Posted 09/17/09 at 03:07:19 PM by Jason Barry

Nokia is looking out for its visually impaired cell phone users.  While most blind people have no problem using cell phones—reading text messages presents a challenge.  Short of dynamic polymers to magically create bumps on a touch screen to simulate Braille, it takes some ingenuity to try and solve this problem.

Screen reading software has been around for some time and provides an adequate solution to phone navigation and text messaging.  However, a silent implementation remained out-of-reach until recently.  Nokia Labs developed a solution for its latest touch screen phones that uses a combination of tactile vibration techniques to simulate Braille reading. 

You can (ironically) watch a video of the app in action as well as grab the free download.

Read More

Posted 07/24/09 at 11:00:00 AM by David Murphy

A coalition of some of the biggest names in the OSS world have banded together to create Open Source for America, a brand-new advocacy group that's going to try and highlight the advantages of open-source software to help achieve the goals set out in President Barack Obama's push for an open-data government.  But as we pause to "ooh" and "ahh" at the list of companies and open-source celebrities contributing to the new group--Novell, the Mozilla Foundation, the EFF, Tim O'Reilly, and Mark Shuttleworth, amongst many others--let us not forget the uphill battle that the concept of "openness" tends to face in the government sector.

I just can't find myself getting that excited over open-source software when we still have fundamental issues of transparency and openness in governmental data. There's a wealth of information out there that's free and easily accessible to the public. But that doesn't mean that legislators, agencies, and departments are going out of their way to make this information as useful as it could be.  In fact, it was only as recently as two months ago that the U.S. Senate itself opened up its own voting records for third-party applications and mashups.

Click the jump and put on your safety helmet--we're going data diving!

Read More

Posted 07/16/09 at 02:34:27 PM by David Murphy

With a mighty "yehhh," the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, passed a motion to adopt open standards in its local government this past May.  I find it to be a wonderful development--not just because I write about open source.  Rather, I think that the move is a twofold triumph: It allows governments to free themselves of pricy, proprietary software burdens while simultaneously opening up more areas of government for access by conventional citizens. 

It's no secret that programs like HOST and CRADA are helping the U.S. bring new, open standards of communication and accessibility to the forefront of the discussion.  I'd nevertheless like to see more cities working the answer from a bottom-to-top approach, adopting motions like Vancouver's--or, for that matter, using Vancouver's exact template--to call for the integration of open-source ideas and programs wherever possible in local government.

It's not an idle dream, as various cities in the United States have already started to dip their toes into open waters.  If our brethren to the north can take the plunge into open source sans hesitation, why not us as well?

Click the jump to learn more about Vancouver's open initiative!

Read More