Reading On the Go with accessible mobile phones

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Reading On the Go with accessible mobile phones

• Greg Gladman,
• Chief Technical Officer greg.gladman_at_codefactory.e
  s

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Summary

• Who are we
• What does Reading On the Go mean
• Electronic book formats
• Make your mobile phone accessible with Mobile
  Speak
• How to read an audio book on your phone
• How to read with Audible
• How to read a book in digital text book format
• How to read a DAISY book
• How to read Bookshare and BRF files

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Code Factory

• Making mobile phones and PDAs accessible to the
  blind and visually impaired
• 10 years of experience in making Technology
  Accessible.
• Objective To break down barriers to the
  accessibility of mobile technology for the blind
  and visually impaired.
• Leading provider of screen readers, screen
  magnifiers, and Braille interfaces for the widest
  range of mainstream mobile devices.
• Code Factory is the only company providing
  accessible software compatible with Symbian-based
  phones as well as Windows Mobile-powered
  Smartphones, Pocket PC phones and PDAs.
• We distribute in more than 50 countries and 30
  languages.

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Reading On the Go

• Your mobile device is much more than just a phone
  or a notetaker, it is the perfect tool for
  reading electronic books.
• What do we mean by electronic books?
• Electronic books are the digital versions of
  traditional printed books, and may contain text,
  audio or both.
• Apart from being more accessible for those with
  visual disabilities, electronic books (or
  e-books) also allow for enhanced features such
  as bookmarking, easy navigation, and variable
  playback speed.

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Electronic book formats

• Audio book formats
• MP3
• WAV
• WMA
• Digital text book formats
• Text (.txt)
• Word (.doc)
• HTML (.HTM or .HTML)
• Special formats for visually impaired readers
• DAISY
• BRF Braille files

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First, make your mobile phone accessible!

• Code Factorys Mobile Speak line of screen
  readers consists of software applications
  installed on a mobile phone or personal digital
  assistant (PDA), which allow the blind and
  visually impaired to use the device even if they
  cannot read the physical screen. Information
  displayed on the screen is rendered in
  synthesized speech output generated using
  text-to-speech (TTS) technology and routed
  through the devices speaker, a headset, or an
  assistive listening device. Screen contents can
  also be presented in Braille if the mobile phone
  or PDA is connected to a Braille device with a
  refreshable Braille display.

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Code Factorys world class screen readers

• Supported Platforms
• Mobile Speak for Symbian Phones
• Symbian versions 7, 8.x, 9.x Series 60
  edition.
• Mobile Speak for Windows Mobile Smartphones
  Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.0 (Smartphone edition)
• Mobile Speak for Pocket PCs Windows Mobile 2003
  SE, 5.0 and 6.0 (PocketPC and PPC Phone)

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Audio book formats MP3 and other media formats

• Audio books are readings of books recorded as
  digital audio files.
• First, and most basically, your mobile device is
  a digital audio player
• Code Factorys screen readers support built-in
  media and music players on both the Symbian and
  Windows Mobile platforms.
• On Windows Mobile devices, Mobile Speak Pocket
  and Smartphone have additional functions that
  allow you to insert markers and jump to specific
  times within a file, enabling you to keep one or
  many bookmarks in every book for places youd
  like to revisit or to mark the place at which you
  stopped reading.

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Audio book formatswww.audible.com

• Mobile Speak for Windows Mobile devices supports
  the Audible applications Audible Player and
  Audible Air.
• Audible is an online source of audio contents
  including books, periodicals and magazines, all
  of which are available for purchase and download.
  
• Audible Air is an application for handling
  Audible content on mobile devices. It lets you
  check for new audio books from selected authors,
  manage your subscriptions to publications, view
  your current Audible library, and download
  Audible files directly to your device using your
  phones wireless internet connection.

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Digital Text BooksElectronic text books, or EText

• Books the content of which is in a format which
  can be spoken by your accessible phone.
• Come in many different file formats and can be
  read with many different programs. Most
  basically, all accessible phones can read files
  in text (.txt) and HTML (.HTM or .HTML) formats.
• HTML books can be read in the web browser
  available and supported on all accessible phones.
  The web holds many books in HTML and text
  formats.
• TXT files can be read through Pocket Word built
  into Pocket PCs, Word Mobile built into Windows
  Mobile Smartphones running Windows Mobile 6, the
  internal notepad in Symbian phones, and external
  applications such as Vieka WordPad for Windows
  Mobile Smartphones http//vieka.com/wordpad.htm.

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Daisy formatted booksMobile Daisy Player V2.0

• Simplified install allows you to copy the book
  contents directly to the memory card with no
  intermediate steps or external programs.
• Support for DAISY 2.0 and 3.0 formats, allowing
  access to a wider variety of content and
  providers.
• Variable playback speed allows audio content to
  be reproduced faster or slower without changing
  pitch.
• Many customizable features, such as variable
  navigation levels and user bookmarks.
• Configurable font sizes and screen colors provide
  maximum readability of on-screen textIndependent
  licensing allows use with or without Mobile
  Speak.
• Support for text-only, audio-only, or mixed-mode
  books.
• Auto-bookmark and resume to last point in the
  book.
• Customizable TTS support via Mobile Speak.

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Braille Reader for Bookshare and BRF Files

• Mobile Speak for Windows Mobile devices includes
  a Braille Reader application that handles Braille
  formatted (BRF) documents, and can unpack
  Bookshare (BKS) files from Bookshare.org.
• The Braille reader application will read any BRF
  file in English through one's currently active
  speech synthesizer whether a Braille display is
  connected or not. Just transfer the BRF file to
  your device, navigate to it using File
  Explorer/Manager, and press Enter.
• Product features include
• A Bookshare.org Unpack Utility is already
  built-in, making it unnecessary to install and
  run a separate application just to decompress
  Bookshare files.
• All text navigation commands can be used inside a
  BRF file Read by character, word, line,
  sentence, paragraph, and continuously from the
  top of the file or the current cursor position.
• Includes an option to search for all supported
  file formats and present them in a list where a
  user can press Enter on the file he/she wishes to
  read next.
• The cursor position in a BRF document is retained
  when the file is closed so that a person can
  continue reading where he/she left off when the
  file is reopened.

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Read with a Refreshable Braille display

• A refreshable Braille display or Braille terminal
  is an electro-mechanical device for displaying
  Braille characters, usually by means of raising
  dots through holes in a flat surface.
• Code Factorys screen readers are compatible with
  more than 20 Braille devices used for input,
  output, or both, and which are not only light and
  portable like the mobile device, but also
  Bluetooth-compliant allowing for wireless access.
• Mobile Speak screen readers are the only products
  for mobile devices to support Braille input using
  Grade 1 (uncontracted) and Grade 2 (contracted)
  Braille.
• Through Mobile Speaks control panel, you can
  easily connect, using Bluetooth, your mobile
  phone to your refreshable Braille display and
  read, in crisp and clear braille, any book that
  can be read by Mobile Speaks text-to-speech
  engines.

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Where to get electronic books

• Project Gutenberg http//www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gu
  tenbergThe_Audio_Books_Project
• Audio Books For Free http//www.audiobooksforfree.
  com/,
• Emusic http//www.emusic.com/audiobooks/index.html
  
• Amazon, http//tinyurl.com/2u5d5x
• Canadian National Institute for the blind,
  http//www.cnib.ca
• Audible www.audible.com
• National library http//www.loc.gov/nls
• International Braille Research Center
  http//www.braille.org/braille_books/
• The Baen Free Library http//www.baen.com/library/
  defaultTitles.htm
• http//www.sacred-texts.com
• The Daily Lit http//www.dailylit.com/.
• Bookshare.org http//www.bookshare.org
• Tiflolibros http//www.tiflolibros.com.ar/
• the Online Books Page http//digital.library.upenn
  .edu/books/.
• Royal National Institute for the Blind
  http//www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/docume
  nts/PublicWebsite/public_libinfoser.hcsp
• Many libraries for the blind are now distributing
  Daisy audio books on CDs which can be copied to
  your mobile device, visit www.daisy.org

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Thank you for your attention!

• greg.gladman_at_codefactoty.es
• http//www.codefactory.es