AALIANCE2 Project is a Coordination Action funded in the FP7-ICT-2011.7, which focuses on the Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) solutions based on advanced ICT technologies for ageing and wellbeing of elderly people in Europe. One of its main objectives is to build consensus upon research priorities in the AAL roadmap and Strategic Research Agenda for the upcoming decades.

This first workshop will focus on the functional areas associable to the AAL application domains (AAL4Person, AAL in the Community) and the relative activities/application scenarios. The objectives are to refine, classify, organize and improve the contents of the first AALIANCE Roadmap, published in March 2010.

Suitable persons for the AALIANCE2 Workshop are experts in the AAL domain, which have experience in some of the following tasks: designing, developing, producing, experimenting, and assessing AAL technologies or studying and defining the main aspects of AAL field. Experts should be AAL technology developers and researchers, ICT service providers and technology suppliers, policy‐makers, standardization organizations, health and care service organizations, caregivers, etc.

We would like to invite you (or some of your staff) to participate in this Workshop as Experts in the field of the AAL or responsible in Projects related to AAL and Ageing Well. The participation in the Workshop is limited to a small number of experts, therefore we ask you to confirm your participation as soon as possible, since the experts will be accepted based on the “who first confirms, first participates in”.
We gently ask you to extend this invitation also to all partners of the AAL project in which you are involved in.

If you accept to participate in the Workshop, you will receive guidelines to participate in the event and contents of the previous AALIANCE Roadmap.

The video features an interview with the OASIS project coordinator Silvio Bonfiglio (FIMI), as well as scenes from piloting and user forums in Bulgaria, Greece, Italy and Romania.

OASIS is a Large Scale Integrating Project — partially funded by the European Commission (FP7-ICT 215754) – with the aim to develop an open and innovative reference architecture, based upon ontologies and semantic services, that will allow plug and play and cost-effective interconnection of existing and newly developed services in all domains required for the independent and autonomous living of older people and their enhanced Quality of Life.

For more information: www.oasis-project.eu

A related video can be found at http://youtu.be/gOme8Qa-s9U which presents the OASIS project concept.

Mobile communications have become in less than two decades omnipresent in all countries, reaching out to the most isolated and underserved populations in developed and developing countries alike. In 2011more than 5.4 billion mobile phones are in use, almost one per human being on the planet.

In the midst of this telecommunication revolution, however, populations of senior citizens and persons living with disabilities have been left out due to accessibility factors: complex human interfaces difficult to understand and activate for persons with cognitive impairments or learning disabilities, lack of alternative communications for persons living with low vision, blind, hard of hearing or deaf, or, quite often handset ergonomics too difficult for persons with physical disabilities such as dexterity or mobility limitations.

This report contains references to the new legislative and regulatory framework set by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, an important resource for policy makers. It also covers practical elements required for a successful implementation of those programs and policies.

Download report.

Download the final report (September 2011).

Studies throughout Europe under ACCESSIBLE and AEGIS (FP7 projects), and KA3 project ImPaCT highlighted in their pan-European surveys with over 1000 end-users and AT (Assistive Technologies) specialists that training is the core barrier towards using AT by end-users. This lack of training is subsequently also recognised as main barrier to assume a daily job in a regular working environment.

Although there are European initiatives such as EASTIN (www.eastin.info), which already gather (partial) ISO structured databases on AT, the actual ICT AT training is lacking, or not meeting the needs of the end-users. Although there are a number of initiatives on AT across the EU such as ATVET (UK), Blind people in Qualification (Austria), IMPACT, Keeping Pace with Assistive Technology (IT), they mainly address training of the trainers and professionals working with PwDs, and not the actual beneficiaries (people with disabilities) which remain largely unaware of the ICT AT that is there for them. ATLEC is to fill this gap and will focus on training the learners in specific skills particularly tailored according to their individual and employability needs, while also creating the job profile of ICT AT trainer.

The innovation of this project lies with the user centred design approach as well as the individual tailoring of the ATLEC curriculum and training materials to the learners’ needs, combined with the implementation of mobile learning objects to support the training, as well as applying mentoring as an additional supportive aspect of the ATLEC training services. The focus is on the person with disability (his/her needs and abilities as a learner), as well as the trainer.

Also the pedagogical methodologies will be innovative, using blended learning (F2F, online and mobile), resulting in accessible WCAG2.0 compliant learning/training objects, which are thus exchangeable with other learning initiatives. All ATLEC learning objects, training material and mobile applications will also be offered through the platform the ViPi project (KA3-ICT, 511792-LLP-1-2010-1-GR-KA3-KA3NW) aims to launch in 2012, and which is coordinated by PhoenixKM.

Training the end-users in appropriate usage of ICT-based AT means also teaching them new skills, digital competencies, learning to learn skills (key competencies), empowering them with a greater confidence, adaptability and a more positive attitude towards risk taking and access to an otherwise still to a large degree inaccessible physical, technological and attitudinal employment environment.

Apart from providing them the knowledge about AT ICT usage, and what is most appropriate for their specific disability, a mentoring scheme will be set up and ran in workplaces in Belgium and Greece, directly linking the knowledge and skills acquired with the practice, while also facing the reality in the working environment.

Last but not least the job profile of ICT AT trainer and the workplace mentoring scheme qualifying people with disabilities from unemployed, unqualified into qualified trainers will greatly increase their self-esteem, confidence and provide them with easier access to the regular labour market, as well as create new employment opportunities for the People with Disabilities communities. In the long term, this will lessen the social and economic burden.

• A document describing the framework of things needed for 3rd generation accessibility, as validated by the prototypes and user/developer feedback in AEGIS
• A collection of largely open source prototypes and code Deliverables implementing various aspects of the OAF, proven in AEGIS and contributed back to the open source projects of which they are part

This Deliverable (D1.2.1) contains the initial AEGIS Open Accessibility Framework (OAF) description. It is based upon:

• The accessibility API and framework support from the existing Open Desktop (GNOME Accessibility framework) and the Java platform (the Java Accessibility API, keyboard operability guidelines, and theme support);
• The AEGIS generic accessibility framework requirements (AEGIS ID1.2.1).

In addition, this Deliverable is informed by the early feedback from AEGIS consortium developments – highlighting anticipated areas that the OAF will necessarily need to cover. This includes:

• ARIA implementations on various UI elements,
• Initial work on JavaFX accessibility,
• Alternate input systems for users with physical impairments (both for the open desktop as well as “thought experiments” for mobile),
• Development of the RIM Blackberry mobile accessibility API and its use by the Oratio screen reader.

Finally, this Deliverable is informed by developments in the field of accessibility external to AEGIS development work. This includes:

• ISO 13066 work to standardize AT-IT interoperability generally, and specifically to codify the set of information that must be provided via accessibility APIs;
• The U.S. Access Board release of their “Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” for the refresh of the Section 508 and Section 255 accessibility regulations/guidelines;
• The Apple iPhone 3GS/4 (and iPad) which include a built-in screen reader and screen magnifier, both of which rely on a new set of multi-touch gestures for use;
• The Android v1.6 and later operating system which includes the ‘Talk Back’ screen reading functionalit.

This initial OAF description will be updated throughout the remainder of the AEGIS project with the practical information we gain from implementing it in the desktop, web, and mobile space.

For more information, visit the OAEG OAF section. It outlines the Six Steps to Making an Accessible World: The Open Accessibility Framework.

AEGIS is an Integrated Project (IP) within the ICT programme of FP7.

This conference will take place on July 11-13, 2012; with the Pre-Conference July 09-10, 2012. Place to be is the University of Linz, Altenbergerstraße 69, 4040 Linz, Austria.

The Web is rapidly evolving and converging with other media and technologies. Today the Web is on mobile devices, televisions, self-service terminals, and computer desktops. It is continuing to be increasingly ubiquitous and indistinguishable from other interfaces and an ambient part of our daily lives, particularly with the advancement of “the cloud.

Given the highly flexible and adaptable nature of the Web, its growth provides a critical potential of increased inclusion and equality for people with disabilities. However, it also raises new challenges for technology, software, and content developers in making their products and services accessible. In particular, the specific accessibility challenges and optimal ways for providing accessibility support are not well understood in all contexts, making it difficult to effectively design and develop accessible mainstream technologies.

This Special Thematic Session (STS) invites contribution and discussion on experiences with the day-to-day challenges that developers, evaluators, managers, policy makers, and other practitioners observe in implementing web accessibility in advanced technologies.

More specifically, this STS invites contributions analyzing good practices, use-cases, end-user requirements, promising accessibility features and solutions, and challenges in applying web accessibility in specific contexts such as (but not limited to):

• HTML5 and rich internet applications;
• Websites and applications for mobiles;
• Digital/IP TV and audio-visual media.

This STS also welcomes research, surveys, and discussion of future trends and directions including (but not limited to) web telephony and real-time communication, self-service terminals (e.g. information kiosks, ticketing machines, ATM, etc.), online games, social networks, virtual and augmented environments, 3D Web, multi-touch, and the use of cloud technology for personalized accessible interfaces.

Acknowledgements: This Special Thematic Session (STS) is jointly organized by the EC-funded WAI-ACT, AEGIS, and ACCESSIBLE projects.

Chairs:

• Shadi Abou-Zahra, W3C/WAI
• Karel Van Isacker, EPR/MCA
• Konstantinos Votis, CERTH/ITI

More information at http://www.icchp.org/node/363.

The accessibility experience begins at first setup — a simple touch gesture during setup (clockwise square from upper left) activates all accessibility features and loads a setup tutorial. Once accessibility features are active, everything visible on the screen can be spoken aloud by the standard screen reader.
Source: Android

• Help Talk (Wellbeing category): Help Talk is designed for people who are unable to communicate by speech, whether permanently or temporarily, such as those recovering from strokes. The application presents a set of commands represented by icons which when tapped ‘speak’ the basic need or desire – such as ‘I’m thirsty’ or ‘I feel pain’ – and goes on to allow the user to provide further detail in the same way.
• Wheelmap (Mobility category): Wheelmap helps people with impaired mobility who may literally face obstacles as they go about their everyday life. Crowdsourcing lets users of the application rate and review the accessibility for wheelchair users of public places including cafes, museums, hotels and shops. In one month 1200 users registered for the app, and 180,000 places were reviewed.
• Zoom Plus Magnifier (Independent living category): Zoom Plus Magnifier app allows people with visual disabilities including colour blindness and long or short-sightedness, as well as some forms of dyslexia, to easily read text by applying a magnifier, sharpening the focus, or adjusting font and background colours.
• BIG Launcher (Social participation category): BIG Launcher is an alternative customisable Android homescreen, for elderly or visually impaired users who often struggle to use the small keyboards on most devices. It uses big buttons and large fonts to represent all the basic functions of the phone – telephone, SMS messages, camera, gallery, SOS button and installed apps.

Vittorio Colao, Vodafone Group CEO said, “Vodafone is committed to doing all we can to empower consumers of all ages and abilities: we want to extend the smartphone revolution to as many communities as possible.”
Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Digital Agenda said, “We need relevant smartphone apps for all our communities. I congratulate the winners of the Smart Accessibility Awards and the Vodafone Foundation for helping bring the benefits of smartphones to all Europeans. Everyone can gain from the digital revolution. ”
Rodolfo Cattani, EDF Executive Secretary said, “Accessibility and interoperability of communications devices are vital to making possible the professional and cultural inclusion of people with disabilities. At the same time, when not accessible, the technology can create new obstacles and can lead to new forms of discrimination.”
“Mobile technology has an important role to play in the context of the European Year 2012 for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations which aims at supporting older people to be active in all areas of their lives and live independently for longer”, observed Anne-Sophie Parent, AGE Secretary-General. “In a society driven by new technologies, it is essential to make sure new applications are accessible to all, in order to avoid increasing the digital divide and the social exclusion of the most vulnerable groups of the population.”
Winning applications will be available to Vodafone customers using Android smartphones.
For more information about the awards or mobile accessibility, visit http://developer.vodafone.com/smartaccess2011 or http://www.guardian.co.uk/smart-accessibility.

“AccessODF” (http://sourceforge.net/p/accessodf/wiki/) is a freeware extension for OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice, two office suites that are freely available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux/Unix and Solaris.
At the same time, 2 new versions of two other extensions: odt2daisy (http://odt2daisy.sourceforge.net/) and odt2braille (http://odt2braille.sourceforge.net/) were released. The former enables users to export word processing documents to digital talking books in the DAISY format; the latter enables exporting to Braille and printing on a Braille embosser.

AccessODF, odt2braille, odt2daisy are software developed in the AEGIS project (www.aegis-project.eu) and are available as “open-source software”.

The event will bring together both end-users (people with disabilities) as well as platform and application accessibility developers, representative organisations, the Assistive Technology industry, and policy makers.

Since 2008, the AEGIS consortium (comprising companies such as Vodafone Foundation, Research in Motion, Oracle, and research groups from Cambridge University and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, etc.) has been developing an Open Accessibility Framework – comprising open accessibility interfaces, user interface components, developer tools, end-user applications and prototype accessibility solutions for desktops, rich Internet applications and mobile devices.

The workshop on 28 November will focus on the realisations of the AEGIS (Open Accessibility Everywhere: Groundwork, Infrastructure, Standards) project and provide attendees the opportunity to try out all outcomes of the project. The demonstrated products offer barrier-free access to desktop, mobile and web applications, are open source based and will be freely available.

The conference on 29-30 November will gather a wide array of experts and users in the area of Assistive Technology to discuss scientific and policy developments in accessible technology; showcase relevant projects and initiatives in the area of assistive technology.

The event is free of charge, and registration is open for everyone, but space is limited. For that reason, registrations will remain pending until you receive a confirmation.

Both events take place at the Diamant Conference and Business Centre, Boulevard A. Reyerslaan 80, 1030 Brussels.

This event comes ahead of the European Day of People with Disabilities that is marked by the European Commission via a policy conference (1-2 December 2011), in close cooperation with the European Disability Forum (EDF).

The Screen Reader software is co-developed by long-time Nokia developer Code Factory who are known for their own screen reader ”Mobile Speak”. They actually made an app before it was possible to make a screen reader on Nokia devices called ”Mobile Accessibility”, so it was a natural choice for Nokia to let Code Factory be the main developer of the new screen reader.

This screen reader will be compatible with 3 devices at launch, the Nokia C5 (5 megapixel version), Nokia 700 and 701 with the Symbian Belle Operating System. The supported languages are, at launch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish.

There are no indications of a Windows Phone 7 implementation of a screen reader.

Nokia’s screen reader will be available before next year and can be freely downloaded via the Nokia Store.

On the Nokia Store there is now an Accessibility section to find apps that can help people with disabilities (e.g. Apps like Vlingo speech recognition that can send SMSes, Twitter messages, etc. with the user’s voice).
Source: AxSLAB

AccessODF

AccessODF is an extension that can be used in OpenOffice.org Writer and in LibreOffice Writer. It enables authors to find and repair accessibility issues in their documents, i.e. issues that make their documents difficult or even impossible to read for people with disabilities. This includes issues such as:

• insufficient colour contrast between text and background,
• missing text alternatives for images and other objects (such text alternatives are necessary for blind users and other users of text-to-speech software),
• missing language identification for the document and for language changes inside the document (language information is needed for conversion into Braille and synthetic speech),
• the use of proper Heading styles instead of big bold text to identify headings (this enables document navigation based on headings),
• the use of proper tables instead of visually mimicking tables by using tabs or spaces,
• the compatibility of images with DAISY, the de-facto standard for digital talking books.

The AccessODF extension displays its list of errors and warnings in a panel next to the main authoring area. For each accessibility issue, AccessODF provides a description and repair suggestions. Authors can repair the issues and recheck the document by pressing the Check button. For some issues, authors can simply press the Repair button to fix the issue automatically. For some other issues, pressing the Repair button guides authors to the appropriate dialog where they can fix the issues themselves. For all remaining issues, they can follow the instructions provided in the repair suggestions. If AccessODF lists an issue that is not an accessibility issue, authors can press the Ignore button.
Making Writer documents more accessible is not only important for users of Writer, but also for users of formats that Writer can export, for example PDF, XHTML, and – through extensions – DAISY and Braille. Accessibility evaluation and repair for Writer documents is a feature frequently requested by users of odt2daisy and odt2braille.

odt2daisy

odt2daisy is an extension that converts Writer documents into digital talking books in the DAISY format. It supports several versions of DAISY: not only the current version – DAISY 3.0 – but also the version DAISY 2.02 for compatibility with older DAISY players. odt2daisy supports Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) and multilingual documents. It uses the text-to-speech engines installed in the user’s operating system for speech synthesis.
odt2daisy was first released in November 2009. The new release includes many small improvements such as:

• better support for tables and table captions,
• better support for long text alternatives (“long descriptions”) for images,
• better support for multilingual documents and non-Western languages,
• preventing the use of incorrect bitrates for text-to-speech conversion,
• better handling of title pages.

Many of these changes resulted from co-operation with a Flemish Braille and DAISY conversion centre.
odt2daisy is available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Linux and can be downloaded from http://odt2daisy.sourceforge.net/.

odt2braille

odt2braille is an extension that converts Writer documents into Braille or prints them on a Braille embosser. odt2braille was first released in August 2010. The new release includes numerous improvements, such as:

• support for a larger number of Braille embossers,
• support for a larger number of languages,
• expanded Braille formatting settings for professional users: volume management, tables, footnotes, pictures, etcetera,
• user interface localisation in other languages, e.g. Czech and Polish.

SourceForge selected odt2braille as “SourceForge Project of the Month” in April 2011: http://sourceforge.net/blog/april-project-of-the-month-odt2braille/. odt2braille can be downloaded from http://odt2braille.sourceforge.net/. At the time of writing, odt2braille is only available on Microsoft Windows. It will later become available as a Debian package prepared by the Debian Accessibility Project (http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-accessibility/). Mac users can try out a limited beta version (which does not have the print functionality, and has only been tested on Mac OS Leopard).

Open-Source Software

AccessODF, odt2braille, odt2daisy and most other software developed in the AEGIS project are or will be available as “open-source software”. This means that users will not only be able to download the finished product but also the programming code or “source code”. They can also modify and improve the source code, provided that they make their changes available to the developers or the community that maintains the software. This process enables a community of users to make improvements to the software and enables these improvements to be quickly available to other users.

About OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice

Several partners in the AEGIS project are making contributions to OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice, including Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), DART and FPD (both from Sweden). The OpenOffice.org Community (http://www.openoffice.org/) is an international team of volunteer and sponsored contributors who develop, translate, support, and promote the leading open source office productivity suite, OpenOffice.org. UNO, OpenOffice.org’s language-independent Application Programming Interface (API) is also available for developers, systems integrators, etcetera to use in OpenOffice.org extensions or in their own applications.
OpenOffice.org uses the OpenDocument Format OASIS Standard (ISO/IEC 26300) as well as supporting legacy file formats such as Microsoft Office, and is available on major computing platforms in over 100 languages. OpenOffice.org software was provided under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) until June 2011 and may be used free of charge for any purpose, private or commercial. OpenOffice.org development is expected to continue at the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under the Apache License.
LibreOffice (http://www.libreoffice.org/) is a free and open-source office suite based on the OpenOffice.org source code. It is a community-driven project of The Document Foundation. The Document Foundation was formed in September 2010 and has released several new versions of LibreOffice since that time. New code in LibreOffice is developed under a double license: the GNU Lesser General Public License Version 3 or any later version (LGPLv3+) and the Mozilla Public License (MPL).

According to the latest statistics, the drop-out rate in education and the unemployment rate of disabled persons is at least twice as high as the rate of able persons and the poverty rate among disabled persons is 70% higher than the average rate. To address this situation, MEPs call on member states and the European Commission to take concrete measures in terms of mobility and social inclusion. They state that a “welcome development” in terms of free movement of persons and barrier-free services would be the introduction of a unified European mobility card for reciprocal recognition of care for people with disabilities. This would allow disabled persons to study, work and travel more freely.

MEPs stress the enormous importance of employment on the ordinary labour market for disabled persons and call on the Commission and the governments of member states to adopt legal and financial measures which truly encourage the employment of disabled persons. Lastly, MEPs encourage the creation of special forms of leave so that parents can take care of their children with disabilities and urge that the commitment shown and the work performed by parents of children with disabilities should be recognised by being counted as professional experience and by being specifically taken into account when old-age pension entitlements are calculated.

This non-legislative resolution, drafted by the chamber’s only deaf MEP, Ádám Kósa (EPP, Hungary), follows from the EU’s 2010-2020 strategy on disability. Adopted in late 2010, this Commission communication provides a framework for European action and includes measures that can be taken at a national level in order to implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. While MEPs welcome this initiative, they regret that the Commission’s communication does not include an integrated gender perspective or a separate chapter on gender-specific disability policies. MEPs recall that the Commission pledged to present a legislative proposal for a European Accessibility Act, and stress the need for strong, binding measures at EU level, with a clear road map. MEPs also call for the adoption of the necessary measures to help the visually impaired to carry out business transactions.
Source: Europolitics

• new developments of ICT in public inclusive services
• models of e-inclusion of digitally excluded Europeans, introducing them to wider social and cultural life, and increasing career opportunities on today’s digitally driven market
• effective models of independent living and security of the elderly, based on innovative and economically feasible e-care and e-health solutions
• overview of the most innovative national and regional e-inclusion programmes, and initiatives, as tools for the implementation of the Digital Agenda for Europe
• importance of the e-Inclusion policy to the delivery of the Digital Agenda for Europe.

The conference ended up with the adoption of a document stressing the priority actions that should be taken by the EU in the immediate future to improve digital literacy and inclusion of all EU citizens – “Gdansk Roadmap for Digital Inclusion”.
To read more and view the presentations, visit the conference website.