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Skipper Accessibility Suite 1.6.0 Released 128

Posted by simoniker from the positive-steps dept.
Semi-Anonymous Reader writes "Skipper 1.6.0 is a GPLed Linux accessibility suite for the severely physically disabled - cerebral palsy, road traffic accidents, motor neuron disease, Parkinsons etc. It takes input from multiple devices like graphics tablets and microswitches connected directly to the printer port, does input switching and processing (configured graphically like modular synthesisers), and provides clever genetically annealed menu systems for application and desktop control. With just one detectable click, people can have full Web and email access - in fact the whole Linux desktop - in complete privacy. Now the problem's getting it to people who need it. Charities and institutions think physical, Windows and money, so it's down to the geeks. Set up a kid near you this Fall - they might not be the next Einstein or Mozart, but you'll be giving them a lifetime of education, activity, self-expression and self-determination."
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Skipper Accessibility Suite 1.6.0 Released More

Skipper Accessibility Suite 1.6.0 Released

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  • Get 'em hooked early (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Set up a kid near you this Fall - they might not be the next Einstein or Mozart, but you'll be giving them a lifetime of education, activity, self-expression and self-determination."

    More like a lifetime of Slashdot and Everquest addiction.

    Oh, and fp.

  • linux based? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:56AM (#7111498)
    great, as if the handicapped didn't have enough trouble already - now they have to worry about configuring their kernel and dicking around with XFree86Config!

  • On the other hand (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kfg ( 145172 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:01AM (#7111511)
    As it were, they just might be the next Stephen Hawking.

    Ya never know.

    KFG
    • Well, Stephen Hawking was actually physically very capable until his 20s, so he had the chance to get his education before his body failed him. There's a fair chance that he wouldn't have had the opportunities he did if he had been confined to a wheelchair from childhood.

  • Sounds very cool! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ratface ( 21117 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:01AM (#7111512) Homepage Journal
    A friend of mine who is a Linux whizz and who is looking into setting up a charity organisation for techies to be able to contribute time & know-how for good causes might well be interested in this project.

    I guess that if anything is going to help spread news about its availability, this is the right place to be.

  • Cyborg? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:03AM (#7111518) Homepage Journal
    and provides clever genetically annealed menu systems for application and desktop control.

    Genetically annealed menu systems? What the....?!? Well, I have been following bionics and cybernetics for a little while now, and this is certainly new to me. :-)

    Seriously though, what are they talking about?

    • It's pretentious bastard speak for that thing in MS Office where it makes the menu items you use more often easier to get to.
    • I'm no expert, but I've come across such terms. Google for "simulated annealing". IIRC it's one way to do things like printed circuit board layout (think how complex the pattern of wires on a mobo is) and the term was appropriated from what happens in metallurgy.

    • Re:Cyborg? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Their talking about the AI algorithm used to determine the order in which the menus appear. Anealing is a technique to randomly jump to another location in the search space when a local maximum is found. Genetically anealed (I guess, I've never heard the term before) means a genetic algorithm which periodically resets some of the population to keep searches from finding a local maximum.
    • Optimisation: Genetic Algorithm and Simulated Annealing [www.pmsi.fr]

      "The working principle of simulated annealing is borrowed from metallurgy: a piece of metal is heated (= the atoms are given thermal agitation), then left to cool slowly. The slow and regular cooling of the metal allows the atoms to slide progressively in their most stable ("minimal energy") positions. (Rapid cooling would have "frozen" them in whatever position they happened to be at that time.) The resulting structure of the metal is stronger and s

  • Setup a... kid? (Score:4, Funny)

    by lingqi ( 577227 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:04AM (#7111520) Journal
    Set up a kid near you this Fall...

    So that's what y'all are calling it now? doesn't that require women (preferabbly one married to you) first?

    I mean, not so familiar with these things, /. regular and all...

    [ducks]

  • what makes humans precious? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Porthwhanker ( 708730 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:04AM (#7111521)
    In the Information Age we can see more clearly than ever before that what makes human beings precious is creativity, intelligence, wit and determination.

    And here I thought it was how much money you make. Guess I'm still stuck in the Capitalism Age.
    • Indeed. People who have demonstrated a particular talent for making money are often cloistered and given heavy protection in Kansas.

      KFG
    • Having people sit at home is never good for an economy. If governments can get handicapped people to be (more) integrated and thus more productive, they can save a lot on welfare and such. Plus the people themselves will feel stronger because they participate in society.
      Having a handicapped person in the family can be very taxing. Being ill is not easy, and the situation can lead to psycho-sociological problems. The more the person can do for him/herself, the better the family will function as a whole.Reme

  • translation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by flynt ( 248848 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:07AM (#7111531)
    Could someone help me with this one?

    Charities and institutions think physical, Windows and money, so it's down to the geeks.

    What the hell is he trying to say with that sentence?
    • Charities and institutions think physical, Windows and money, so it's down to the geeks.

      What the hell is he trying to say with that sentence?
      I think they meant to say:
      Charities and Institutions think, Windows and money belong physically to the geeks.
      but I could be wrong ;)

    • Re:translation (Score:5, Informative)

      by artg ( 24127 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @03:33AM (#7111806)
      I read it as :

      "Charities and institutions think they need [expensive] special hardware and Windows based software. It's up to geeks to show what can be done with a bit of intelligence and applied engineering"

      Due to the relatively small market and high support costs, products made for disabled people are usually pretty expensive. This doesn't only apply to hospital-grade wheelchairs etc., but also to software like screenreaders.

    • Re:translation (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nadaou ( 535365 )
      What the hell is he trying to say with that sentence?

      Charities and institutions like to quantify widgets delivered and present nice boxes with ribbons on them to sick kids in the hospital.

      aka throw money at the problem.

      While Linux may be brilliantly suited for folks in real need - due to the custom setups available for people who really need or want them - it doesn't really fit into the image of a valued product you can buy off the shelf and present with a smile in a PR photo. eg: Microsoft 'donating' "

    • Re:translation (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Total_Wimp ( 564548 )
      There are several fine translations here, but I just wanted to add that this line, and the line following may well have changed my life.

      I've known for a while that with a nice IT job and a good standard of living I needed to start thinking of ways I could give back to the community. But how? I'm not that interested in soup kitchen work and just giving money to United Way or whatever just seemed like a way to provide payroll for the organization instead of getting help to people that need it.

      But this is

  • Genetically annealed? (Score:5, Funny)

    by JessLeah ( 625838 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:08AM (#7111532)
    What does "genetically annealed" mean? All I can guess is, umm, my Dad's name is Neal, so I guess I'm "genetically anNealed"?
    • Good question. I know what each word means. I even know what they mean in combo. I haven't a clue as to what they mean with regards to menus.

      A quick Google search reveals only a couple of links. . .that ask "What does genetically annealed mean."

      Well, no help there. :)

      KFG

      • Re:Genetically annealed? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Lord Crc ( 151920 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:48AM (#7111654)
        It's a minimization technique, ie finding the minimum of a function (say a cost function). I'm by no means an expert in the field, but I guess in this case they're using it to dynamically find the optimal menu configuration based on use or something like that.

        Here's [ornl.gov] a page that explains some of it.
        • I'd seen the thermodynamic work of of Metropolis (et al) and was even aware of the generalization, so I'd come to much the same conclusion as yourself from context, but I'd still like to see something a bit more specific on this as applied to computer controlled feedback cycles.

          It's probably old hat to the robotics people. I guess I could go talk to some.

          KFG

    • I'm afraid it means... (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      that your dad is, in fact Cowboy Neal!

      He has spawned.
    • Well, annealing is an optimisation process that emulates the process of crystal formation in cooling molten materials. It avoids getting stuck in a local minima and missing the global minima by sometimes accepting a 'worse' solution than the current one during the search process with a certain probablity.

      Genetic search techniques work like evolution. You generate a 'generation' of candidate solutions, from which the best are selected (like natural selection) and the next generation are bred and so on unti

  • Will it interface with this? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Max Romantschuk ( 132276 ) <max@romantschuk.fi> on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:08AM (#7111536) Homepage
    My father has a very rare motor neuron disese, multifocal motor neuropathy (MMN). A treatment has been discovered which has reasonable effect, but it is possible he'll be paralysed eventually.

    He aquired a device which reads your EEG and uses it to control a computer. Check out http://www.brainfingers.com/ [brainfingers.com] for details. So far he hasn't needed to use it, but in the future it might be a necessity.

    Anyway... This seems like ideal technology to combine with the stuff mentioned above. This should be at the OS level after all.

    (Just before everyone asks... the device does work, but you need to learn how to control your brainwaves. It's sort of like Palm's Grafiti for your head ;)
    • Only Windows software is described on the site. I wonder, what will happen when Win crashes or locks up (which happens invariably to me at least) and the user won't even be able to push the reset button?

      But that's beside the point. Since you have already had hands-on experience with the device and the company that sells it, could you tell if they will provide low-level technical documentation, so that it would be possible to make use of that in Linux? That sounds like one of those projects I've always been
      • But that's beside the point. Since you have already had hands-on experience with the device and the company that sells it, could you tell if they will provide low-level technical documentation, so that it would be possible to make use of that in Linux? That sounds like one of those projects I've always been drooling over doing but lacked appropriate hardware.

        From what little I've had to do with them I've gotten the impression that they are pretty open about their stuff. Contacting them would make sense. T
      • Brainwave machine with Linux support:
        www.IBVA.com [ibva.com]
    • Sure. And any 2nd year electrical engineering student should be able to set the thing up.

      Trick is to know enough so the circuit is designed so you don't fry the delicate piece of equipment.

      You can do all sorts of stuff with a PC serial/parallel/joystick port. Add the flexability of linux & X windows .. Actually X is a bit underated for this sort of stuff..

      See the lirc.org page for some easy places to start.

      $ apt-cache search accessibility
      at-spi - Assistive Technology Service Provider Interface
      at-spi
  • What's accessibility?

    • Re:Hello! (Score:3, Informative)

      by byolinux ( 535260 )
      Presuming you're not joking, Accessibility is a bit of a buzz word of late, which talks of the concept of making something (in this case a computer) accessible to everyone regardless of their physical ability.

      As far as the web is concerned, there is the WAI [htto] which seeks to get people to make web pages that (by sticking to standards mainly) are easily navigated by people who may not have the ability to see a page, for example.

    • Re:Hello! (Score:3, Informative)

      by WerewolfOfVulcan ( 320426 )
      In technology, accessibility means designing (or modifying) a program or device so that people with disabilities can use it the same as everyone else. In architecture, it means designing (or modifying) buildings so that people with disabilities can easily get into and out. For more info, check out the Americans with Disabilities Act [usdoj.gov]
    • I try to think about it in terms of making everything equally accessible to everyone, no matter what. In real terms, to me that means approaching interface issues as if you might have intergalactic aliens attempting to navigate your web site or application.

      It affects the way you deal with user input and output on a pretty fundamental level, particularly if your user might be a 1-tentacled space monster with 20-20 vision in several dimensions, just not our ones...

      </ramble>

  • Hawking (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Alakaboo ( 171129 )

    ...they might not be the next Einstein or Mozart...

    No, but they very well might be the next Stephen Hawking.

  • From a user: Thank you! (Score:5, Informative)

    by the man with the pla ( 710711 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:36AM (#7111609)
    I lost most of the use of my fingers and 40 percent of my vision in a chemical accident 15 years ago. I am so glad to see linux taking steps to make things more usable for people like me. I truly feel linux will soon take the lead in accessibility (not to mention stability and performance) from Microsoft very soon. Thank you linux hackers! --Berry

  • This is probably... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by canning ( 228134 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:43AM (#7111627) Homepage
    one of the best articles I've seen on /. in recent memory. It really does make you feel good to belong to a group of people that would actually do something like this.

    You know, I really can't see the Microsoft community banding together like this. Kudos to the open source community, you should really feel proud of everything you've accomplished so far and about the direction you're heading.

    • You know, I really can't see the Microsoft community banding together like this. Kudos to the open source community, you should really feel proud of everything you've accomplished so far and about the direction you're heading.

      That's because Microsoft already has a massive array of accessibility tools and support for it built into every version of Windows, and every application.

      You don't need the 'community' to support something which has been an as-standard feature for the past 10 years.

      • Re:This is probably... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Fluffy the Cat ( 29157 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @06:43AM (#7112251) Homepage
        The Win32 accessibility API sucks. Massively. It doesn't work as documented, and even if it did it would be less capable than the Gnome one. I've been working on integrating Dasher [cam.ac.uk] (site possibly down at the moment due to a power cut) into the accessibility functions available. Gnome was a piece of cake. Win32 was pain beyond belief.

  • GNOME 2.4 Accessibility (Score:4, Interesting)

    by oddityfds ( 138457 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:51AM (#7111681)
    How does this relate to or even integrate with the new accessibility features in GNOME 2.4 [gnome.org]?

    • Re:GNOME 2.4 Accessibility (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      GNOME has been doing a lot of work for blind or partially sighted users, and that stuff is getting really good. There are some features for physically disabled users in there, but they are about the same level as the Windows Accessibility Wizard, offering sticky keys, a simple onscreen keyboard you can work with a mouse and so on. Such people are nearly able bodied. Skipper fills in the huge hole between them and people at the Stephen Hawking or Christopher Reeve level of minimal movement, or with extreme i

      • Re:GNOME 2.4 Accessibility (Score:4, Insightful)

        by esj at harvee ( 7456 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @08:02AM (#7112648) Homepage
        unfortunately, the accessibility support for Gnome is only half of the story. There are many more people out there who suffer from "slight" mobility impairments like RSI, arthritis, and other problems of the hands or arms. These impairments keep them from using a keyboard to a significant degree and circus tricks like unicorn stakes or paddles are so inefficient as to be not worth using.

        These people need speech recognition and full featured speech recognition like that provided by NaturallySpeaking. The current demonstration recognizers like Sphinx don't come anywhere near the capabilities needed by handicapped users.

        today, these people cope by walking away from computers, getting keyboard slaves to type for them, or by using Windows.

        The needs of these people have been ignored because they are silent unlike the blind community. They are silent because the chronic pain and day-to-day struggle to make a living leaves no energy for advocacy but this does not make their needs any less important.

        Linux will not be completely handicapped accessible until you can operate the system either by discovering your monitor and listening or by discarding your keyboard and speaking.

        (This message written using Windows-based speech recognition)
        • Users with RSI and a whole spectrum of disabilities that require speech input aren't being ignored. There simply aren't many options for voice recognition software under UNIX besides the very high end telephony products (that cost *lots* of money). There is a new generation Sphinx engine which is showing a lot of promise, and the GNOME accessibility architects at Sun (and elsewhere) are eagerly waiting for it to mature just a little bit more before tackling the first task which is command and control (the
          • I was blessed with a deep look into the making of two desktop speech recognition products. It's an extremely expensive process to make recognition engines which explains the lack of options. The development of sphinx to the same level as NaturallySpeaking will probably suck down about $5 million worth of development effort before you have a usable product. The example you gave of 1000 word vocabulary is a toy recognizer. If you aren't running at least 100,000 words continuous speech recognition at 120 w

  • MSCock (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I understand how disabled people input data by using whatever part of their body they can control.

    But the box labled "MsCock" in the diagram [sourceforge.net] on the Skipper front page disturbs me...

    • Re:MSCock (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Ah. MsCock is a modular component for switching a stream of mouse type data on and off. From plumbing, as in stopcock. It's a bit Terence and Philip, but calling it MsSwitch would make a longer word. That makes the component bigger, and that makes the virtual machine harder to understand when configuring it graphically.
  • This sort of thing could be useful for wearable computers.

    Control by using thought/brainwaves would help too.
  • Give me CowboyAnnealed any time.

    Sean
  • Seems like this might be real usefull as well for surfing uhm interresting sites when, .. er .., I only have one hand available.
  • I can't sanction it's use. Notice in the diagram on the home page of the linked article. It has two copies of MS Cock built in. (Seriously, look closely at the diagram abd you will see I'm not lying) Aside from the fact that most Microsoft employees aren't noted for being well endowed. I just can't sanction the use of Microsoft software in an open source product!

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