Hi All,
Thought some of you might be interested in this
FSCast.
Note: The part of the FSCast that pertains only to this
Jaws feature is at the bottom, below the 2 links.
New post on Freedom Scientific Blog
FSCast 186, Blindness consultant Joe Strechay, a new Freedom
Scientific Training podcast, and a demo of the JAWS feature to prevent speech
cut off
by FSCast
On FSCast 186, we meet blindness consultant and TV producer
Joe Strechay who helps ensure that blind people are accurately portrayed
in media. There’s
news about the new Freedom Scientific training podcast, and
Jonathan Mosen drops in with a demo of the new JAWS feature to prevent speech
cut off with
Bluetooth headphones and some sound cards.
Click this link to listen:
To read the full transcript click the link below:
Jaws feature part of the transcript:
Over the last couple of months we’ve been talking
about the new JAWS feature that prevents speech from being cut off when
listening using Bluetooth headphones
or listening on certain laptops.
Fortunately, I don’t have the problem. So it’s been really hard for me to
demonstrate it. But turns out that longtime
FSCast host Jonathan Mosen
does. He has an HP Spectre Folio that shows off this problem really
easily. Jonathan was kind enough to send us an excerpt
from his Mosen
at Large podcast, where he shows off the new JAWS feature at work. So
Jonathan, it’s all yours.
Excerpt from Jonathan Mosen’s Mosen at Large
podcast
JONATHAN MOSEN: Let me demonstrate the
problem so you can hear what this is like by just running JAWS without this new
enhancement that I want to show
you enabled. So I’m going to press a
shortcut key that I have assigned to JAWS.
JAWS VOICE: Ows
professional. Desktop. Folder view. List view. Not
selected. Recycle bin. One of 33.
JONATHAN: There you
go. You can actually hear it right away. It sort of said “ows
Professional” because I’ve been sitting here with my laptop making
no sound,
and it just woke up. Even this pause is long enough for me to demonstrate
the problem. If I check the window title, “sktop One,” and you can
hear
that it missed the beginning of “desktop.” So it sort of said “sktop
One.” I’m going to run Microsoft Word.
JAWS VOICE:
tana.
JONATHAN: You can really hear it. My soundcard driver has
actually recently gotten worse at this issue, and it’s now hibernating very
quickly. I have
my keyboard echo turned off, which probably exacerbates
the problem. But I just don’t need my keys echoing back to me. I’m
going to type “This is a test”
and now read the current line.
JAWS
VOICE: “Is a test.”
JONATHAN: Right? So you missed the
first word entirely there.
JAWS VOICE: “Is a
test.”
JONATHAN: Is a test. If I do it quickly enough, if I read
the same line twice quickly...
JAWS VOICE: “T H I S. This is a
test.”
JONATHAN: So as long as I’m quick enough, and I keep the
soundcard alive, I can hear what I’m doing. Now, of course if you’re
navigating word by word,
this is a real issue. I’ll go to the top of
the file and now move slightly slowly, word by word.
JAWS VOICE:
[Indiscernible small portions of each word “this is a test”]
.
JONATHAN: It’s really difficult to hear; isn’t it. How do we
fix this? It’s very easy with the latest build of JAWS to address
this. I’m going to go
into the Settings Center. And you can do
that by pressing the JAWS KEY with F2 to get to the list of managers, if you
like. But JAWS seasoned users,
or those who just are shortcut ninjas
will know that you can go into the Settings Center by pressing the JAWS KEY with
the number 6 on your number row.
JAWS VOICE: JAWS Setting Center
dialog. Search box edit. CTRL+T.
JONATHAN: The first thing
we need to do is load the default configuration because this setting applies
across the board to JAWS. To do that, I’ll press
CTRL+SHIFT+D for
default.
JAWS VOICE: JAWS Setting Center default
applications.
JONATHAN: We’re now in an edit field where we can search for
JAWS settings. You can fossick around the tree view here to your heart’s
content, and you’ll
find just how configurable JAWS is. But I’m going
to type the word “cut,” C U T. That’ll be enough. And I’ll press the
TAB key.
JAWS VOICE: Search results list box. Avoid speech cutoff
when using Bluetooth headphones or some soundcards,
not checked.
JONATHAN: And there’s an option here called “Avoid
speech cutoff.” And I’m going to press TAB, which will get me into the
Help for this feature, and
do a JAWS Say All to hear the
full description.
JAWS VOICE: Bluetooth headphones and
speakers shut down after a while of not receiving sound to conserve
battery. If this checkbox is selected, JAWS
will keep them awake by
constantly playing silence. You will not hear anything, but your device
will remain active, resulting in more consistent speech.
Note that the
battery of your headphone/speakers could drain faster if you turn this on.
This checkbox is cleared by default.
JONATHAN: I must say I have not
found anything substantial in the way of battery drain by enabling this
feature. The HP Spectre Folio laptop that I have
has phenomenal battery
life. I mean, depending on what I’m doing, it can be anything from five or
six hours if I’m doing really aggressive tasks like
audio editing, all the
way through to 12, 13, 14 hours or more if I’m just doing a bit of basic word
processing. I’ll SHIFT+TAB.
JAWS VOICE: Search results list
box. Avoid speech cutoff when using Bluetooth headphones and some
soundcards, not checked.
JONATHAN: And I’ll check this
box. And now I’m going to exit Settings Center by pressing ALT+F4.
JAWS
VOICE: JAWS Settings Center dialog. You have made changes to default
application settings. Do you want to save them? Yes button,
Alt+y.
JONATHAN: Yes, I do. I’ll press ENTER to accept.
JAWS
VOICE: Document, one word, edit.
JONATHAN: Miraculously, now
everything has cleared up. Night and day, mate. Night and day.
So if I press the JAWS KEY with T to read the window title...
JAWS
VOICE: Document, one word, print.
JONATHAN: And it’s
fine.
JAWS VOICE: Document, one word, print.
JONATHAN: I read
a Say line.
JAWS VOICE: This is a test.
JONATHAN: And
everything is working fine. So it’s a very simple thing. It’s just a
little checkbox, but it makes the world of difference to people like
me who
are using particular Realtek sound drivers.
One thing to note: There is
a tradeoff with this. Because JAWS is sending sound to the soundcard at
all times – it’s essentially just sending silence
to keep it awake – that
means that the soundcard is always on, so audio ducking is affected. You
will unfortunately have to make a choice between whether
JAWS ducks the audio
or whether this feature is on.
By “ducking” audio I mean that you can have
JAWS now slightly turn down what you’re listening to. If you have music on
in the background while you’re
working, JAWS will turn that down a little so
that you can better hear your speech. You can’t have that and this feature
enabled at the same time. For
me, the user experience has improved so
much by enabling this checkbox that I’m glad to forsake the possibility of audio
ducking.
