Re: Montreal Summit

[Cesar Mauri <cesar crea-si com>]

Hi Meg,

> Do they all support sending icons? I assume that all of the chat programs
> do, but you would need to ask the Telepathy developers.  I know enough about
> A.T. to be able to explain what this type of feature does from a user-end
> perspective, but I am not a programmer. Guillame Desmottes said that you
> would need to write an API to support this type of program. Again, you can
> speak to him about it. He said that some chat programs support, for example,
> sending user-made icons such as these http://emoticonhq.com/   . He said
> that you would need to write this type of A.P.I. for Telepathy in order to
> support the feature you are proposing. However, it would be best if you
> would discuss this with him if you want more details.

OK. I'll do.

> > > Something else that you may like to look at is the
> > > FreeIconToSpeech
> > > wiki<http://wiki.laptop.org/go/FreeIconToSpeech>.
> > >
> > > They had an alpha release but it looks like development stopped at
> > > that point. You may find that there are members of the OLPC/Sugar
> > > community who are interested in the type of project you are
> > > discussing.
> >
> > Very interesting. The need for a Augmentative Alternative Communication
> > (AAC) software is also crucial for people with communication disorders and
> > an excellent complement for the project described above (i.e. ACC software
> > would work as the "keyboard"). We have been already discussing this topic
> > with members of GNOME a11y (in CC). Perhaps there is a chance to join
> > efforts...
>
> Yes, this is specifically why I offered to help. I have been working on
> accessibility icons, and it looks like there is no free library  for this
> type of use. These programs are very, very expensive, so I assume that it
> would be worth someone's effort to develop open source versions. Some of
> them, such as Dynavox, have IM capabilities as well.
> http://www.dynavoxtech.com/products/maestro/specs/

I agree with you that some AAC software (such as The Grid 2 or 
Boardmaker) are really expensive and the provided icon library is not free.

But, the good news is that does exist a free (CC BY-NC-SA) pictogram 
library :-)

	http://www.catedu.es/arasaac/index.php

and even there are some free AAC software applications:

- SAW 5 
http://www.ace-centre.org.uk/index.cfm?pageid=2926A897-3048-7290-FED02B6A24887F44
(GNU/GPL v2, for Windows)

- Plaphoons http://www.xtec.cat/~jlagares/
Open Source, it is claimed to run on Linux using WINE.


Regards,

César