Thursday, February 28, 2013

GMaps: Google Maps On The Emacspeak Desktop

GMaps: A Google Maps Client For The Emacspeak Desktop

1 GMaps: A Google Maps Client For The Emacspeak Desktop

Google Maps provides a powerful service-oriented Directions API and an experimental Places API. module GMaps (part of g-client) implements a new specialized interaction mode that lets you quickly get directions and perform Map searches.

1.1 Overview

Module GMaps is now in the Emacspeak svn repository and will be part of the next Emacspeak release. If you are running from SVN, you can start using GMaps today after updating; make sure to

 
make config; make

before trying to use it.

1.1.1 Usage:

Run command M-x gmaps to bring up the maps interaction buffer. This buffer provides many special commands for talking to Google Maps – use C-h b in emacs to get a list of key-bindings. Here is a brief summary of how things work:

You can get directions (walking, driving, by cycling, or public transit) via keystrokes w, d, b, or t. These commands prompt for start and end addresses.
You can set your current location by hitting c — ; this will be used for Places Search.
You can specify the radius for Places Search by pressing r and specifying the radius e.g. 500 for 500m.
You can set up an optional filter for your Places Search by pressing f.
Pressing n at this point will show you places in your vicinity that match your filter criteria.
Pressing 'space' on a Place displays details for that place.
Place details when expanded provide buttons that link you to hours-of-business, Web-site for that place, and the place's G+ page if any.

Note that module GMaps replaces the now obsolete Emapspeak functionality that has been available on C-e?e since early 2005.

Date: 2013-02-28 Thu

Author: T.V Raman

Org version 7.9.3d with Emacs version 24

Validate XHTML 1.0

Friday, December 21, 2012

Emacspeak 37.0 (SolidDog) Unleashed

Emacspeak 37.0—SolidDog—Unleashed!

1 Emacspeak-37.0 (SolidDog) Unleashed!

1.1 For Immediate Release:

San Jose, Calif., (December 21, 2012) Emacspeak: Redefining Accessibility In The Era Of Cloud Computing –Zero cost of upgrades/downgrades makes priceless software affordable!

Emacspeak Inc (NASDOG: ESPK) --http://emacspeak.sf.net-- announces the immediate world-wide availability of Emacspeak 37.0 (SolidDog) –a powerful audio desktop for leveraging today's evolving data, social and service-oriented Web cloud.

1.2 Investors Note:

With several prominent tweeters expanding coverage of #emacspeak, NASDOG: ESPK has now been consistently trading over the net at levels close to that once attained by DogCom high-fliers—and as of October 2009 is trading at levels close to that achieved by once better known stocks in the tech sector.

1.3 What Is It?

Emacspeak is a fully functional audio desktop that provides complete eyes-free access to all major 32 and 64 bit operating environments. By seamlessly blending live access to all aspects of the Internet such as Web-surfing, blogging, social computing and electronic messaging into the audio desktop, Emacspeak enables speech access to local and remote information with a consistent and well-integrated user interface. A rich suite of task-oriented tools provides efficient speech-enabled access to the evolving service-oriented social Web cloud.

1.4 Major Enhancements:

Full EPub support: 📑
Websearch enhancements and wizards: 🐚
Updated support git interaction via magit: ℣
Speech-enables module Kite for debugging Web Apps in Chrome ⛳
TTS enhancements: 🙊
Updated url templates for task-oriented web actions: ♅
SSH port forwarding support for TTS servers🔉
Tested against Emacs 23 on stock Ubuntu Lucid..Precise.
Emacs 24 Support Updated support for the forthcoming Emacs 24 release.

Plus many more changes too numerous to fit in this margin ∞

1.5 Establishing Liberty, Equality And Freedom:

Never a toy system, Emacspeak is voluntarily bundled with all major Linux distributions. Though designed to be modular, distributors have freely chosen to bundle the fully integrated system without any undue pressure—a documented success for the integrated innovation embodied by Emacspeak. As the system evolves, both upgrades and downgrades continue to be available at the same zero-cost to all users. The integrity of the Emacspeak codebase is ensured by the reliable and secure Linux platform used to develop and distribute the software.

Extensive studies have shown that thanks to these features, users consider Emacspeak to be absolutely priceless. Thanks to this wide-spread user demand, the present version remains priceless as ever—it is being made available at the same zero-cost as previous releases.

At the same time, Emacspeak continues to innovate in the area of eyes-free social interaction and carries forward the well-established Open Source tradition of introducing user interface features that eventually show up in luser environments.

On this theme, when once challenged by a proponent of a crash-prone but well-marketed mousetrap with the assertion "Emacs is a system from the 70's", the creator of Emacspeak evinced surprise at the unusual candor manifest in the assertion that it would take popular idiot-proven interfaces until the year 2070 to catch up to where the Emacspeak audio desktop is today. Industry experts welcomed this refreshing breath of Courage Certainty and Clarity (CCC) at a time when users are reeling from the Fear Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) unleashed by complex software systems backed by even more convoluted press releases.

1.6 Independent Test Results:

Independent test results have proven that unlike some modern (and not so modern) software, Emacspeak can be safely uninstalled without adversely affecting the continued performance of the computer. These same tests also revealed that once uninstalled, the user stopped functioning altogether. Speaking with Aster Labrador, the creator of Emacspeak once pointed out that these results re-emphasize the user-centric design of Emacspeak; "It is the user –and not the computer– that stops functioning when Emacspeak is uninstalled!".

1.6.1 Note from Aster,Bubbles and Tilden:

UnDoctored Videos Inc. is looking for volunteers to star in a video demonstrating such complete user failure.

1.7 Obtaining Emacspeak:

Emacspeak can be downloaded from Google Code Hosting –see http://code.google.com/p/emacspeak/ You can visit Emacspeak on the WWW at http://emacspeak.sf.net. You can subscribe to the emacspeak mailing list emacspeak@cs.vassar.edu by sending mail to the list request address emacspeak-request@cs.vassar.edu. The HeadDog release is at http://emacspeak.googlecode.com/files/emacspeak-35.0.tar.bz2. The latest development snapshot of Emacspeak is available via Subversion from Google Code Hosting at http://emacspeak.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/

1.8 History:

Emacspeak 37.0 continues the tradition of delivering robust software as reflected by its code-name. Emacspeak 36.0 enhances the audio desktop with many new tools including full EPub support — hence the name EPubDog. Emacspeak 35.0 is all about teaching a new dog old tricks — and is aptly code-named HeadDog in honor of our new Press/Analyst contact. emacspeak-34.0 (AKA Bubbles) established a new beach-head with respect to rapid task completion in an eyes-free environment. Emacspeak-33.0 AKA StarDog brings unparalleled cloud access to the audio desktop. Emacspeak 32.0 AKA LuckyDog continues to innovate via open technologies for better access. Emacspeak 31.0 AKA TweetDog — adds tweeting to the Emacspeak desktop. Emacspeak 30.0 AKA SocialDog brings the Social Web to the audio desktop—you cant but be social if you speak! Emacspeak 29.0—AKAAbleDog—is a testament to the resilliance and innovation embodied by Open Source software—it would not exist without the thriving Emacs community that continues to ensure that Emacs remains one of the premier user environments despite perhaps also being one of the oldest. Emacspeak 28.0—AKA PuppyDog—exemplifies the rapid pace of development evinced by Open Source software. Emacspeak 27.0—AKA FastDog—is the latest in a sequence of upgrades that make previous releases obsolete and downgrades unnecessary. Emacspeak 26—AKA LeadDog—continues the tradition of introducing innovative access solutions that are unfettered by the constraints inherent in traditional adaptive technologies. Emacspeak 25 —AKA ActiveDog —re-activates open, unfettered access to online information. Emacspeak-Alive —AKA LiveDog —enlivens open, unfettered information access with a series of live updates that once again demonstrate the power and agility of open source software development. Emacspeak 23.0 – AKA Retriever—went the extra mile in fetching full access. Emacspeak 22.0 —AKA GuideDog —helps users navigate the Web more effectively than ever before. Emacspeak 21.0 —AKA PlayDog —continued the Emacspeak tradition of relying on enhanced productivity to liberate users. Emacspeak-20.0 —AKA LeapDog —continues the long established GNU/Emacs tradition of integrated innovation to create a pleasurable computing environment for eyes-free interaction. emacspeak-19.0 –AKA WorkDog– is designed to enhance user productivity at work and leisure. Emacspeak-18.0 –code named GoodDog– continued the Emacspeak tradition of enhancing user productivity and thereby reducing total cost of ownership. Emacspeak-17.0 –code named HappyDog– enhances user productivity by exploiting today's evolving WWW standards. Emacspeak-16.0 –code named CleverDog– the follow-up to SmartDog– continued the tradition of working better, faster, smarter. Emacspeak-15.0 –code named SmartDog–followed up on TopDog as the next in a continuing a series of award-winning audio desktop releases from Emacspeak Inc. Emacspeak-14.0 –code named TopDog–was the first release of this millennium. Emacspeak-13.0 –codenamed YellowLab– was the closing release of the 20th. century. Emacspeak-12.0 –code named GoldenDog– began leveraging the evolving semantic WWW to provide task-oriented speech access to Webformation. Emacspeak-11.0 –code named Aster– went the final step in making Linux a zero-cost Internet access solution for blind and visually impaired users. Emacspeak-10.0 –(AKA Emacspeak-2000) code named WonderDog– continued the tradition of award-winning software releases designed to make eyes-free computing a productive and pleasurable experience. Emacspeak-9.0 –(AKA Emacspeak 99) code named BlackLab– continued to innovate in the areas of speech interaction and interactive accessibility. Emacspeak-8.0 –(AKA Emacspeak-98++) code named BlackDog– was a major upgrade to the speech output extension to Emacs.

Emacspeak-95 (code named Illinois) was released as OpenSource on the Internet in May 1995 as the first complete speech interface to UNIX workstations. The subsequent release, Emacspeak-96 (code named Egypt) made available in May 1996 provided significant enhancements to the interface. Emacspeak-97 (Tennessee) went further in providing a true audio desktop. Emacspeak-98 integrated Internetworking into all aspects of the audio desktop to provide the first fully interactive speech-enabled WebTop.

About Emacspeak:

Originally based at Cornell (NY) http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/raman –home to Auditory User Interfaces (AUI) on the WWW– Emacspeak is now maintained on GoogleCode --http://code.google.com/p/emacspeak —and Sourceforge —http://emacspeak.sf.net. The system is mirrored world-wide by an international network of software archives and bundled voluntarily with all major Linux distributions. On Monday, April 12, 1999, Emacspeak became part of the Smithsonian's Permanent Research Collection on Information Technology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

The Emacspeak mailing list is archived at Vassar –the home of the Emacspeak mailing list– thanks to Greg Priest-Dorman, and provides a valuable knowledge base for new users.

2 Press/Analyst Contact: Tilden Labrador

Going forward, Tilden acknowledges his exclusive monopoly on setting the direction of the Emacspeak Audio Desktop, and promises to exercise this freedom to innovate and her resulting power responsibly (as before) in the interest of all dogs.

**About This Release:

Windows-Free (WF) is a favorite battle-cry of The League Against Forced Fenestration (LAFF). –see http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm for details on the ill-effects of Forced Fenestration.

CopyWrite )C( Aster and Hubbell Labrador. All Writes Reserved. HeadDog (DM), LiveDog (DM), GoldenDog (DM), BlackDog (DM) etc., are Registered Dogmarks of Aster, Hubbell and Tilden Labrador. All other dogs belong to their respective owners.

Date: 2012-12-21 11:16:59 PST

Author: T.V Raman

Org version 7.8.11 with Emacs version 24

Validate XHTML 1.0

Thursday, May 03, 2012

Emacspeak 36.0 (EPubDog) Unleashed!

Emacspeak 36.0—EPubDog—Unleashed!

1 Emacspeak-36.0 (EPubDog) Unleashed!

1.1 For Immediate Release:

San Jose, Calif., (May 4, 2011) Emacspeak: Redefining Accessibility In The Era Of Cloud Computing —Zero cost of upgrades/downgrades makes priceless software affordable!

Emacspeak Inc (NASDOG: ESPK) --http://emacspeak.sf.net-- announces the immediate world-wide availability of Emacspeak 36.0 (EPubDog) —a powerful audio desktop for leveraging today's evolving data, social and service-oriented Web cloud.

1.2 Investors Note:

1.3 What Is It?

1.4 Major Enhancements:

Full EPub support: 📑
Websearch enhancements and wizards: 🐚
Speech-enables git interaction via magit: ℣
Speech-enabled support for finding things fast: 🚤
TTS enhancements: 🙊
Updated url templates for task-oriented web actions: ♅
SSH port forwarding support for TTS servers🔉
Updated support for the forthcoming Emacs 24 release.

Plus many more changes too numerous to fit in this margin ∞

1.5 Establishing Liberty, Equality And Freedom:

1.6 Independent Test Results:

Independent test results have proven that unlike some modern (and not so modern) software, Emacspeak can be safely uninstalled without adversely affecting the continued performance of the computer. These same tests also revealed that once uninstalled, the user stopped functioning altogether. Speaking with Aster Labrador, the creator of Emacspeak once pointed out that these results re-emphasize the user-centric design of Emacspeak; "It is the user —and not the computer— that stops functioning when Emacspeak is uninstalled!".

1.6.1 Note from Aster,Bubbles and Tilden:

UnDoctored Videos Inc. is looking for volunteers to star in a video demonstrating such complete user failure.

1.7 Obtaining Emacspeak:

Emacspeak can be downloaded from Google Code Hosting —see http://code.google.com/p/emacspeak/ You can visit Emacspeak on the WWW at http://emacspeak.sf.net. You can subscribe to the emacspeak mailing list emacspeak@cs.vassar.edu by sending mail to the list request address emacspeak-request@cs.vassar.edu. The EPubDog release is at http://emacspeak.googlecode.com/files/emacspeak-35.0.tar.bz2. The latest development snapshot of Emacspeak is available via Subversion from Google Code Hosting at http://emacspeak.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/

1.8 History:

Emacspeak 36.0 enhances the audio desktop with many new tools including full EPub support — hence the name EPubDog. Emacspeak 35.0 is all about teaching a new dog old tricks — and is aptly code-named HeadDog in honor of our new Press/Analyst contact. emacspeak-34.0 (AKA Bubbles) established a new beach-head with respect to rapid task completion in an eyes-free environment. Emacspeak-33.0 AKA StarDog brings unparalleled cloud access to the audio desktop. Emacspeak 32.0 AKA LuckyDog continues to innovate via open technologies for better access. Emacspeak 31.0 AKA TweetDog — adds tweeting to the Emacspeak desktop. Emacspeak 30.0 AKA SocialDog brings the Social Web to the audio desktop—you cant but be social if you speak! Emacspeak 29.0—AKAAbleDog—is a testament to the resilliance and innovation embodied by Open Source software—it would not exist without the thriving Emacs community that continues to ensure that Emacs remains one of the premier user environments despite perhaps also being one of the oldest. Emacspeak 28.0—AKA PuppyDog—exemplifies the rapid pace of development evinced by Open Source software. Emacspeak 27.0—AKA FastDog—is the latest in a sequence of upgrades that make previous releases obsolete and downgrades unnecessary. Emacspeak 26—AKA LeadDog—continues the tradition of introducing innovative access solutions that are unfettered by the constraints inherent in traditional adaptive technologies. Emacspeak 25 —AKA ActiveDog —re-activates open, unfettered access to online information. Emacspeak-Alive —AKA LiveDog —enlivens open, unfettered information access with a series of live updates that once again demonstrate the power and agility of open source software development. Emacspeak 23.0 -- AKA Retriever—went the extra mile in fetching full access. Emacspeak 22.0 —AKA GuideDog —helps users navigate the Web more effectively than ever before. Emacspeak 21.0 —AKA PlayDog —continued the Emacspeak tradition of relying on enhanced productivity to liberate users. Emacspeak-20.0 —AKA LeapDog —continues the long established GNU/Emacs tradition of integrated innovation to create a pleasurable computing environment for eyes-free interaction. emacspeak-19.0 —AKA WorkDog— is designed to enhance user productivity at work and leisure. Emacspeak-18.0 —code named GoodDog— continued the Emacspeak tradition of enhancing user productivity and thereby reducing total cost of ownership. Emacspeak-17.0 —code named HappyDog— enhances user productivity by exploiting today's evolving WWW standards. Emacspeak-16.0 —code named CleverDog— the follow-up to SmartDog— continued the tradition of working better, faster, smarter. Emacspeak-15.0 —code named SmartDog—followed up on TopDog as the next in a continuing a series of award-winning audio desktop releases from Emacspeak Inc. Emacspeak-14.0 —code named TopDog—was the first release of this millennium. Emacspeak-13.0 —codenamed YellowLab— was the closing release of the 20th. century. Emacspeak-12.0 —code named GoldenDog— began leveraging the evolving semantic WWW to provide task-oriented speech access to Webformation. Emacspeak-11.0 —code named Aster— went the final step in making Linux a zero-cost Internet access solution for blind and visually impaired users. Emacspeak-10.0 —(AKA Emacspeak-2000) code named WonderDog— continued the tradition of award-winning software releases designed to make eyes-free computing a productive and pleasurable experience. Emacspeak-9.0 —(AKA Emacspeak 99) code named BlackLab— continued to innovate in the areas of speech interaction and interactive accessibility. Emacspeak-8.0 —(AKA Emacspeak-98++) code named BlackDog— was a major upgrade to the speech output extension to Emacs.

About Emacspeak:

Originally based at Cornell (NY) http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/raman —home to Auditory User Interfaces (AUI) on the WWW— Emacspeak is now maintained on GoogleCode --http://code.google.com/p/emacspeak —and Sourceforge —http://emacspeak.sf.net. The system is mirrored world-wide by an international network of software archives and bundled voluntarily with all major Linux distributions. On Monday, April 12, 1999, Emacspeak became part of the Smithsonian's Permanent Research Collection on Information Technology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

The Emacspeak mailing list is archived at Vassar —the home of the Emacspeak mailing list— thanks to Greg Priest-Dorman, and provides a valuable knowledge base for new users.

2 Press/Analyst Contact: Tilden Labrador

**About This Release:

Windows-Free (WF) is a favorite battle-cry of The League Against Forced Fenestration (LAFF). —see http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm for details on the ill-effects of Forced Fenestration.

Date: 2012-05-02 14:21:43 PDT

Author: T.V Raman

Org version 7.8.09 with Emacs version 24

Validate XHTML 1.0

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Emacspeak 35.0 (HeadDog) Released

Emacspeak 35.0—HeadDog—Unleashed!

1 Emacspeak-35.0 (HeadDog) Unleashed!

1.1 For Immediate Release:

San Jose, Calif., (November 23, 2011) Emacspeak: Redefining Accessibility In The Era Of Cloud Computing –Zero cost of upgrades/downgrades makes priceless software affordable!

Emacspeak Inc (NASDOG: ESPK) --http://emacspeak.sf.net-- announces the immediate world-wide availability of Emacspeak 35.0 (HeadDog) –a powerful audio desktop for leveraging today's evolving data, social and service-oriented Web cloud.

1.2 Investors Note:

1.3 What Is It?

1.4 Major Enhancements:

emacspeak-websearch.el: Improved search wizards including efficient Google search.
emacspeak-epub.el: Preliminary EPub support.
emacspeak-magit.el: Support for git interaction.
emacspeak-pianobar.el: Pandora radio for the Emacspeak desktop.
emacspeak-dbus.el: DBus integration to receive network notifications.
emacspeak-woman.el: Speech-enable Emacs' built-in Man page interface.
Emacspeak-npr.el: API client for NPR interaction.
emacspeak-librivox.el: API Client For Free Audio Books from Librivox.
emacspeak-url-templates: Updated URL templates for efficient Web interaction.
emacspeak-bookshare.el: Bookshare API Client Updated Bookshare client.
servers/mac: Support For Mac TTS
Emacs 24 Support: Updated support for the forthcoming Emacs 24 release.

Plus many more changes too numerous to fit in this margin 󠇿… ∞

1.5 Establishing Liberty, Equality And Freedom:

1.6 Independent Test Results:

1.6.1 Note from Aster,Bubbles and Tilden:

UnDoctored Videos Inc. is looking for volunteers to star in a video demonstrating such complete user failure.

1.7 Obtaining Emacspeak:

Emacspeak can be downloaded from Google Code Hosting –see http://code.google.com/p/emacspeak/ You can visit Emacspeak on the WWW at http://emacspeak.sf.net. You can subscribe to the emacspeak mailing list emacspeak@cs.vassar.edu by sending mail to the list request address emacspeak-request@cs.vassar.edu. The HeadDog release is at http://emacspeak.googlecode.com/files/emacspeak-34.0.tar.bz2. The latest development snapshot of Emacspeak is available via Subversion from Google Code Hosting at http://emacspeak.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/

1.8 History:

Emacspeak 35.0 is all about teaching a new dog old tricks — and is aptly code-named HeadDog in honor of our new Press/Analyst contact. emacspeak-34.0 (AKA Bubbles) established a new beach-head with respect to rapid task completion in an eyes-free environment. Emacspeak-33.0 AKA StarDog brings unparalleled cloud access to the audio desktop. Emacspeak 32.0 AKA LuckyDog continues to innovate via open technologies for better access. Emacspeak 31.0 AKA TweetDog — adds tweeting to the Emacspeak desktop. Emacspeak 30.0 AKA SocialDog brings the Social Web to the audio desktop—you cant but be social if you speak! Emacspeak 29.0—AKAAbleDog—is a testament to the resilliance and innovation embodied by Open Source software—it would not exist without the thriving Emacs community that continues to ensure that Emacs remains one of the premier user environments despite perhaps also being one of the oldest. Emacspeak 28.0—AKA PuppyDog—exemplifies the rapid pace of development evinced by Open Source software. Emacspeak 27.0—AKA FastDog—is the latest in a sequence of upgrades that make previous releases obsolete and downgrades unnecessary. Emacspeak 26—AKA LeadDog—continues the tradition of introducing innovative access solutions that are unfettered by the constraints inherent in traditional adaptive technologies. Emacspeak 25 —AKA ActiveDog —re-activates open, unfettered access to online information. Emacspeak-Alive —AKA LiveDog —enlivens open, unfettered information access with a series of live updates that once again demonstrate the power and agility of open source software development. Emacspeak 23.0 -- AKA Retriever—went the extra mile in fetching full access. Emacspeak 22.0 —AKA GuideDog —helps users navigate the Web more effectively than ever before. Emacspeak 21.0 —AKA PlayDog —continued the Emacspeak tradition of relying on enhanced productivity to liberate users. Emacspeak-20.0 —AKA LeapDog —continues the long established GNU/Emacs tradition of integrated innovation to create a pleasurable computing environment for eyes-free interaction. emacspeak-19.0 –AKA WorkDog– is designed to enhance user productivity at work and leisure. Emacspeak-18.0 –code named GoodDog– continued the Emacspeak tradition of enhancing user productivity and thereby reducing total cost of ownership. Emacspeak-17.0 –code named HappyDog– enhances user productivity by exploiting today's evolving WWW standards. Emacspeak-16.0 –code named CleverDog– the follow-up to SmartDog– continued the tradition of working better, faster, smarter. Emacspeak-15.0 –code named SmartDog–followed up on TopDog as the next in a continuing a series of award-winning audio desktop releases from Emacspeak Inc. Emacspeak-14.0 –code named TopDog–was the first release of this millennium. Emacspeak-13.0 –codenamed YellowLab– was the closing release of the 20th. century. Emacspeak-12.0 –code named HeadDog– began leveraging the evolving semantic WWW to provide task-oriented speech access to Webformation. Emacspeak-11.0 –code named Aster– went the final step in making Linux a zero-cost Internet access solution for blind and visually impaired users. Emacspeak-10.0 –(AKA Emacspeak-2000) code named WonderDog– continued the tradition of award-winning software releases designed to make eyes-free computing a productive and pleasurable experience. Emacspeak-9.0 –(AKA Emacspeak 99) code named BlackLab– continued to innovate in the areas of speech interaction and interactive accessibility. Emacspeak-8.0 –(AKA Emacspeak-98++) code named BlackDog– was a major upgrade to the speech output extension to Emacs.

About Emacspeak:

The Emacspeak mailing list is archived at Vassar –the home of the Emacspeak mailing list– thanks to Greg Priest-Dorman, and provides a valuable knowledge base for new users.

2 Press/Analyst Contact: Tilden Labrador

**About This Release:

CopyWrite )C( Aster and Hubbell Labrador. All Writes Reserved. HeadDog (DM), LiveDog (DM), HeadDog (DM), BlackDog (DM) etc., are Registered Dogmarks of Aster, Hubbell and Tilden Labrador. All other dogs belong to their respective owners.

Date: 2011-11-23 08:44:19 PST

Author: T.V Raman

Org version 7.7 with Emacs version 24

Validate XHTML 1.0

Monday, August 01, 2011

Welcome Press/Analyst Contact Tilden Labrador

For Immediate Release: Monday, August 1, 2011

Emacspeak Inc. Appoints New Press/Analyst Contact

Tilden Labrador, a young, energetic male yellow Labrador, has accepted the position of Press/Analyst contact for Emacspeak Inc. --- in addition to his primary responsibility of being a fulltime guide-dog.
Hand-picked from an exclusive pool of high-quality caninedates, Tilden brings a large and level head to this position of responsibility. Tilden grew up in Monroe Ct, before going to school at Guiding Eyes For The Blind (GEB), NY. He graduated from GEB's Action program after excelling at obstacle avoidance and path planning in Yorktown Heights, peekskill and White Plains. He rounded out his education with a one-week practicum on the Google campus in Mountain View CA.
Tilden brings a fresh perspective to his new job --- he is the first male Labrador to take on the role of Emacspeak Inc.'s press/analyst contact. Asked how he felt about this unique distinction, he pointed out:
"On the Internet no one knows you're a dog, leave alone what gender you are".
Tilden promises to steer Emacspeak in a manner that would do his predecessors Aster Labrador and Hubbell Labrador proud.

Friday, May 13, 2011

In Praise Of Bubbles — Emacspeak 34.0 Unleashed!

Emacspeak 34.0—Bubbles—Unleashed!

1 Emacspeak-34.0 (Bubbles) Unleashed!

1.1 For Immediate Release:

San Jose, Calif., (May 13, 2011) Emacspeak: Redefining Accessibility In The Era Of Cloud Computing –Zero cost of upgrades/downgrades makes priceless software affordable!

Emacspeak Inc (NASDOG: ESPK) --http://emacspeak.sf.net-- announces the immediate world-wide availability of Emacspeak 34.0 (Bubbles) –a powerful audio desktop for leveraging today's evolving data, social and service-oriented Web cloud.

1.2 Code Name Note

After 11+ years of loyal service, Hubbell Labrador retired from active duty as a guide-dog on April 4,2011; she stayed on as Emacspeak's press contact for another week before finally leaving us on April 11, 2011 — Epitaph. This release is code named Bubbles in honour of her unflagging service over these last 11 years.

1.3 Investors Note:

1.4 What Is It?

1.5 Major Enhancements:

Updated URL Templates for rapid Web access. ♁
Support for twittering-mode—including logins using OAuth. ●
API Client for NPR programming. 🔘
Librivox API client. 📚
Emacs 24 support ♺
Speech server support for Mac OS.

Plus many more changes too numerous to fit in this margin ∞

1.6 Establishing Liberty, Equality And Freedom:

1.7 Independent Test Results:

1.7.1 Note from Aster and Bubbles:

UnDoctored Videos Inc. is looking for volunteers to star in a video demonstrating such complete user failure.

1.8 Obtaining Emacspeak:

Emacspeak can be downloaded from Google Code Hosting –see http://code.google.com/p/emacspeak/ You can visit Emacspeak on the WWW at http://emacspeak.sf.net. You can subscribe to the emacspeak mailing list emacspeak@cs.vassar.edu by sending mail to the list request address emacspeak-request@cs.vassar.edu. The StarDog release is at http://emacspeak.googlecode.com/files/emacspeak-34.0.tar.bz2. The latest development snapshot of Emacspeak is available via Subversion from Google Code Hosting at http://emacspeak.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/

1.9 History:

Emacspeak-33.0 AKA StarDog brings unparalleled cloud access to the audio desktop. Emacspeak 32.0 AKA LuckyDog continues to innovate via open technologies for better access. Emacspeak 31.0 AKA TweetDog --- adds tweeting to the Emacspeak desktop. Emacspeak 30.0 AKA SocialDog brings the Social Web to the audio desktop—you cant but be social if you speak! Emacspeak 29.0—AKAAbleDog—is a testament to the resilliance and innovation embodied by Open Source software—it would not exist without the thriving Emacs community that continues to ensure that Emacs remains one of the premier user environments despite perhaps also being one of the oldest. Emacspeak 28.0—AKA PuppyDog—exemplifies the rapid pace of development evinced by Open Source software. Emacspeak 27.0—AKA FastDog—is the latest in a sequence of upgrades that make previous releases obsolete and downgrades unnecessary. Emacspeak 26—AKA LeadDog—continues the tradition of introducing innovative access solutions that are unfettered by the constraints inherent in traditional adaptive technologies. Emacspeak 25 —AKA ActiveDog —re-activates open, unfettered access to online information. Emacspeak-Alive —AKA LiveDog —enlivens open, unfettered information access with a series of live updates that once again demonstrate the power and agility of open source software development. Emacspeak 23.0 -- AKA Retriever—went the extra mile in fetching full access. Emacspeak 22.0 —AKA GuideDog —helps users navigate the Web more effectively than ever before. Emacspeak 21.0 —AKA PlayDog —continued the Emacspeak tradition of relying on enhanced productivity to liberate users. Emacspeak-20.0 —AKA LeapDog —continues the long established GNU/Emacs tradition of integrated innovation to create a pleasurable computing environment for eyes-free interaction. emacspeak-19.0 –AKA WorkDog– is designed to enhance user productivity at work and leisure. Emacspeak-18.0 –code named GoodDog– continued the Emacspeak tradition of enhancing user productivity and thereby reducing total cost of ownership. Emacspeak-17.0 –code named HappyDog– enhances user productivity by exploiting today's evolving WWW standards. Emacspeak-16.0 –code named CleverDog-- the follow-up to SmartDog– continued the tradition of working better, faster, smarter. Emacspeak-15.0 –code named SmartDog–followed up on TopDog as the next in a continuing a series of award-winning audio desktop releases from Emacspeak Inc. Emacspeak-14.0 –code named TopDog–was the first release of this millennium. Emacspeak-13.0 –codenamed YellowLab– was the closing release of the 20th. century. Emacspeak-12.0 –code named GoldenDog– began leveraging the evolving semantic WWW to provide task-oriented speech access to Webformation. Emacspeak-11.0 –code named Aster– went the final step in making Linux a zero-cost Internet access solution for blind and visually impaired users. Emacspeak-10.0 –(AKA Emacspeak-2000) code named WonderDog– continued the tradition of award-winning software releases designed to make eyes-free computing a productive and pleasurable experience. Emacspeak-9.0 –(AKA Emacspeak 99) code named BlackLab– continued to innovate in the areas of speech interaction and interactive accessibility. Emacspeak-8.0 –(AKA Emacspeak-98++) code named BlackDog– was a major upgrade to the speech output extension to Emacs.

About Emacspeak:

The Emacspeak mailing list is archived at Vassar –the home of the Emacspeak mailing list– thanks to Greg Priest-Dorman, and provides a valuable knowledge base for new users.

2 Press/Analyst Contact: Hubbell Labrador

Going forward, BubbleDog acknowledges her exclusive monopoly on setting the direction of the Emacspeak Audio Desktop, and promises to exercise this freedom to innovate and her resulting power responsibly (as before) in the interest of all dogs.

**About This Release:

CopyWrite )C( Aster and Hubbell Labrador. All Writes Reserved. LiveDog (DM), GoldenDog (DM), BlackDog (DM) etc., are Registered Dogmarks of Aster and Hubbell Labrador. All other dogs belong to their respective owners.

Author: T.V Raman <tv.raman.tv@gmail.com#+DATE: 2009-11-25 Wed>

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Hubbell (Bubbles) Labrador Biography --- My Bubbly Life

Hubbell (Bubbles) Labrador Biography — My Bubbly Life

You can read Bubbles life story entitled My Bubbly Life. The story is being written from the perspective of an energetic Labrador, full of enthusiasm for life. Linking the blog in here in honor of Emacspeak's Press/Analyst contact for the last 11 years.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Epitaph: Saying GoodBye To Our Beloved Press/Analyst Contact

After guiding me for 11 years and 2 months, and setting Emacspeak's direction at every step for over 11 years, I Had to say a final goodbye to our beloved mascot and Press/Analyst contact Bubbles went to sleep April 11, 2011 for the final time.

Monday, February 07, 2011

Emacspeak: In Praise Of The Bookshare API

Bookshare recently released a light-weight API that enables one to implement custom Bookshare clients. Though Bookshare is fully accessible using either Emacs/W3 or Emacs/W3M from within the Emacspeak desktop, browser based interaction often involves more clicks than are absolutely necessary to finish the task at hand.

Welcome module emacspeak-bookshare, a fully integrated Bookshare client for the Emacspeak desktop. Module emacspeak-bookshare provides a special Bookshare Interaction mode that provides single keystroke commands for searching, downloading and viewing Bookshare materials from within the comfort of the Emacspeak desktop.

Module Emacspeak-bookshare is now checked into SVN, and will be bundled as part of the next Emacspeak release.To learn how to use Bookshare Interaction on the audio desktop, see command emacspeak-bookshare; to view the help for Bookshare Interaction, invoke command describe-mode within the Bookshare Interaction buffer.

Read and Enjoy!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Silence Is Golden

Speech is silvern --- but silence is golden! In the spirit of the above, I just added command emacspeak-silence to Emacspeak. You can bind this command to your favorite key for silencing all audio output on the complete audio desktop --- including any active media streams.

What This Does

Command emacspeak-silence stops speech by calling dtk-stop. It then runs commands placed on emacspeak-silence-hook. Each media player defined by Emacspeak updates hook emacspeak-silence-hook with an appropriate action that pauses or resumes that player.

I've also updated the keymaps in tvr/console-keymaps to set up the windows key on the console to produce [silence], and bound command emacspeak-silence to [silence] in emacspeak-keymap.el.

The net effect is that if you use those console maps, you can just hit the windows key whenever you want to silence all audio output; pressing it again will resume any media streams you had active.

Share And Enjoy --- and here's wishing our Press/Analyst contact a very Happy 13th Birthday --- mark it with a palindromic moment at 010212212010 i.e., Tue Dec 21 01:02:15 PST 2010

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Emacspeak 33.0 (StarDog) Unleashed!

Emacspeak 33.0 --- StarDog --- Unleashed!

1 Emacspeak-33.0 (StarDog) Unleashed!

1.1 For Immediate Release:

San Jose, Calif., (Nov 24, 2010) Emacspeak: Bringing Cloud Access From The Stars -- Zero cost of upgrades/downgrades makes priceless software affordable!

Emacspeak Inc (NASDOG: ESPK) --http://emacspeak.sf.net-- announces the immediate world-wide availability of Emacspeak 33.0 (StarDog) -- a powerful audio desktop for leveraging today's evolving data, social and service-oriented Web cloud.

1.2 Investors Note:

With several prominent tweeters expanding coverage, NASDOG: ESPK has now been consistently trading over the net at levels close to that once attained by DogCom high-fliers --- and as of October 2009 is trading at levels close to that achieved by once better known stocks in the tech sector.

1.3 What Is It?

1.4 Major Enhancements:

Updated URL Templates for rapid Web access. ♁
Support for twittering-mode --- including logins using OAuth. ●
Updated Google docs support enables publishing from org-mode. ○
Enhanced BBC iPlayer support ☢
Emacs 24 support ♺

Plus many more changes too numerous to fit in this margin ∞

1.5 Establishing Liberty, Equality And Freedom:

Never a toy system, Emacspeak is voluntarily bundled with all major Linux distributions. Though designed to be modular, distributors have freely chosen to bundle the fully integrated system without any undue pressure --- a documented success for the integrated innovation embodied by Emacspeak. As the system evolves, both upgrades and downgrades continue to be available at the same zero-cost to all users. The integrity of the Emacspeak codebase is ensured by the reliable and secure Linux platform used to develop and distribute the software.

Extensive studies have shown that thanks to these features, users consider Emacspeak to be absolutely priceless. Thanks to this wide-spread user demand, the present version remains priceless as ever --- it is being made available at the same zero-cost as previous releases.

1.6 Independent Test Results:

Independent test results have proven that unlike some modern (and not so modern) software, Emacspeak can be safely uninstalled without adversely affecting the continued performance of the computer. These same tests also revealed that once uninstalled, the user stopped functioning altogether. Speaking with Aster Labrador, the creator of Emacspeak once pointed out that these results re-emphasize the user-centric design of Emacspeak; "It is the user -- and not the computer -- that stops functioning when Emacspeak is uninstalled!".

1.6.1 Note from Aster and Bubbles:

UnDoctored Videos Inc. is looking for volunteers to star in a video demonstrating such complete user failure.

1.7 Obtaining Emacspeak:

Emacspeak can be downloaded from Google Code Hosting -- see http://code.google.com/p/emacspeak/ You can visit Emacspeak on the WWW at http://emacspeak.sf.net. You can subscribe to the emacspeak mailing list emacspeak@cs.vassar.edu by sending mail to the list request address emacspeak-request@cs.vassar.edu. The StarDog release is at http://emacspeak.googlecode.com/files/emacspeak-33.0.tar.bz2. The latest development snapshot of Emacspeak is available via Subversion from Google Code Hosting at http://emacspeak.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/

1.8 History:

Emacspeak-33.0 AKA StarDog brings unparalleled cloud access to the audio desktop. Emacspeak 32.0 AKA LuckyDog continues to innovate via open technologies for better access. Emacspeak 31.0 AKA TweetDog --- adds tweeting to the Emacspeak desktop. Emacspeak 30.0 AKA SocialDog brings the Social Web to the audio desktop --- you cant but be social if you speak! Emacspeak 29.0 --- AKAAbleDog --- is a testament to the resilliance and innovation embodied by Open Source software --- it would not exist without the thriving Emacs community that continues to ensure that Emacs remains one of the premier user environments despite perhaps also being one of the oldest. Emacspeak 28.0 --- AKA PuppyDog --- exemplifies the rapid pace of development evinced by Open Source software. Emacspeak 27.0 --- AKA FastDog --- is the latest in a sequence of upgrades that make previous releases obsolete and downgrades unnecessary. Emacspeak 26 --- AKA LeadDog --- continues the tradition of introducing innovative access solutions that are unfettered by the constraints inherent in traditional adaptive technologies. Emacspeak 25 -- AKA ActiveDog -- re-activates open, unfettered access to online information. Emacspeak-Alive -- AKA LiveDog -- enlivens open, unfettered information access with a series of live updates that once again demonstrate the power and agility of open source software development. Emacspeak 23.0 -- AKA Retriever --- went the extra mile in fetching full access. Emacspeak 22.0 -- AKA GuideDog -- helps users navigate the Web more effectively than ever before. Emacspeak 21.0 -- AKA PlayDog -- continued the Emacspeak tradition of relying on enhanced productivity to liberate users. Emacspeak-20.0 -- AKA LeapDog -- continues the long established GNU/Emacs tradition of integrated innovation to create a pleasurable computing environment for eyes-free interaction. emacspeak-19.0 -- AKA WorkDog -- is designed to enhance user productivity at work and leisure. Emacspeak-18.0 -- code named GoodDog -- continued the Emacspeak tradition of enhancing user productivity and thereby reducing total cost of ownership. Emacspeak-17.0 -- code named HappyDog -- enhances user productivity by exploiting today's evolving WWW standards. Emacspeak-16.0 -- code named CleverDog-- the follow-up to SmartDog -- continued the tradition of working better, faster, smarter. Emacspeak-15.0 -- code named SmartDog -- followed up on TopDog as the next in a continuing a series of award-winning audio desktop releases from Emacspeak Inc. Emacspeak-14.0 -- code named TopDog -- was the first release of this millennium. Emacspeak-13.0 -- codenamed YellowLab -- was the closing release of the 20th. century. Emacspeak-12.0 -- code named GoldenDog -- began leveraging the evolving semantic WWW to provide task-oriented speech access to Webformation. Emacspeak-11.0 -- code named Aster -- went the final step in making Linux a zero-cost Internet access solution for blind and visually impaired users. Emacspeak-10.0 -- (AKA Emacspeak-2000) code named WonderDog -- continued the tradition of award-winning software releases designed to make eyes-free computing a productive and pleasurable experience. Emacspeak-9.0 -- (AKA Emacspeak 99) code named BlackLab -- continued to innovate in the areas of speech interaction and interactive accessibility. Emacspeak-8.0 -- (AKA Emacspeak-98++) code named BlackDog -- was a major upgrade to the speech output extension to Emacs.

About Emacspeak:

Originally based at Cornell (NY) http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/raman -- home to Auditory User Interfaces (AUI) on the WWW -- Emacspeak is now maintained on GoogleCode --http://code.google.com/p/emacspeak -- and Sourceforge -- http://emacspeak.sf.net. The system is mirrored world-wide by an international network of software archives and bundled voluntarily with all major Linux distributions. On Monday, April 12, 1999, Emacspeak became part of the Smithsonian's Permanent Research Collection on Information Technology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

The Emacspeak mailing list is archived at Vassar -- the home of the Emacspeak mailing list -- thanks to Greg Priest-Dorman, and provides a valuable knowledge base for new users.

2 Press/Analyst Contact: Hubbell Labrador

**About This Release:

Windows-Free (WF) is a favorite battle-cry of The League Against Forced Fenestration (LAFF). -- see http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm for details on the ill-effects of Forced Fenestration.

Author: T.V Raman

Date: 2010-11-24 08:43:55 PST

HTML generated by org-mode 7.01 in emacs 24

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Emacspeak 32.0 (LuckyDog) Unleashed

Emacspeak 32.0 --- LuckyDog --- Unleashed!

1 Emacspeak-32.0 (LuckyDog) Unleashed!

1.1 For Immediate Release:

San Jose, Calif., (May 13, 2010) Emacspeak: Bringing tweet Access For social beings -- ;Zero cost of upgrades/downgrades makes priceless software affordable!

Emacspeak Inc (NASDOG: ESPK) --http://emacspeak.sf.net-- announces the immediate world-wide availability of Emacspeak 32.0 (LuckyDog) -- ;a powerful audio desktop for leveraging today's evolving data, social and service-oriented Web cloud.

1.2 Investors Note:

1.3 What Is It?

1.4 Major Enhancements:

Updated URL Templates for rapid Web access. ♁
BBC iPlayer support ☢
Updated EPub support ✍
Emacs 24 support ♺

Plus many more changes too numerous to fit in this margin ∞

1.5 Establishing Liberty, Equality And Freedom:

Never a toy system, Emacspeak is voluntarily bundled with all major Linux distributions. Though designed to be modular, distributors have freely chosen to bundle the fully integrated system without any undue pressure --- a documented success for the integrated innovation embodied by Emacspeak. As the system evolves, both upgrades and downgrades continue to be available at the same zero-cost to all users. The integrity of the Emacspeak codebase is ensured by the reliable and secure Linux platform used to develop and distribute the software.

Extensive studies have shown that thanks to these features, users consider Emacspeak to be absolutely priceless. Thanks to this wide-spread user demand, the present version remains priceless as ever --- it is being made available at the same zero-cost as previous releases.

1.6 Independent Test Results:

Independent test results have proven that unlike some modern (and not so modern) software, Emacspeak can be safely uninstalled without adversely affecting the continued performance of the computer. These same tests also revealed that once uninstalled, the user stopped functioning altogether. Speaking with Aster Labrador, the creator of Emacspeak once pointed out that these results re-emphasize the user-centric design of Emacspeak; "It is the user -- ;and not the computer -- ; that stops functioning when Emacspeak is uninstalled!".

1.6.1 Note from Aster and Bubbles:

UnDoctored Videos Inc. is looking for volunteers to star in a video demonstrating such complete user failure.

1.7 Obtaining Emacspeak:

Emacspeak can be downloaded from Google Code Hosting -- ;see http://code.google.com/p/emacspeak/ You can visit Emacspeak on the WWW at http://emacspeak.sf.net. You can subscribe to the emacspeak mailing list emacspeak@cs.vassar.edu by sending mail to the list request address emacspeak-request@cs.vassar.edu. The LuckyDog release is at http://emacspeak.googlecode.com/files/emacspeak-32.0.tar.bz2. The latest development snapshot of Emacspeak is available via Subversion from Google Code Hosting at http://emacspeak.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/

1.8 History:

Emacspeak 32.0 AKA LuckyDog continues to innovate via open technologies for better access. Emacspeak 31.0 AKA TweetDog --- adds tweeting to the Emacspeak desktop. Emacspeak 30.0 AKA SocialDog brings the Social Web to the audio desktop --- you cant but be social if you speak! Emacspeak 29.0 --- AKAAbleDog --- is a testament to the resilliance and innovation embodied by Open Source software --- it would not exist without the thriving Emacs community that continues to ensure that Emacs remains one of the premier user environments despite perhaps also being one of the oldest. Emacspeak 28.0 --- AKA PuppyDog --- exemplifies the rapid pace of development evinced by Open Source software. Emacspeak 27.0 --- AKA FastDog --- is the latest in a sequence of upgrades that make previous releases obsolete and downgrades unnecessary. Emacspeak 26 --- AKA LeadDog --- continues the tradition of introducing innovative access solutions that are unfettered by the constraints inherent in traditional adaptive technologies. Emacspeak 25 -- ; AKA ActiveDog -- ; re-activates open, unfettered access to online information. Emacspeak-Alive -- ; AKA LiveDog -- ; enlivens open, unfettered information access with a series of live updates that once again demonstrate the power and agility of open source software development. Emacspeak 23.0 -- AKA Retriever --- went the extra mile in fetching full access. Emacspeak 22.0 -- ; AKA GuideDog -- ; helps users navigate the Web more effectively than ever before. Emacspeak 21.0 -- ; AKA PlayDog -- ; continued the Emacspeak tradition of relying on enhanced productivity to liberate users. Emacspeak-20.0 -- ; AKA LeapDog -- ; continues the long established GNU/Emacs tradition of integrated innovation to create a pleasurable computing environment for eyes-free interaction. emacspeak-19.0 -- ;AKA WorkDog -- ; is designed to enhance user productivity at work and leisure. Emacspeak-18.0 -- ;code named GoodDog -- ; continued the Emacspeak tradition of enhancing user productivity and thereby reducing total cost of ownership. Emacspeak-17.0 -- ;code named HappyDog -- ; enhances user productivity by exploiting today's evolving WWW standards. Emacspeak-16.0 -- ;code named CleverDog-- the follow-up to SmartDog -- ; continued the tradition of working better, faster, smarter. Emacspeak-15.0 -- ;code named SmartDog -- ;followed up on TopDog as the next in a continuing a series of award-winning audio desktop releases from Emacspeak Inc. Emacspeak-14.0 -- ;code named TopDog -- ;was the first release of this millennium. Emacspeak-13.0 -- ;codenamed YellowLab -- ; was the closing release of the 20th. century. Emacspeak-12.0 -- ;code named GoldenDog -- ; began leveraging the evolving semantic WWW to provide task-oriented speech access to Webformation. Emacspeak-11.0 -- ;code named Aster -- ; went the final step in making Linux a zero-cost Internet access solution for blind and visually impaired users. Emacspeak-10.0 -- ;(AKA Emacspeak-2000) code named WonderDog -- ; continued the tradition of award-winning software releases designed to make eyes-free computing a productive and pleasurable experience. Emacspeak-9.0 -- ;(AKA Emacspeak 99) code named BlackLab -- ; continued to innovate in the areas of speech interaction and interactive accessibility. Emacspeak-8.0 -- ;(AKA Emacspeak-98++) code named BlackDog -- ; was a major upgrade to the speech output extension to Emacs.

About Emacspeak:

Originally based at Cornell (NY) http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/raman -- ;home to Auditory User Interfaces (AUI) on the WWW -- ; Emacspeak is now maintained on GoogleCode --http://code.google.com/p/emacspeak -- ; and Sourceforge -- ; http://emacspeak.sf.net. The system is mirrored world-wide by an international network of software archives and bundled voluntarily with all major Linux distributions. On Monday, April 12, 1999, Emacspeak became part of the Smithsonian's Permanent Research Collection on Information Technology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

The Emacspeak mailing list is archived at Vassar -- ;the home of the Emacspeak mailing list -- ; thanks to Greg Priest-Dorman, and provides a valuable knowledge base for new users.

2 Press/Analyst Contact: Hubbell Labrador

**About This Release:

Windows-Free (WF) is a favorite battle-cry of The League Against Forced Fenestration (LAFF). -- ;see http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm for details on the ill-effects of Forced Fenestration.

Author: T.V Raman

Date: 2010-05-10 17:37:06 PDT

HTML generated by org-mode 6.35i in emacs 24

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

AsTeR --- Audio System For Technical Readings

Almost exactly 16 years to the date after presenting AsTeR --- Audio System For Technical Readings --- to the CS Faculty at Cornell for my PhD, I released the source code as Open Source --- thanks to Prof. David Gries at Cornell for approving this release.

The sources are checked into GoogleCode project aster-math --- unfortunately, the name AsTeR was unavailable since there is an unrelated project of the same name at SourceForge.

So you might well ask: why 16 years later, and why now? The honest answer is No good reason, except that after graduating from Cornell, I decided that I would work on newer projects, and consequently had no cycles to support the AsTeR code base. Nothing has changed in that context, nor is it likely to change in the coming future; however I get requests off and on from different parts of the Web from teachers and students alike who have seen my PhD thesis, played with the demos, and wish to study the sources.

What You'll Find In The Sources

The code has not been actively developed since I finished my work at Cornell; however, over the years, I 've ensured that the system starts up and runs on Linux using the Open Source CLisp environment. The only text-to-speech engine that is supported is the hardware DECTalk --- though it should be a small matter of programming to support the various Emacspeak speech servers. If you do checkout the source code, start by looking at the README file which contains brief instructions on getting started. Feel free to use the Emacspeak mailing list for now if you wish to discuss the code --- if the traffic justifies it, we can later create a project-specific list.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Emacspeak 31 (AKA TweetDog) Unleashed!

Emacspeak 31.0 - TweetDog - Unleashed!

1 Emacspeak-31.0 (TweetDog) Unleashed!

2 For Immediate Release:

San Jose, Calif., (Nov 26, 2009) Emacspeak: Bringing tweet Access For social beings - Zero cost of upgrades/downgrades makes priceless software affordable!

Emacspeak Inc (NASDOG: ESPK) --http://emacspeak.sf.net-- announces the immediate world-wide availability of Emacspeak 31.0 (TweetDog) - a powerful audio desktop for leveraging today's evolving data, social and service-oriented Web cloud.

2.1 Investors Note:

With several prominent tweeters expanding coverage, NASDOG: ESPK has now been consistently trading over the net at levels close to that once attained by DogCom high-fliers - and as of October 2009 is trading at levels close to that achieved by once better known stocks in the tech sector.

2.2 What Is It?

2.3 Major Enhancements:

Speech-enables Twitter. ✹
Unicode support for enabling the world's various charsets.♁
Emacs front-end to popular Google AJAX APIs. ⚤
Updated g-client with preliminary support for Google Docs. ✏
Updated URL Templates for rapid Web access. ♅
Updated WebSearch wizards for enhanced productivity.♄

Plus many more changes too numerous to fit in this margin ... ⚭

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

A Google Tool-belt For The Complete Audio Desktop

Introducing The Emacspeak Google Tool-belt

Module emacspeak-google.el implements a suite of Google tools collectively refered to as The Google Tool-Belt. These tools let you slice and dice your result set using the various search operators provided by Google --- the functionality is similar to that -- --offered by the Google results page via -- --user interface control Show -- --Options.

The table below summarizes the tools that are presently available on the Emacspeak Google Tool-belt. For convenience, the tool-belt is bound to prefix-key Control-t in Emacs/W3 buffers.


key	binding
C-t C-b	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-books-viewability
C-t A	emacspeak-websearch-accessible-google
C-t B	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-books
C-t H	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-web-history-not-visited
C-t T	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-timeline
C-t a	emacspeak-websearch-google
C-t b	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-blog
C-t c	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-commercial
C-t d	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-sort-by-date
C-t f	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-forums
C-t h	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-web-history-visited
C-t i	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-images
C-t l	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-non-commercial
C-t n	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-news
C-t p	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-commercial-prices
C-t r	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-recent
C-t s	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-structured-snippets
C-t t	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-books-type
C-t v	emacspeak-google-toolbelt-change-video

Share And Enjoy!

Monday, September 21, 2009

Emacspeak, The World's Fonts And Braille

Emacspeak has supported the editing of Unicode text for over a year now --- thanks to the patches fromLukas. With the support now mature, I have now retired option emacspeak-unibyte --- Emacspeak no longer supports running Emacs in unibyte mode. Note that this aligns Emacspeak with Emacs 23.2 which obsoletes unibyte mode.

When you edit text containing Unicode characters, Emacspeak uses the name of the character as found in the description file from the Unicode consortium --- you will need to download and install that data file as documented in Emacs:

describe-char-unicodedata-file is a variable defined in `descr-text.el'.
Its value is 
"/usr/local/share/unicode/UnicodeData.txt"

Documentation:
Location of Unicode data file.
This is the UnicodeData.txt file from the Unicode Consortium, used for
diagnostics.  If it is non-nil `describe-char' will print data
looked up from it.  This facility is mostly of use to people doing
multilingual development.

This is a fairly large file, not typically present on GNU systems.
At the time of writing it is at the URL
`http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/UnicodeData.txt'.

You can customize this variable.

This variable was introduced, or its default value was changed, in
version 22.1 of Emacs.

With the Unicode data file in place, Emacspeak can announce names of characters from all of the world's fonts --- this includes Braille. As an added convenience, I have integrated package toy-braille.el found on the Emacs wiki into the Emacs codebase and defined a new interactive command emacspeak-wizards-braille --- if you find yourself using it often, you can bind it to a key of your choice. Command emacspeak-wizards-braille prompts for the string to Braille and produces a Grade-1 representation of the specified string using the appropriate Unicode characters.

⠠⠃⠗⠁⠊⠇⠇⠑⠀⠠⠁⠝⠙⠀⠠⠑⠝⠚⠕⠽

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