Abhivyakti

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) has released the new version (version 0.1.2) of GNU/Linux distribution for CognitivelyChallenged . Cognitively challenged people face different kinds of problems such as memory loss, forgetfulness, attention problems etc. Therefore, the major objective of this distribution is to provide an accessible desktop environment suitable to such users. The major highlights of this distribution are simplified and accessible desktop environment, simplified applications, tagged file system, tag-based searching, user’s activity log, reminder facility etc. that are specifically aimed to reduce distraction and memory load during computer interaction. These salient features of the distribution can be of immense help to such users and their caretakers, while using computer. This distribution is based on Ubuntu 10.04 and offers a number of improvements/enhancements over previously released version (version 0.1.1). These improvements/enha...

ALViC- Accessible Linux for Visually Challenged was launched on 11th February, 2013 by Prof R. Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India & Shri J. Satyanarayana, Secretary, DeitY, Ministry of Comm. & I.T., Govt. of India during the CDAC Technology Conclave on 11th Feb, 2013 at Indian Habitat Centre, New Delhi. During the 2-days technology conclave, a number of technologies and products developed by CDAC under various thematic area were showcased. ALViC is a complete desktop environment which provides a comprehensive solution for Visually Challenged users. This is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Ubuntu 10.04; and uses Orca 3.2.0 xdesktop screen reader as the main interaction mechanism for visually challenged users. They can use it out of the box because accessibility features suitable for fully blind as well as for partially blind users are enabled by default. Main Features : Free and open source desktop environment Enhanced Orca with ski...

RPM package of GEM (GEstures with Mouse) has been released. GEM (GEstures with Mouse) is a mouse-gesture based input mechanism developed by CDAC, Mumbai for people with motor disabilities. It can be downloaded now from http://sourceforge.net/projects/gem-cdac/files/gem-0.1-1.i686.rpm/download or from http://www.cdacmumbai.in/accessibility.

CDAC, Mumbai has announced the new release of open source predictive text entry system - Anumaan . This release includes new version of standalone flavour of Anumaan i.e. Anumaan-standalone-0.2. This version has been released as part of the activities of project "Enhancing Accessibility for FOSS Desktops" under NRCFOSS-Phase II being carried out at CDAC, Mumbai. Anumaan gives predictions based on preceding text/words used by the user in his/her text and user can use these predictions, while composing text. By incorporating predictions, user can improve his/her rate of text entry to a great extent. Anumaan is mainly intended to help persons with motor disabilities, specially ones facing problems in hand and finger movement. Such persons face difficulty in using regular input devices like keyboard for text entry related tasks. Anumaan can help such persons immensely in their text entry related tasks by way of predictions. However, It is equally useful for com...

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), Mumbai has released beta versions of GNU/Linux distributions for Differently-abled people. These distributions are part of the activities being carried out under “ Enhancing Accessibility for FOSS Desktops ” project under NRCFOSS-Phase II at CDAC, Mumbai . There are three distributions specific to three different kinds of disabilities namely: 1. GNU/Linux distribution for Visually-challenged: This is a GNU/Linux distribution (beta version – 0.1.1) created specially for visually challenged users. Visually challenged users can use it out of the box because accessibility settings required by them are already enabled. 2. GNU/Linux distribution for Physically-challenged: ‘ GNU/Linux for Physically Challenged-Beta-0.1.1′ is a special distribution for physically challenged people, so that they can easily access FOSS desktops. 3. GNU/Linux distribution for Cognitively-challenged: This GNU/Linux distribution has...

CDAC, Mumbai has released beta-0.1 version of GEM (GEstures with Mouse). It is an open source input mechanism which uses gestures as input to the system. Gestures can be drawn using a mouse or some equivalent device like touch pad, joystick, pen tablet etc. Gestures can drawn either as single-part (continuous) or multi-part (discontinuous) as shown in screen shots below: Drawing a single-part gesture in input window Drawing a multi-part gesture in input window This Input mechanism is intended for people suffering with different kinds of motor disabilities, who may face problems in using mouse and keyboard in conventional way. Hence, it provides them with an alternate and effective mechanism for using the system to perform various tasks such as navigation, executing commands & keyboard shortcuts, and launching applications etc. on Linux desktop. More details about GEM can be accessed at http://www.cdacmumbai.in/accessibility . GEM related URLs: 1...

In today’s world, the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) is growing day by day. We use these technologies very extensively in fulfilling our routine tasks like bill payments, banking transactions, reservations and many more to the extent that ICT is not a luxury, but necessity today. A large section of the society comprising people with disabilities finds it difficult to use ICT in the same way as normal people do. This includes the visually impaired (fully or partially blind), hearing impaired, people with cognitive disabilities (memory loss, etc.) and cerebral problems etc.. Such people have to be provided with different kinds of assistive technologies either software-based or hardware-based to make ICT accessible to them. A large number of software-based assistive technologies are normally in the form of applications running on desktops which make common desktop applications (office applications, browser etc.) accessible for the disabled person. Fr...

Many softwares have been developed for adopting technology in education for resource availability, sharing, and access to them even after school/college hours. There have also been developments aimed to ease other educational activities like course enrollment, conduct of examination from setting question papers to correcting answers and displaying results. Such softwares are available in the market in both forms proprietary and open source. Unlike the proprietary softwares, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) alternatives are free of cost, source code is available with the software, and the institution has freedom to modify the source code to customize the software as per requirement. For modification and maintenance the institution has full freedom to develop the required skills in-house with the help of faculties and system admin staff or they can choose to hire external help. However, one of the problems is there are many FOSS tools available and a novice institution/...

Today Anumaan (alpha-0.1 version) has been released by C-DAC, Mumbai as a part of its activities and commitment in the area of accessibility. Anumaan is a perspective-based, on-screen predictive text entry system for GNOME desktop. Basically, it is an extension of an Input Method (IM) mechanism (on GNOME desktop) in the sense that it extends its (IM) notion by including the power of text prediction. It has support for UTF-8 unicode encoding. The system allows users to train it and personalize and as per their writing style into different named domains. Hence, it adapts to user's writing style in some sense. Although, the current version does not support live mode adaptation, still a user can train a domain as many times he likes. Anumaan is designed for a (text) sequence prediction based on a certain Context.The context can either be a partial word context or a partial sentence context. Therefore, it is intended to help people suffering from different kinds of motor disability by...