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VIKI - text transcodeing, and beyond

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From: Phil Teare
Date: Jan 19, 2007 3:50AM

The text transcoding thread has tempted me to mention the following early
public beta:

http://viki.redirectme.net

This should enable many without useful sight (not all), to access most web
content (not all), from most machines (not all)...

Its in very early beta still, and should be for some time. While its in
beta, its free.

Cons:

- Won't work on all sites
- Forms and input elements are not dealt with well yet, but we're
working on it, and it shouldn't be long before they're dealt with as well as
with any other screen reader.
- If completely blind, the user must know the keyboard well in order
to launch the page unassisted.
- Poor connectivity won't help.
- Needs Flash and Javascript. But as there are MANY more machines out
there with Flash and Javascript, than there are with a good screen reader
installed, on ballance, this isn't so bad. Most functionality should be
available in IE (5.5+), FF, Safari and although Opera isn't officiall
supported, it tends to get a bit of attention a month or two after the rest
are dealt with. We've also successfully tested it on Linux. Making it more
cross compatibale than most.

Pros

- Low to no cost
- virtually ubiquitous. Go to a friends house, workplace, colledge,
etc... and you should be able to use the system.
- Excelent voice quality
- centralized system means pronunciation chances (additions to the
lexicon dictionary) are heard by all users instanly.
- Smart Story Finder - press 'S' and the system will attempt to
automatically find the main content/story on a page.
- Once you've learnt the keys, you can swap between platforms (Mac,
PC, Linux), without have to learn new keys.

Its not meant to be, nor is it 'marketed' as a silver bullet, nor a JAWS
killer. Because it isn't. Its meant to be what it is. A new type of tool.
One that helps to fill in another crack. That of the difficulty in useing
screen readers on machines that are not owned or adminstered by the user.
Offering a new freedom to roam.

Its server has limited capacity, and as there's a fair amount of press
fanfare happening and about to happen, please don't play with it longer than
you have to, until next week. We will of course try to meet the demand of
the traffic, but thats always difficult to judge at the initial stages.
Thanks in advance.

ALL feedback very greatfuly recieved.

Best regards,
Phil Teare,
Technical Director & Lead Developer,
http://www.talklets.com from Textic Ltd.
(44) [0] 77 68479904 <EMAIL REMOVED>