TheStar.com: "Who's not online?"

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[...]
   One of Spectrum's latest projects, called Web4All, provides special
   Internet access to the physically disabled. If you are visually
   impaired, you might want a synthesized voice to read the words on the
   screen, for example. Users can save this kind of computing preference
   with the aid of a technician on a Smart Card. Then, the next time they
   come to the computing centre, all they have to do is put their smart
   card in the machine and their preferences are automatically loaded.

   "We have 1,000 smart cards, of which 200 have already been
   distributed," she said.

   People who have trouble reading Carman calls them the "literacy
   challenged can use similar software that will highlight the words on
   screen as they are read aloud.

   "What we are looking at right at the moment are which communities are
   most in need: the literacy challenged, the elderly, the aboriginal and
   the poor. They can be in almost any community in Canada," said Carman.

Received on Monday, 14 July 2003 11:53:23 UTC