the stereotypes should be combatted before accessibility will become a greater issue.”

“No more jobs if the employers think we aren’t competent to hold them, no matter what the accessibility is,” said Buddy Brannan.

Chris Meredith said “I think the stereotypes should be fought concurrent with the concrete issues, because I think they feed on each other.”

“I think they (inaccessibility and stereotypes) are both important and need to be fought equally,” Amber W. said.

Let your voice be heard. Should we focus on combatting inaccessibility, battling stereotypes or both? We await your comments.

Tempe City Council Keeps Manager, Improves Disabled Parking Access

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The Tempe City Council voted in its Tuesday evening meeting to improve the accessibility of parking for people with disabilities and keep City Manager Charlie Meyer on the job.

Rosa Inchausti, Diversity Manager with the city of Tempe’s Diversity Department, said before the meeting that the city recognizes people with disabilities need access to the parking spot, the sidewalk and the building’s entrance.

She said the city has always complied with the Americans with Disabilities Act, but this new ordinance goes “a few notches” beyond the legal requirements.

“We’re just looking to make quality of life easier for people with disabilities,” Inchausti said.

Ed Mitchell, Tempe resident and member of the city’s Mayor’s Commission on Disability Concerns, said ahead of the Council vote that the ordinance makes it against the law to block accessible parking spaces, the isles around those spaces and the curb ramps leading to sidewalks.

“Armored cars would block accessible spaces because they’re closest to the door,” Mitchell said. “Hopefully, On Oct. 10, they’ll get cited if they do that.”

He said the time allowed to assist a person with a disability at alleys and loading curbs, which are typically restricted to delivery trucks, has been extended from five to 15 minutes.

Breaking the new law comes at a steep price.

“The fine is minimally $250 for any of the parking, curb ramps or access isles,” Mitchell said. “For forgery, (of the disabled parking placards) it’s $300.”

“What we want people to know is that we’re serious about having accessible parking areas for people and protecting them,” said Mitchell.

Council members approved the ordinance by a unanimous vote.

In other action, City Manager Charlie Meyer hung onto his job by a narrow margin as the Council voted on the continuance of his employment agreement.

“I don’t think Charlie recognizes in his actions the importance of diversity in Tempe. In my opinion, Charlie has not disciplined department heads who did not meet job expectations,” Councilmember Ben Arredondo said in the debate leading up to the vote. “Charlie does not communicate with the council very well. And, finally, Charlie does not value his Tempe employees.”

Councilmember Onnie Shekerjian said in support of Meyer: “Mr. Meyer came at a time when there was a lot of change about to take place and the economy took a huge dip. Because of his financial expertise and because of the quiet leadership he does show, we have been able to fare far better than other cities in terms of making sure that people are not laid off.”

“He has asked some city staff members to think outside the box and to question the way they do things. That makes some people a little uncomfortable at times,” Shekerjian said.

Shekerjian said: “I’ve found Mr. Meyer to be someone who rolls up his sleeves and gets involved and quietly does the heavy lifting. And, many times, those types of people who don’t go out and do a lot of politicking, we don’t see the good work they do.”

She does not buy arguments claiming any lack of diversity on Meyer’s part.

“I have never found that he has not supported diversity as a woman and a minority,” Shekerjian said. “He treats all of us with the same level of respect that we all should be afforded.”

Meyer’s job was saved by a four to three Council vote.

WordPress Asked to Make Adding and Moving Widgets Accessible to the Blind Once Again

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An accessibility advocate has asked WordPress to restore the ability for blind users to add and move widgets. Fellow blind and sighted WordPress users are urged to add their support to this effort.

Once upon a time, blind WordPress users enjoyed the ability to add and move widgets at will using the keyboard, but this accessibility vanished somewhere along the WordPress development cycle.

“I’m disappointed that WordPress has removed accessibility for widgets. Dragging widgets is the only way to add or rearrange them,” said Monica Willyard, a freelance writer and publisher of The Scanners Guild blog, in a post on Twitter. “They fixed it in version 2.5, and they seem to have broken it again.”

Willyard, like many other blind Internet users, is frustrated when keyboard navigation alternatives and other reasonable accessibility accommodations are not provided.

“At the moment, I’m having very angry and unprintable thoughts about the enventor of the mouse and the drag and drop process,” she said. “I have had four completely unrelated projects today where I can’t do what I need to do because the programmers relied on drag and drop.”

Washington D.C.: Radio Silence on the Subway

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Seems there’s virtually no connectivity available while riding the Metro subway. Verizon is the only cellular carrier with cell towers in the subway, so those of us who rely on alternate carriers like AT&T are just out of luck while underground. In addition, the Metro system does not offer Wi-Fi, so there’s no Internet access. Since all mobile cell and Internet communications involve the good old air waves, I say there’s virtual radio silence while riding the D.C. area subway. Oh, well, maybe there are actually times when it’s good to disconnect and get away from it all…

Washington D.C.: Let the Adventure Begin!

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Early in the morning of Sunday, August 9, I departed Phoenix for Washington D.C. on a week-long trip visiting my friend Milica (Mimi).

Flying the Relatively Friendly Skies

I left home at 4:30 AM for a 6:00 flight to New York City. Delta Airlines charges $15 for the first checked bag, which is unfortunately rather typical of today’s market. The security check-in process was no worse than the usual hassle. Everyone involved was very helpful. I got a window seat with noone sitting immediately to my left. Audrey, one of the flight attendants, was especially accommodating. I enjoyed good conversation with an American Airlines pilot completing the last leg of his flight home to New York from Thailand, slept intermittently and read for an hour or so. I’m reading There’s No Place Like Home by Mary Higgins Clark.

The three-hour layover at New York’s JFK airport was certainly not the most exciting portion of the day’s travels. The terminal had no free Wi-Fi, and I could not get my MSI Wind netbook to synchronize with my Motorola Q9H phone, so accessing the Internet was completely out of the question. I spent over an hour troubleshooting the problem, all to no avail. Finally, I gave up and finished some additional reading.

Finally, the flight from New York to Reagan National was pretty bad, featuring a crowded plane, isle seat, two big guys sitting in the middle and window seats next to me and a rough takeoff capped by a rougher landing. Bernadette, one of the flight attendants, was very accommodating, doing her best to smooth some of the roughest edges.
Though the flight got off the ground late due to heavy traffic and a stalled tractor used to push the plane from the gate, we made up most of the time in the air and I was on the ground by 7:05.

Reunion and End of the Day’s Journey

Milica met me at the baggage claim section of the airport. As expected, it was very nice to see her again. As we walked outside, I was stunned by the hot, humid weather conditions. Reading a weather forecast is nothing like actually experiencing the weather firsthand. I had forgotten exactly how it felt to be outside in 90 plus degree heat with humidity percentages in the double digits. We rode the Metro subway, ate dinner at a nice little Chinese restaurant called Mr. Chang’s (where all the staff were Chinese who spoke minimal English) and connected with Mimi’s friends where I would be staying.

First Full Day

Monday’s activities began with breakfast followed by a tour of the Newseum, a museum covering the past five centuries of journalism. Our tour guide, Ryan, did a great job, making this an enjoyable, mostly accessible experience. While there were many disappointing exhibits behind cases and walls we could not touch, we were able to experience several exhibits, including touching a piece of the Berlin Wall, a guard tower from the wall, a piece of a damaged wall from the Pentagon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the journalist’s memorial wall and several more. We were even able to tour George Stephanopoulos’ broadcast studio!

In the evening, we went to the M&S Grill to hang out with Jamal Mazrui, Mikah Pyyhkala, Mark, Anne, Sam, Sarah and many others from the DC Night Out gang, a group of blind people who live in the Washington D.C. area and meet on a regular basis. Mimi and I had a great time with this wonderful group of folks! We’re even hoping to arrange a going-away party for Saturday night!

I know I’ve barely touched the surface, but I hope all of you have at least gotten a flavor of what I’ve been up to here in Washington D.C. Stay tuned for more as the week speeds along. If you’re in the D.C. area and you would like to arrange a meeting with us, please e-mail editor@blindaccessjournal.com or dial my cell phone at 480-652-3813.

First Impressions: A New BookSense Owner Compares the New Audio Player and Book Reader to HumanWare’s VictorReader Stream

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This article compares the new BookSense product sold by GW Micro and manufactured by Hims Co, LTD.” with the well-established VictorReader Stream manufactured and sold by HumanWare. Both products are ultra-portable devices that enable the blind to read audio books, access books in several electronic text formats and listen to music. I have presented this information in a way that expresses what I believe, in my personal and professional opinion, to be the pros and cons of the new BookSense as compared with the VictorReader Stream from the perspective of an advanced blind technology user who has owned the Stream for almost two years and has just started using the BookSense two days ago.

BookSense Pros

The BookSense sports a plethora of new features and enhancements over the VictorReader Stream which are the basis for the vast majority of its strengths.

BookSense has a text-to-speech synthesizer that seems far superior than that in the VR Stream. It uses the Kate and Paul voices at, I believe, 22 KHz. The vastly improved TTS engine is the primary reason I decided to purchase the BookSense despite my already owning a Stream. I read lots of electronic books during the fall and spring semesters in journalism school, and I was finding the TTS on the Stream slightly hard to handle for that purpose at times. In contrast, I have been reading a book I downloaded from Bookshare yesterday morning and have been enjoying it on the BookSense reading with the Kate voice. Kate and Paul are terrible when used as speech synthesizers for computers, in my opinion, but they’re quite appropriate for use on a book reading device like the BookSense. I heard these voices during the BookSense presentation, and I was sold after doing a bit more research.

BookSense is significantly smaller in size and lighter in weight as compared to the Stream. It is supplied with a lanyard that enables wearing the unit around the neck. The BookSense appears to be well-constructed with tough plastic and flatter buttons that seem to be less susceptible to wear and tear as compared to some of the controls found on the Stream.

BookSense enables charging of its battery through the USB connection while the Stream does not. This offers an obvious practical enhancement over the Stream, where only its proprietary charger may be used. Although charging through the USB connection requires a little more than twice the time (5 versus 2 hours) to complete, the increased flexibility more than makes up for that minor disadvantage.

BookSense supports many formats not available on the Stream, including Audible Enhanced (high quality stereo books from Audible.com), iTunes, MP4 and others. Support for WMA protected files, such as the Overdrive books you can acquire through public libraries, is promised in a future firmware upgrade.

BookSense has a clock! That’s right. The device can act as a talking clock and you can hear the time even when it is otherwise powered off. Hardware limitations mean that the Stream will never provide this unless a revision is made requiring owners to purchase new units or spend a significant amount of additional funds on an upgrade. Lack of a clock on the Stream means that formats like protected WMA will never be supported because they require adherence to expiration dates and similar licensing rules. Besides, I find it annoying that something as simple as a clock was left out of the design of the Stream.

BookSense incorporates a pair of internal stereo speakers that’s actually loud enough to be useful!

BookSense records in honest-to-goodness stereo MP3 or wave formats at sampling rates high enough to be useful for podcasting, sound seeing tours and other situations outside the traditional classroom scenario imagined by the designers of the Stream.

BookSense XT sports an FM radio that allows blind users to finally enjoy some of the basics the sighted have always had, including verbal frequency read-out and station presets. I know this is rather silly, but I’ve always wanted a radio that would tell me the frequency and allow me to store presets in a way that’s fully accessible. Of course, some ham radio gear has contained this level of accessibility for years, but it’s nice to finally see it on a broadcast receiver.

BookSense XT has 4 GB of internal Flash storage, where the Stream has none at all. The BookSense is supplied with a 2 GB SD card and the BookSense XT is supplied with an 8 GB SD card. You’re completely on your own to purchase an SD card for the Stream, which requires one to operate since it sports no internal storage.

The BookSense XT features Bluetooth for connection to a wireless headset. While this feature currently appears to be unreliable, I am confident the issues will be resolved in short order and the use of a wireless headset will be an enjoyable experience for BookSense XT owners.

Finally, but certainly no less important, the BookSense is sold in the United States by GW Micro, developers of the popular Window-Eyes screen reader and a company known for its high touch and attention to customer service and support.

BookSense Cons

Despite the arrival of this new book reader and player on the market, there is no combination of hardware and firmware that is 100 percent perfect. This couldn’t be more true in the case of the BookSense. It is quite likely, however, that many if not all the disadvantages of the BookSense will be addressed in the near future by GW Micro and Hims, its South Korean manufacturer.

HumanWare has done an excellent job with the controls on the VR Stream, making it, perhaps, one of the easiest blindness technology products to use in the field as of this writing in mid-2009. All controls on the Stream feature good spacing and tactile features making them easy to identify and locate from a blind perspective. Although it is obvious that efforts were made to ensure a similarly easy experience with BookSense, its flatter, smoother controls may put off some users who might find them difficult to manage due to other conditions such as nerve damage in the fingers from diabetes.

On a similar note, HumanWare does a good job of packaging the Stream. The accompanying CD-ROM containing companion software, documentation and the tutorial is supplied in a case that is labeled in Braille for easy identification. The power supply has a rather unique rectangular shape and features several smoothed edges that make it easy to identify and set it apart from other adapters. In comparison, the BookSense CD-ROM, which contains no audio tutorial or companion software, is supplied in a basic paper sleeve with no Braille label, making it just another CD among many in one’s collection. The power supply for the BookSense does feature a nice Braille label, but a switch found next to the plug provides no Braille or tactile indicator. Presuming this switch controls the AC input voltage, one might wonder how long it will take for GW Micro technical support to start dealing with burned up adapters and related hardware problems.

Documentation is another strong point in favor of the Stream. The CD-ROM accompanying the Stream features documentation in several text formats and an excellent audio tutorial created by Jeff Bishop, a broadcaster, Window-Eyes script developer and well-recognized participant in the connected online blind community. If you purchase your Stream from a dealer along with an SD card, it may contain some of this documentation in a form that is ready to read right on the Stream out of the box. In contrast, the CD-ROM accompanying the BookSense contains only the user’s manual in four text formats: rich-text format (RTF), plain text (TXT) and two Microsoft Word documents (the older DOC and the newer DOCX). There is no audio tutorial or other content. Despite the fact that both the BookSense and BookSense XT are supplied with SD cards and the BookSense XT sports internal storage, the manual is not available on the BookSense until the user copies it to the appropriate folder.

Full text navigation is available on the Stream starting at the character level and moving all the way through paragraphs, pages and headings according to the format being read. In comparison, BookSense does not currently allow character-level navigation in text DAISY files such as those supplied by Bookshare. It is hoped this serious oversight will be corrected very soon. It is important to note that the Stream experienced similar challenges in version 1.0 of its firmware.

Overall simplicity and usability are solidly in the Stream’s favor. Each button on the Stream has a well-defined function, menus are simple in nature and it is not necessary to understand Windows or other GUI concepts in order to become an expert user of the Stream. In comparison, the BookSense is a complex device. The manual describes the use of controls including combo boxes, dialogue boxes, edit boxes and menus. Each primary feature (Book Reader, DAISY Player, Media Player, Radio) is considered an application. It may be presumed that the extensive feature set found on the BookSense makes the complexity a necessary evil.

Though the BookSense XT features Bluetooth for connecting to a wireless headset, this functionality currently contains a serious bug making it unreliable. Several new BookSense owners have reported that, after reading for a short time, all audio goes silent and the BookSense completely locks up. GW Micro and the product’s manufacturer are aware of this concern and are working to remedy the issue as soon as possible.

Finally, the BookSense is a new, version 1.0 product. There are bugs, oversights and unforeseen challenges that the Stream has already surpassed during its two years in the marketplace. As the BookSense matures, bugs will be squashed and exciting new features will be added. At the same time, HumanWare representatives have assured the blind community that the Stream will continue to prosper.

Thanks go to several Twitter followers for clarifications and updates.