UNIX Accessibility at CSUN 2004, hands-on sessions with assistive technologies and more

[Peter Korn <peter korn sun com>]

Greetings,

Sun Microsystems, Inc. is hosting a series of sessions on UNIX Accessibility
at the CSUN Conference on Technology and Persons with Disabilities at the
Los Angeles Airport Marriott Hotel next week, on March 18th.  This series of
five sessions begins Thursday morning at 8am on March 18th in the
Atlanta-Boston room, and is part of the general CSUN conference.  The
sessions will detail the accessibility features and functionality being 
built into the Sun Java Desktop System, and into the GNOME graphical desktop 
environment available for Solaris, GNU/Linux, and UNIX systems.  In these 
sessions we will also demonstrate the accessible StarOffice 7 office suite 
(and the closely related OpenOffice.org open source office suite) on both 
the Sun Java Desktop System and on Microsoft Windows, as well as other 
critical desktop productivity applications that come with the Sun Java 
Desktop System such as Evolution for e-mail and calendaring, Mozilla for web 
browsing, and the accessibility features of the Java platform.  We also 
devote almost 3 hours of sessions to in-depth examinations of the open 
source assistive technologies being developed: the Gnopernicus screen 
reader/magnifier with rich Braille support, and the GOK dynamic on-screen 
keyboard with support for single switch, scanning, and head tracker input. 
Oracle Corporation will join the Gnopernicus presentation and demonstrate 
the accessibility of Oracle developer tools under GNU/Linux.

In addition, Sun is leading a series of "Accessibility Experience" sessions
in the Washington room for small groups of participants all day Friday, and 
Saturday morning March 19th and 20th.  These sessions will be hands-on 
guided tours of the open source GNOME graphical desktop and applications
through the use of either the Gnopernicus screen reader/magnifier for GNOME,
or the GOK dynamic on-screen keyboard.  Participants will be shown the
highlights of the features of these two assistive technologies, and explore
their use on the GNOME desktop and with a variety of applications.  Make an
appointment to attend one of these sessions at Sun's booth in the Washington
room of the Marriott Hotel, or during the Thursday presentations in the 
Atlanta-Boston room.

The open source approach to accessibility that these accessible applications 
and assistive technologies are based on represent a new way of addressing 
computer access issues.  This approach forms the basis of an international 
standards effort developing free and open accessibility standards by the 
Free Standards Group.  You can learn more about this work at a presentation 
given by the Accessibility working group of the Free Standards Group on 
Friday March 19th at 9:20am in room Newport C of the Hilton hotel.

The Sun Accessibility team invites everyone who has an interest in finding
out the latest information about accessibility to UNIX systems, including
access to Solaris and GNU/Linux, to join us for these in-depth presentations
and hands-on sessions with the technologies.  Attached below is information
about this series of presentations.  We hope you can join us.

We also invite you to visit us at our booth in the Washington room of the
Marriott Hotel, and see the accessibility work in the Sun Java Desktop 
System, in the open source GNOME desktop, the latest in Java technology 
accessibility and access to Java applications from the Microsoft Windows 
desktop, and accessibility in Oracle technologies through the Java 
accessibility architecture on both the GNOME and Microsoft Windows desktops.

On behalf of Sun Microsystems,

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



==========================================================================

   CSUN Conference on Technology and Persons with Disabilities
      UNIX Accessibility sessions, Thursday March 18th, 2004
  Atlanta-Boston rooms of the Los Angeles Airport Marriott Hotel
                 hosted by Sun Microsystems, Inc.


 8:00am-9:00am
 The Accessible Sun Java(TM) Desktop System
 ------------------------------------------
 This presentation will provide a guided tour of both the shipping
 Sun Java Desktop System (based on the GNOME 2.2 desktop and GNU/Linux),
 and the forthcoming open source GNOME 2.6 desktop - finally an accessible
 alternative to Microsoft Windows.  We will demonstrate the built-in
 accessibility features of these desktops.  Highlights include themeing
 support, the rich set of applications that are available and being made
 accessible, and brief demonstrations of the two assistive technologies
 in development: the Gnopernicus screen reader/magnifier with rich Braille
 support, and the GOK dynamic on-screen keyboard supporting single switch
 scanning and head trackers with dwell selection.

 Speaker:
     - Peter Korn, Sun Microsystems, Inc.


 9:20am-10:20am
 StarOffice(TM) 7: The Accessible Office Suite
 ---------------------------------------------
 In this presentation, we will provide a detailed look at StarOffice 7,
 and the accessibility features built into it on both the Sun Java Desktop
 and the Microsoft Windows environment.  StarOffice 7 provides word
 processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications, as well as a
 programmable database.  StarOffice also provides for interoperability
 with Microsoft Office file formats.  Our presentation will detail the
 built-in accessibility features of the word processing, spreadsheet, and
 presentation packages.  We will show how StarOffice supports the desktop
 theme, mouseless operation, and assistive technologies on both the GNOME
 desktop with the Solaris Operating Environment and GNU/Linux, and also
 on the Microsoft Windows platform.

 Speakers:
     - Peter Korn, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
     - Lynn Monsanto, Sun Microsystems, Inc.


 10:40am-11:40am
 Evolution and Mozilla(TM) accessibility: e-mail and the web
 -----------------------------------------------------------
 In this presentation, we will examine Evolution, an open-source e-mail
 and calendaring "look-alike" of Microsoft Outlook for UNIX and GNU/Linux
 systems; and Mozilla, the open-source web browser behind the popular
 Netscape and a number of other applications.


 Speaker:
     - Peter Korn, Sun Microsystems, Inc.


 2pm-3pm
 GOK - the open source Dynamic On-screen Keyboard
 ------------------------------------------------
 In this presentation, we will give a detailed demonstration of GOK,
 the open source GNOME on-screen keyboard, with support for single
 switch, scanning, dynamic keyboard functionality, and customizable
 displays.  We will demonstrate how users with severe physical
 impairments can be very effective and surprisingly efficient
 with the unique features of GOK that provide direct switch access to
 menus, toolbars, and the user interface elements in dialog boxes
 utilizing the accessibility architecture in the GNOME platform.
 GOK has been fully translated into 22 languages, and partially
 translated into another 13 languages - more than any other on-screen
 keyboard on the planet.

 Speaker:
     - Jan Richards, University of Toronto ATRC
     - Peter Korn, Sun Microsystems, Inc.


 3:20pm-4:20pm
 Gnopernicus - the open source Screen Reader/magnifier
 -----------------------------------------------------
 In this presentation, we will give a detailed demonstration of the open
 source Gnopernicus screen reader/magnifier for GNOME desktop, with full
 Braille support.  We will demonstrate the features and functions of
 Gnopernicus, and show how a blind or visually impaired user can be
 effective with the GNOME desktop on a UNIX system.  Our presentation
 will be joined by members of the Oracle accessibility team, who will
 demonstrate Oracle developer tools working with Gnopernicus.
 The Gnopernicus graphical user interface has been fully translated into
 20 languages, and partially translated into another 10 languages - more
 than any other screen reader on the planet.  Furthermore, Gnopernicus
 supports over 50 Braille displays, again more than any other screen
 reader on the planet.

 Speaker:
     - Thomas Friehoff, BAUM Retec AG
     - Marc Mulcahy, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
     - Peter Korn, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
     - Mike Pedersen, Oracle Corporation
     - Kerstin Goldsmith, Oracle Corporation