On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 9:18 PM, David K Parker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm not really speaking out for myself, but trying to raise the awareness > level of people developing technology. No one seems to realize that there > are disabled people with no hands, but can otherwise function fairly well > with prosthetic limbs. I'm not as concerned about companies like Apple, who > make devices that don't work without human fingers, because there are many > other companies making competing devices that do work just as well or > better. The laptop for every child project is different. They are trying to > provide technology to children that have no other choices. To alienate a > small percentage of those who have lost limbs for various reasons beyond > their control seems wrong when a simple solution does exist. Adding an > external mouse will work, but makes the device harder to use. You need more > surface area to operate, chords can easily be broke, or the mouse can be > lost. Building a pointing device into the laptop that works without > requiring skin is the obvious solution. The technology does exist. > > Thanks, > David >
Please offer suggestions as to what technologies you would like to see. I don't want to be dismissive of our user's needs here, but I do not know of any technologies that would be suitable and cost effective to put into every laptop. All of the devices that I can think of would greatly lower durability and/or increase cost. But I don't know a lot about the field. What have you seen that you think would work well? Also, software aids are a real possibility. Because we're such an open platform, we can get access to hardware at a very low level. What software aids would you consider a priority? We have the benefit of the great majority of linux software, which has excellent support for alternate input and accessibility. _______________________________________________ accessibility mailing list [email protected] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/accessibility
