The article suggest that "Canada is up to something" given their ties to other nations involved. While that may be true it should also come as no surprise. Looking at the connections we see that Canada is tied to New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei by means of the Commonwealth which means they share many legal traditions with each other and have long standing political ties to one another.

The United States is the largest English speaking nation not a member of the Commonwealth and that lack of connection would seem to be evident in the connections the graphs show.

One must assume that when Apple instituted it Canary that their lawyers thought the process through to some degree. Is Apple and other companies that have implemented such steps subjecting their management to legal peril?

MacOS X has a full scale screen reader for the blind. Not only can you run the OS without a mouse you can run it without a screen if you need to. Using a bluetooth keyboard and headset I have even run a Mac that was indoors from my patio.

The blind and some print disabled use computers all the time without a mouse. On MacOS X and the iOS there is a built in screen reader called VoiceOver (started with a command-F5 on a standard keyboard function-command-F5 on portables. With VoiceOver running you can work the OS with no mouse, or for that matter even a screen attached. It also support a wide range of braille displays.

There is similar products for Windows but they are not built into the OS and some, JAWS and WindowEyes for example, can cost more than the computer they run on.

On on the whole this is a rather silly question which if the authors had asked the question "How do the blind use a computer?" would have been answered.

Gregory Kearney
Manager - Accessible Media
Association for the Blind of Western Australia
61 Kitchener Avenue, PO Box 101
Victoria Park 6979, WA Australia

Telephone: +61 (08) 9311 8246
Telephone: +1 (307) 224 4022 (North America)
Fax: +61 (08) 9361 8696
Toll free: 1800 658 388 (Australia only)
Email: gkearney@gmail.com

We would be happy to have USB drives as a donation. We use them to send out digital talking books to the blind and print disabled. Please feel free to contact me.

Gregory Kearney
Manager - Accessible Media
Association for the Blind of Western Australia
61 Kitchener Avenue, PO Box 101
Victoria Park 6979, WA Australia

Telephone: +61 (08) 9311 8202
Telephone: +1 (307) 224 4022 (North America)
Fax: +61 (08) 9361 8696
Toll free: 1800 658 388 (Australia only)
Email: gkearney@gmail.com

Still another issue to consider is that this deals with text-to-speech and not human read books such as the NLS provides.

The VicetorReader Stream will do text-to-speech on any text file without activation and without the buyer having to prove a disability. Given that the Streams intended market is book and document reading and given that HumanWare will sell it to anyone who wants one, and given that it will do text to speech with out activation how is the VictorReader Stream any different from the Kindle?

And just wait until these activated devices turn up on ebay as the old four track tape players do all the time.

So is a Macintosh computer, which has a built in screen reader which anyone can activate a "specialized device" that are "available only by prescription to people with a qualifying disability"? No of course not. Yet it has text to speech able to read books or anything else for that matter.

The makers of talking book players are happy to sell the devices to anyone who wants one, disabled or not. See www.humanware.com or want one of those 1/4 speed four track tape player? you can buy a new one here: http://secure.nfb.org/ecommerce/asp/default.asp

The issue i much bigger than just the blind. Both the MacOS and many versions of Linux have screen readers for the blind as part of the OS and there are similar products for sale or download for Windows.

These screen readers can be activated and used by anyone, not just the blind. So is this technology illegal? Should the users of such be required to prove they are disabled before it can be activated on their computers?

While the voices on the Kindle 2 were not that great there are very high quality voices which are more useable the MacOS Alex voice for one. To see where this all might go you can visit an experimental talking book library in Western Australia www.cucat.org/library/ which permits the public to download DAISY digital talking books (www.daisy.org) recorded in higher quality voices.

John Key of infringement and have his internat (202.160.117.122) disconnected. See how long it takes to have some method of dealing with false accusations then.

In all due respect Narrator is not a screen reader and Microsoft never claimed it was. To gain access to the OS in Windows you will need to buy a Windows screen reader which will add a thousand dollars to the cost of what ever computer you will buy. Or put another way you can buy a entry level Mac for less than the cost of a Windows screen reader itself.

While many here have said that VoiceOver is not as capable as it commercial Windows counterpart I would beg to differ. VoiceOver is fundimentaly different from Windows screen readers in several ways:

VoiceOver is a integrated part of the OS. Therefor it does not attempt to step in an do tasks that the OS does. So it does not need commands to close a window, for example, as the OS provides that already.

Second in Macintosh it is the applications that are changed to become accessible with the screen reader and not the other way around. So we gain accessibility each time a developer follows the rules and improves his applications (Microsoft did you hear that? Microsoft Office for Mac is not accessible but OpenOffice 3 is.)

I would also point out that VoiceOver support most USB braille displays without having to install drivers for them. Anyone who has ever tried to get a braille display running under Windows will see the improvement in that.

Now I'm not one of these Mac fanboys who will urge a Mac where it is not appropriate but for many blind users, and for most dyslexics who require a screen reader, who have usual computer need and who do not need a Windows computer for some specific task a Mac should be considered. It will perform the basic tasks, will cost less at the outset and will cost far less to upgrade over time as there will be not screen reader updates to buy. They support braille. They are less prone to spyware and such and the out of the box voice quality is hard to match on any platform at any price