Sun and GNOME community honored to receive Helen Keller Achievement Award

[Peter Korn <peter korn sun com>]

Greetings,

The Sun Accessibility team is delighted to inform you that Sun Microsystems
and the GNOME community have recently been honored by the American
Foundation for the Blind with the Helen Keller Achievement award for their
work developing and implementing the GNOME Accessibility architecture, built
into GNOME 2 graphical desktop for UNIX environments.

Executive Vice President Pat Sueltz accepted the prestigious 2002 Helen
Keller Achievement Award in Technology on behalf of Sun and the GNOME
community, at a black tie ceremony in New York City.  The other honorees
this year were Maurice Greenberg of American International Group for
corporate philanthropy, Kathleen Barclay of GM for employment opportunity,
and Ronnie Milsap who received the Personal Achievement award.  This
ceremony marked the first time the award has ever been conferred on an
organization for innovation in accessibility for computer desktops.

The American Foundation for the Blind press release describing the 2002
Helen Keller Achievement Awards can be found at:

  http://www.afb.org/info_document_view.asp?documentid=1806

Sun Microsystems' press release noting the award can be found at:

  http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2002-09/sunflash.20020924.1.html

Another writeup of the award, with links to a few photographs and a
description of the award ceremony can be found at:

  http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/news.html


In addition to the GNOME accessibility architecture and desktop, there are
two assistive technologies being developed for GNOME: the Gnopernicus screen
reader/magnifier with rich Braille support, and the GOK dynamic on-screen
keyboard for users with a wide range of physical impairments.  These are all
further described below.


About GNOME
===========

The GNOME project includes a desktop user environment: a graphical desktop
user interface and a set of user interface libraries.  GNOME is commonly
part of GNU/Linux distributions (such as those from RedHat, TurboLinux, VA
Linux, etc.) and it will be the standard graphical desktop for future Sun
desktops, workstations and servers.  The GNOME 2 desktop includes full
support for mouseless operation from the keyboard, and a themeing mechanism
which ships with several custom designed themes for high and low contrast
use, as well as large print providing support for a variety of vision
impairments.  Finally, the GNOME 2 desktop includes a built-in accessibility
framework, supported by the applications on that desktop, which provides
rich, detailed information about all of the user interface elements on the
screen.  The Gnopernicus screen reader/magnifier and GOK on-screen keyboard
are two assistive technologies in development which utilize this framework.

For more information on GNOME, please visit:

  http://www.gnome.org

For more information about the GNOME Accessibility Project, please visit:

  http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap


The Gnopernicus screen reader/magnifier
=======================================

Gnopernicus is an open source screen reader/magnifier which enables users
with limited vision, or no vision, to use the GNOME 2 desktop and GNOME
applications effectively. By providing automated focus tracking and full
screen magnification, Gnopernicus aids low-vision GNOME users, and its
screen reader features will allow low-vision and blind users access a large
range of applications via speech and braille output.

BAUM Retec AG (http://www.baum.de/) is guiding Gnopernicus development, and
is also the principal author and project maintainer.  BAUM has been
developing screen reading and magnification software, as well as other
software and hardware products for the blind, for over 20 years.  Their
current products include the POET reading machine, the Vario 40, Vario 80,
and DM 80 plus Braille displays, the Galileo screen magnifier for Windows
NT, the Virgo screen reader for Windows & Windows NT, and the Visio
low-vision workstation.

Gnopernicus is in active development, and has not yet been released as a
product.

More information about Gnopernicus can be found at: 

  http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/AT/Gnopernicus

and also at:

  http://www.baum.ro/gnopernicus.html


The GOK dynamic on-screen keyboard
==================================

GOK is an open source, dynamic on-screen keyboard that enables users to
control their computer without having to rely on a standard keyboard or
mouse.  Supporting the majority of single-switch devices already on the
market, GOK allows users with limited voluntary movement to completely
control and interact with their GNOME 2 desktop via one or more alternative
input devices, choosing from a wide range of input techniques and
configurations.  These input methods may be controlled by actions such as
blowing and sipping to activate a pneumatic switch, an eye blink and/or
directed gaze with an eye tracking system, head movement, muscle
contractions or limb movements. 

Using innovative dynamic keyboard strategies, and leveraging the built-in
accessibility framework of GNOME 2, GOK makes desktop and application
control and interaction tremendously more efficient for users with severe
physical impairments.  GOK directly presents on the dynamic keyboard the
users' menu options, toolbar choices, and text manipulation commands,
thereby saving the user the time and frustration of having to enter lengthy
series of keyboard sequences to do those commands.  GOK also includes word
completion dictionary to speed text entry.

The Adaptive Technology Resource Centre (http://atrc.utoronto.ca/) is
guiding GOK development, and is also the principal author and project
maintainer. The University of Toronto's ATRC research and development lab
not only brings strong leadership to the project with expertise in
alternative input devices and software, but also a sincere passion regarding
accessibility issues. (The team has already produced a full-featured
onscreen keyboard for another platform.) 

GOK is in active development, and has not yet been released as a product.

More information about GOK can be found at:

  http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/AT/GOK

and also at:

  http://www.gok.ca



On behalf of the Sun Microsystems,

Peter Korn
Sun Microsystems Accessibility team
access sun com
http://www.sun.com/access