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5 Apps: The best camera apps for blind and visually impaired iPhone users
After yesterday's post showing Tommy Edison's video demo of Instagram from a blind user's perspective, we thought it would be helpful to check with an expert and get some suggestions on other camera-centric apps for blind iPhone users. Today's 5 Apps guest post is from Chancey Fleet, an adaptive technology instructor at Jewish Guild Healthcare. -- Ed. With the right apps, the iPhone's camera solves a slew of problems that blind people have traditionally relied on bulky, single-use devices to handle. For the vexatious wad of unidentified cash in a pocket, purse or wallet, there's LookTel MoneyReader. This US$9.99 app uses object-recognition technology and the iPhone's bright LED flash to recognize currency almost instantaneously, even in low light or in a moving car. MoneyReader is savvy enough to recognize several different countries' bills, including the US Dollar, Euro, British Pound, Canadian Dollar and Australian Dollar. Object recognition is also at the core of OMoby, which is designed as a visual search engine for products. This app excels at identifying tiny, identical-feeling toiletries; sugar packets; and, if you get your hand in the frame, "hand." OMoby is a free app, serving as a technology demo for the IQ Engines "visual intelligence" search API for developers. Any blind person will tell you that rumors about the death of hard-copy print are exaggerated: from restaurant checks to office memos, there's still plenty. Blindsight's TextDetective captures document images and turns them into plain text, which can be read with Voiceover using speech output or Braille. The process takes only seconds and provides great results if you have a clearly printed document, good lighting conditions and a steady hand. (The first "reading machine," created in 1976 by legendary inventor and new Google staffer Ray Kurzweil, cost $50,000 and weighed 350 pounds. TextDetective costs $9.99. iPhone not included.) Although several apps are purported to identify colors, they do a mediocre job compared to standalone devices like the ColorTest, which occlude all light around the object being tested, report patterns by playing fluctuating tones and recognize hundreds of shades. Trying to sort laundry? Digit-Eyes updates the classic strategy of labeling clothes. Traditionalists do this with anything from safety pins to metal Braille tags: Nancy Miracle, Digit-Eyes's designer, suggests you do it with washable bar codes, which cue the Digit-Eyes app to play back an audio recording or text note you've made that corresponds to the specific code for each item. The $19.99 Digit-Eyes app also looks up commercial bar code information, complete with package directions and nutrition facts; it also allows a user to print QR codes with embedded text. For blind workers who need a serious tool for fast and accurate inventory management, Ms. Miracle has helpfully reviewed two Bluetooth laser scanners from Serial-IO that read bar codes more quickly and in more diverse lighting conditions than does the iPhone camera. [We reviewed Digit-Eyes on TUAW in 2010. –Ed.] No matter how much technology you have, it's a fact of life: sometimes, you just need to borrow a pair of functioning eyeballs. VizWiz can help with that. Simply take a photo, type or speak a question, and a web volunteer will get back to you -- usually within minutes -- with an answer. You can also opt to post your picture and question to Facebook, if you dare. You can read more about Chancey and her experience of navigating New York City in this feature story on WNYC.
Call for Submissions: 3 fresh ideas for world PvP events
What was the best world PvP event you've ever enjoyed? Was it a cross-faction event? Did players from other realms join in? Was there an element of surprise for the other faction? Was it, perhaps, a more peaceful type of party? And now, what if you were in charge of designing and organizing a world PvP event ... what would it be like? WoW.com is accepting article submissions describing three fresh ideas for organized world PvP events. Submissions should be between 750 and 1,000 words. We will not accept articles submitted under player names or pen names; please use your real name and email. Artwork is not mandatory, but any you choose to include must be your own work or from creative commons.
Call for submissions: Top tips for tanks
That's right, hopeful writers -- we're back again for what's becoming a weekly call for article submissions. We're enjoying your articles so much that we're opening up a slot each week for an outstanding submission via Seed, Aol's guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. This week, we're looking for your top 10 tips for tanks. What's your spin on this topic -- can you tell us the most important things to that tanks should know, or perhaps the handiest little-known tricks used by experienced tanks? Maybe you have tricks and tips to calm the nervous first-time tank, or perhaps you've collected some obscure strategies applicable only to the hardest of the hardcore. Whatever your angle is, it should provide a top 10 list worthy of bookmarking; we'll only be accepting the very best article. Submissions should be between 500 and 1,000 words. Art work is not mandatory, but should you choose to include a screenshot, please make sure that it is your own work or from creative commons; images should be 580 pixels wide and between 175 and 350 pixels high. Ready to submit? Read up about the Seed program, sign up and then submit your article here (you can't see the article page unless you have a Seed account). Unfortunately, we are currently only able to take submissions from individuals living in the United States; we hope to be able to accept international submissions in the future. We'll accept submissions for this assignment until 11:59 p.m. EST on Thursday, May 27.
WoW.com Guest Post: Creating lore-based characters that aren't Mary Sues
Anna writes about roleplaying, healing, raiding and creative writing over at her blog, Too Many Annas. One of the most frequent criticisms leveled at any kind of roleplay or fan-written fiction is the presence of the dreaded Mary Sue. If you're not familiar with the term, a Mary Sue is a character who is overly idealized, has few or no actual flaws and functions as a wish-fulfillment or fantasy for the author. In WoW, this type of character is also frequently tied to major lore figures – the stereotypical lovechild of Thrall and Jaina (or some other such invented tie to a major character). Unfortunately, sometimes this turns into an avoidance of all lore information in an attempt to not make the character Sue-ish. In a world like Azeroth that has a lot of really well developed lore, that can result in characters who are dangerously ambiguous and don't have any connection or history. So how do you write a lore-based character without toeing the Mary Sue line?
Call for Posts: Guide to Frozen Orbs in patch 3.3.3
One of the great things about patch 3.3.3 is the new uses for frozen orbs, and WoW.com is looking for a guide that helps World of Warcraft players determine what the best ways to use them are. We're soliciting for this guide through Aol's Seed program, the same system that's brought you all the guest posts you've been seeing around the site lately. The successful guide will include the following: A clear list/table of items that Frozen Orbs can be used to help create via purchased Runed Orbs or Crusader Orbs A clear list/table of what Frozo the Renowned sells Analysis on why certain items from the above two lists are better than others Links to previous WoW.com articles on Frozen Orbs and patch 3.3.3 information Linking items to Wowhead when appropriate A successful guide will be between 750 and 1,500 words in length and contain appropriate media elements. In order to submit your guide, you'll need to sign up for Aol's Seed program, and then visit the project page for this guide. If your guide is selected to be published, we'll pay you $50. This is a different kind of guest post request than we've normally done -- but we think it'd be fun to see what kind of guides you all can come up with! If you have additional questions, ask them in the comments or email seed@wow.com and an editor will get back to you. Good luck!
Call for posts: Upcoming Cataclysm Class Changes
Unless you've been living under a rock you know that Blizzard is getting set for a major Cataclysm info dump over the next week. This kind of information sparks a lot of comments and intelligent discussion, and WoW.com wants to feature it prominently. To that end, we're looking for short guest posts on what you think about the changes to your class. We're going to operate this guest posting opportunity much like we did our BlizzCon 2010 opinions. Write a paragraph or two, sign up for Seed, and then go and submit it on the Seed project page. If it's something we like we'll post it and you'll get paid $10! Easy and awesome. You can find out more about the guest writer program in our announcement post and at our Contributing to WoW.com page. A couple things to note: If you write a really great comment here, feel free to submit it through our Seed page too! No penalty for leaving a comment and submitting it through Seed. We're expecting to get a ton of submissions for this, so we're not going to be able to publish all the great thoughts and opinions we get, even though we want to. If you'd like you can include a short bio about yourself, things like your character name, guild, server, blog, etc... Totally optional, though. The sooner you get these in the better! We'll be publishing our first batch of guest posts in the next day or so, and will continue to do so every couple days for the next week or so. This project closes on April 19th at 11:59 p.m. EST. We hope that you all keep this in the back of your mind in the next few days as all this info gets released. So many of you know this game so well, we're excited to be able to feature your knowledge and opinions to the masses! If you have any questions, just leave a comment here or email seed@wow.com and we'll get back to you. Edit: Please note, this submission should be based off the upcoming Cataclysm class changes, released April 7th through April 16th.
WoW.com Guest Post: What Cataclysm might mean for guild alliances
In this installment of WoW.com's ongoing guest post program, we welcome Nico Deyo. Nico is a sometimes mage blogger and all-around nice gal who writes at Empowered Fire. It's no secret that Blizzard is going to be changing the face of guilds in Cataclysm with guild talents, perks from being a collective entity, and rewards for using their new tools. While this benefits the majority of groups, what about those who have created something outside of the standard? They might not be a large chunk of the WoW playing population, but for the people who raid and socialize differently than the average player, the systems raise some new and troubling questions. Blizzard's particular idea of a guild is becoming the predominant social unit in Cataclysm, and those who don't fit into it might be all but left in the dust when it comes to new mechanics and rewards. So who doesn't fit? I'm talking about two groups, mostly -- guild collectives/coalitions (several guilds who have banded together for a common purpose) or raid alliances (a very specific coalition or mixed group of people formed into a team for content). Both are two structures that have emerged socially and pragmatically to fill gaps that the traditional guild structures of yore haven't met.
Call for Posts: What I want to see at BlizzCon 2010
Last week we did a test run of our Guest Writer program asking our Twitter followers to write an article giving five tips to DPSers running random heroics. Our test run was a success (the winning article will be published later this week), and we're now ready to begin allowing everyone to have the chance to become a Guest Writer on WoW.com! WoW.com runs the program through Aol's Seed. You can find out more about the program in our announcement post about the Guest Writer program, and at our newly re-vamped Contributing to WoW.com page. This week we're looking for contributions from writers telling us what they want to see at BlizzCon 2010. We're looking for between 75 and 150 words, and we'll select 3 to 7 entries for publication on WoW.com. If your entry is selected, you'll be paid $10 through Seed. Last week we found out that BlizzCon could be returning to the Anaheim Convention Center and that Jay Mohr is hosting again. In order to get started read up about the program, sign up, and then submit your paragraph over on the article page (you can't see the article page unless you have a Seed account). We are accepting submissions until 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday February 14th. Please follow all instructions exactly. US residents only right now, although we're told our international friends will be able to submit work through Seed soon. Good luck!
The new WoW.com Guest Writer program
You may be seeing some new names on the site soon, but don't be alarmed! In addition to the new columnists who have recently joined us, we also are starting a new Guest Writer program through Aol's Seed.com. Seed is new site designed to allow writers submit work for publication on many of the blogs Aol owns, in this case, WoW.com. (If you are interested in potentially writing for this or any other Aol site, I encourage you to set up your Seed.com account now. Seed only works for USA based writers and your real name will appear on our site.) We're going to be using Seed in a couple of different ways: We'll be tapping WoW writers around the internet to write specific posts for us. In fact, you will see two this week: one from Chris Dinwiddie (aka Graylo of Gray Matter) and another from Richard Powell (founder of the LoreCrafted blog). We'll occasionally call out for anyone to contribute on specific topics and pick the best for publication. You may have noticed us doing one of these already! Our recent call out for tips on running random heroics received dozens of submissions and we're going through them now. For any future opportunities, keep an eye on the site or our Twitter feed -- we're aiming to call out for your content once or twice a week. And in the meantime? Don't panic if you see unfamiliar names on the site -- after all, the next name could be yours! To be crystal clear: we now have two ways of hiring writers. We still have the old way where we can contract writers regardless of the where they live for regular, long term writing on the site and we have this new way which we use when we only want to use a writer once or irregularly. This new way, unfortunately, is limited to writers in the U.S. The geographical restrictions for Seed submissions are unfortunate, but out of our control. If it changes, we will let you know.
Inside view of the iPhone Tech Talks from Daniel Jalkut
The following is a guest post from developer Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater. Daniel recently attended an Apple iPhone Tech Talk, and came away inspired. He's also been gracious enough to share his experience on TUAW. Apple's Technology Evangelists have spent the last 3 months touring the USA, Europe and Asia with advice on how to best take advantage of the iPhone's technologies. According to Daniel, it's a fantastic event. --Ed. Apple's iPhone tech talks are incredible. The format consists of instructional presentations akin to what developers would find at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC). But while WWDC lasts an entire week, tech talks are limited to a single day of sessions which Apple takes on the road, presenting in hotel conference rooms around the world. On December 1, I attended the New York City tech talk, at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. The event attracted developers from all over the northeast of the United States (and beyond), because the number of cities Apple takes the tour to is pretty limited. Many folks traveling to New York City end up paying quite a bit for travel and lodging expenses, but that is greatly offset by another impressive aspect of the talks: they are completely free. Developers have to sign up early and then hope for acceptance, but if you're admitted, the entire thing is paid for including lunch, snacks and a wine reception at the end of the day. Very classy, Apple.
