From: Bernard Maldonado bern...@publicftp.com To: b...@acb.org About 2 and a half months ago, an idea was born in my head. So, like I always do with a new idea, I evaluate the costs, potential customers, requirements, and competition, among other factors. Once I answered all of my questions, I started to bring the people together and get the project underway.
This project had a special component; it's a bit controversial. I took quite a bit of extra time to read the mailing lists, read the forums, read about failed attempts to launch such a service, and all the comments back and forth. Some people were quite vocal about their problems and issues. One area that I paid close attention to was the criticisms, concerns, and barriers. Indeed, there were many. BlindAD had a lot of information! The site that I'm talking about is called Solona, which is a Human Asisted CAPTCHA Solution Service. It exists to help visually impaired people solve CAPTCHAS that are usually found on website registration pages. As you all are fully aware, CAPTCHAS are usually not accessible. Every step of the project implementation included the participation of blind people. The steering committee is made of blind people. In fact, some of the contributors and testers are from within the ranks of ACB state offices. The service has been vetted, tested, documented, and has been in operation for about 3 weeks now. The two biggest factors about Solona are the privacy/security features, and that it works with any operating system and any browser since there is no plug in or tool bar to install. The site address is http://www.solona.net Main points addressed in Solona (all of equal importance): 1. Privacy and Security 2. Efficiency and Effectiveness with minimal two way communication 3. Speed and Response Time 4. OS independence and browser independence 5. Thorough instructions and easy steps to follow 6. Full disclosure of how Solona works and what happens to images 7. No cost to users. No levels of service based on price. I am pleased with the initial release of Solona. There will be ups and downs, but so far, there are alot of happy users who have submitted images for solution. In fact, it's already being used by Spanish speaking blind people who have translated the important information in order to use the site. Having said that, I always look for improvements and ways to provide more. This is probably the only time I will make an announcement about Solona. I don't want to overrun the list with repeat messages. Having said that, I am more than willing to have conversations with anyone who is interested in knowing more, or would like further clarification about the site. The site has quite a bit of information to offer about Solona. I apologize for being long-winded in this message. Thank you. Bernard Maldonado To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in