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Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

vincit.fi

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Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#61

Post by kzisme »

Justsignedup wrote: post #58

450 wpm. I can't even descipher 2 words out of that. It is amazing if he can understand that fast. Did his brain just rewire the visual cortex to process audio? Makes me wonder what a human would be with double the neurons in the brain.

I read the article without listening to the provided clips and WOW. I'm not sure how people manage that.

For anyone interested in UI/UX design for blind people Kevin Jones did a talk on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHBuQLNIs1c

https://twitter.com/kevinrj?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%...

He also has done some really cool stuff with the BrainPort: http://www.channel3000.com/news/local-news/madison-made-devi...

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#62

Post by adisinom »

tyingq wrote: post #25

I was curious about the braille display mentioned, so I had a look: https://www.google.com/search?q=braille+display&source=lnms&... These things are priced from $1k up to $12k. I understand it's complicated since there are tons of actuated pins needed, but wow.

They're actuated by piezoelectric strips. The PZT ceramic is low power and robust, but heavy-ish (lead), large-ish, and shockingly expensive.

History: https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm00/bm0001/bm000...

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#63

Post by SwellJoe »

wildpeaks wrote: post #49

On a related note, I wish Youtube had an option to play a video faster than 2X (other then downloading the video to play in a local viewer like VLC). Even as a sighted individual, listening to conference talks at high speed is convenient (and you can still pause if you want to look deeper into something).

Yeah, I love the speed option on Youtube, but it often could go faster. Though I usually end up watching at 1.5x because when I'm watching coding tutorial videos, I can't type fast enough and also process what I'm hearing/seeing to be able to keep up at 2x.

I tried understanding the reader in the article and found I could only catch about every third or fourth word, even though I do often watch videos at 2x (and I did actually used to use VLC for speeding up videos in the pre-YouTube speed option days). I'd need a lot more practice to grok speech at that speed.

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#64

Post by thethirdone »

Justsignedup wrote: post #58

450 wpm. I can't even descipher 2 words out of that. It is amazing if he can understand that fast. Did his brain just rewire the visual cortex to process audio? Makes me wonder what a human would be with double the neurons in the brain.

I was able to understand it reasonably well. I could understand it about as well as normal Spanish speaking (I took a few years of Spanish in high school); I can pick out the verbs, some nouns and guess the rest. With practice, I think I could understand it perfectly.

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#65

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

ender89 wrote: post #56

I would totally put a screen on his desk hooked up to a separate computer that just displays nonsense so that people who don't know that he's blind think he's just hanging out in the office watching the entirety of strawberry shortcake or something.

Yeah or the front page of HN.

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#66

Post by phonon »

chrisa wrote: post #52
wildpeaks wrote: post #49

On a related note, I wish Youtube had an option to play a video faster than 2X (other then downloading the video to play in a local viewer like VLC). Even as a sighted individual, listening to conference talks at high speed is convenient (and you can still pause if you want to look deeper into something).

There's a chrome plugin called video speed controller that can speed up any html5 video (including YouTube, vimeo, etc) to whatever speed you want. It's great!

Yup! Shortcuts in it are super handy.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-contro...

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#67

Post by christiangenco »

Justsignedup wrote: post #58

450 wpm. I can't even descipher 2 words out of that. It is amazing if he can understand that fast. Did his brain just rewire the visual cortex to process audio? Makes me wonder what a human would be with double the neurons in the brain.

I've been making a habit of listening to audiobooks, podcasts, and YouTube videos at increasingly faster speeds, and after listening to the clip two or three times can understand about 80% of it. My comprehension problem with it right now is the style of the voice, not the speed it's talking.

Like anything, I think understanding this computer voice at 450 wpm is a skill anyone could learn with practice.

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#68

Post by sushisource »

Justsignedup wrote: post #58

450 wpm. I can't even descipher 2 words out of that. It is amazing if he can understand that fast. Did his brain just rewire the visual cortex to process audio? Makes me wonder what a human would be with double the neurons in the brain.

There's an episode of TNG with aliens called "Binars" and their speech sounds exactly like the screen reader. It always amazes me how prescient TNG was sometimes (although accidentally in this case)

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/11001001_(episode)

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#69

Post by srean »

Justsignedup wrote: post #58

450 wpm. I can't even descipher 2 words out of that. It is amazing if he can understand that fast. Did his brain just rewire the visual cortex to process audio? Makes me wonder what a human would be with double the neurons in the brain.

Your comment provoked the intriguing thought that a visually impaired, hacker marine-biologist might be the demographics thats better prepared to understand orcas

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#70

Post by ctoth »

yorwba wrote: post #11
nerdponx wrote: post #3

What about Notepad++ makes it work with screen readers while Sublime and Atom don't?

From https://notepad-plus-plus.org/ ..., Notepad++ is written in C++ and uses pure Win32 API and STL which ensures a higher execution speed and smaller program size. And which lets it piggy-back on Windows' accessibility features, which seem to be quite good. I guess Sublime Text and Atom draw their own GUIs to get more control over the look-and-feel, but don't add the necessary hints to make screen readers work.

See, for instance, https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/2504
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