Apple Begins Hosting Free Accessibility Workshops

Recently, select Apple Retail Stores have started hosting free accessibility workshops. The hour long sessions are instructed by Apple Store employees and cover various accessibility features included in iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks. Workshops are divided based on the user's needs and include hearing, vision, and physical and motor skills. These workshops will presumably cover features such as VoiceOver, Assistive Touch, Switch Control, and more.

These workshops are a great way for Apple customers to learn about helpful accessibility features that are already built into their devices. The workshops will also offer users of Apple's accessibility features an opportunity to get their questions answered in person. The training of the workshop instructors will be key to a successful experience. Hopefully, these workshops will be offered in all Apple Stores in the near future. While accessibility specific workshops may not help Apple's bottom line, they demonstrate Apple continued commitment to accessibility.

Click read more below to view descriptions of the available sessions.

Below are the workshops titles and descriptions reported by AccessiQ.org.

Hearing in iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks

Discover the many built-in accessibility features in iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. From enjoying your favourite content with closed captioning to communicating in sign language with FaceTime, you’ll see how easy it is to get the most out of your iPad, iPhone or Mac.

Physical and Motor Skills with iOS 7

Come and learn about the innovative technologies in iOS 7 that make the Multi-Touch screen easily accessible to people who find it hard to tap or use gestures. We’ll show you features and shortcuts that let you do everything from control the device with your voice to adapt the screen controls to your unique needs.

Physical and Motor Skills with OS X Mavericks

Let us show you the many ways OS X technologies can help you navigate the Mac if you have difficulty using a keyboard, mouse or trackpad. You’ll learn how to navigate using switches with Switch Control and make keyboard and mouse gestures easier with features like Slow Keys, Sticky Keys and Mouse Keys, and even see how to control the computer with your voice.

Vision with iOS 7

In this workshop, you’ll learn about the accessibility features in iOS 7 that help people who are blind or have low vision use iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Find out how VoiceOver — a revolutionary advanced screen reader — and features like Siri and Dictation help you type, launch apps, send messages, read your calendar and so much more.

Vision with OS X Mavericks

This workshop will introduce you to the assistive technologies in OS X Mavericks that help people who are blind or have low vision use the Mac. You’ll discover VoiceOver, an advanced screen reader that converts text to speech, and Dictation, which converts your speech to text, as well as other great features like screen magnification and high-contrast settings.

Emergent Cloud Computing Business Models

The last year I wrote quite a few posts on the business models around SaaS and cloud computing including SaaS 2.0 , disruptive early stage cloud computing start-ups , and branding on the cloud . This year people have started asking me – well, we have seen PaaS, IaaS, and SaaS but what do you think are some of the emergent cloud computing business models that are likely to go mainstream in coming years. I spent some time thinking about it and here they are: Computing arbitrage: I have seen quite a few impressive business models around broadband bandwidth arbitrage where companies such as broadband.com buys bandwidth at Costco-style wholesale rate and resells it to the companies to meet their specific needs. PeekFon solved the problem of expensive roaming for the consumers in Eurpoe by buying data bandwidth in bulk and slice-it-and-dice-it to sell it to the customers. They could negotiate with the operators to buy data bandwidth in bulk because they made a conscious decision not to st...

A Data Scientist's View On Skills, Tools, And Attitude

I recently came across this interview (thanks Dharini for the link!) with Nick Chamandy, a statistician a.k.a a data scientist at Google. I would encourage you to read it; it does have some great points. I found the following snippets interesting: Recruiting data scientists: When posting job opportunities, we are cognizant that people from different academic fields tend to use different language, and we don’t want to miss out on a great candidate because he or she comes from a non-statistics background and doesn’t search for the right keyword. On my team alone, we have had successful “statisticians” with degrees in statistics, electrical engineering, econometrics, mathematics, computer science, and even physics. All are passionate about data and about tackling challenging inference problems. I share the same view. The best scientists I have met are not statisticians by academic training. They are domain experts and design thinkers and they all share one common trait: they love data!...

Reveiw: Celluon Epic Laser Keyboard

The Celluon Epic is a Bluetooth laser keyboard. The compact device projects a QWERTY keyboard onto most flat surfaces. (Glass tabletops being the exception) You can connect the Epic to vertically any device that supports Bluetooth keyboards including devices running iOS , Android , Windows Phone, and Blackberry 10. On the back of the device there is a charging port and pairing button. Once you have the Epic paired with your device it acts the same as any other keyboard. For any keyboard the most important consideration is the typing experience that it provides. The virtual keyboard brightness is adjustable and is easy to see in most lighting conditions. Unfortunately the brightness does not automatically adjust based on ambient light. With each keystroke a beeping sound is played which can be turned down. The typing experience on the Epic is mediocre at best. Inadvertently activating the wrong key can make typing frustrating and tiring. Even if you are a touch typist you'll still ...

EnjoyTech

Search This Blog