[sugar] Re: [oats-sig] OLPC and AT

[Dan Williams]

On Fri, 2006-11-24 at 14:08 +0000, Jonathan Chetwynd wrote:
> It seems that a touchscreen has been rejected by OLPC, though this  
> isn't certain.
> It's hard to understand how the proposed OLPC paint program would be  
> used effectively.

Remember that the touchpad is dual-mode.  It has capacitive and
resistive parts.  The center is both capacitive _and_ resistive, while
the outer parts are resistive only.  That means you can use _any_ hard
object (though not a sharp one!!) like a fingernail or a stick or a
wooden dowel to draw on the large area of the touchpad.  That's the
mechanism that takes the place of a touchscreen display, and one that
also accomodates writing in languages that cannot be correctly
represented on a keyboard (japanese, chinese, thai, etc).

The resistive part also uses absolute positioning, just like a
touchscreen does.

Dan

> Many children and adults with low literacy gain significant skills  
> from drawing rather than typing.
> Similarly there are potential benefits in encouraging development of  
> literacy through trace programs.
> 
> "Chalk" being one attempt to describe the requirements for an  
> improved "Slate"
> http://www.peepo.co.uk/peepo2/authoringTool.html
> 
> regards
> 
> Jonathan Chetwynd
> 
> 
> 
> On 16 Nov 2006, at 11:05, Steve Lee wrote:
> 
> Thanks Henrik, I've had thoughts along those lines myself. The  
> hardware certainly has many of the attributes needed. Flexible  
> mounting and power will be required and perhaps the screen is a  
> little small. Touch screen would be useful for VOCAs. The OSK-ng  
> project should act as a focus for improvements in switch and alt  
> device access that can feed in.
> 
> I caught the end of a Sugar presentation at the Gnome Summit and it  
> looked good. I also felt it has potential as it is simplified (1  
> window at a time), uncluttered, attractive and brings in important  
> social software aspects. Several of us there for the Accessibility  
> Summit felt the demonstrated implementation has minor accessibility  
> issues such as reliance on colour but I'm sure they will get ironed  
> out with attention.
> 
> It could be a really persuasive platform for many AT users.
> Such use might help reduce the order shortfall as well ;-)
> 
> Perhaps the Gnome a11y lists should be in on this as well for GOK,  
> Orca, AT-API etc? (I haven't added to limit cross posting).
>