HearSay News

July 17, 2008 - HearSay3 Beta 0 is scheduled for release on 9/1/08

July 17, 2008 - HearSay3 Beta 1 is scheduled for release on 10/15/08

Feb. 24, 2008 - HearSay3 Alpha 0 has been released.

Jan. 18, 2008 - HearSay Beta version has been released.

Dec. 15, 2007 - HearSay is migrating to a FireFox Plug-in architecture.

Dec. 3, 2007 - We are prototyping support of dynamic content, expected in Spring 2008

Dec. 3, 2007 - We are prototyping online transaction support for HearSay.

Nov. 1, 2007 - HearSay joined Accessibility Tools Framework Project with Eclipse Foundation
http://www.eclipse.org/actf/

Oct. 21, 2007 - VXMLSurfer v1 Alpha has been released. VxmlSurfer (VoiceXML interpreter) is the HearSay's Dialog Manager module.

Introduction

The HearSay project, supported by the NSF Award-IIS-0534419, aims to develop a state-of-the-art Non-Visual Web Browser. The goal of the HearSay project is to produce a superior, easy to use software designed specifically for the needs of visually impaired, blind, and deaf-blind individuals - that will allow Internet browsing with the same ease as sighted Internet users. HearSay is being developed at Stony Brook University, NY (USA).

The resemblance between HearSay2 and HearSay3 is strictly superficial and includes some standard screen-reader features, overlapping shortcuts, and the idea of using VXML dialogs for browsing. None of the showcased functionalities are available in HearSay2. HearSay1 has never been released and was built on yet another platform.

Hearsay Latest Version: Hearsay3 Alpha 0

HearSay3 Alpha 0 is an all new prototype of the browser built from scratch on Firefox-extension architecture.

Major enhancements since last release:

1.	Control over the dialogs with shortcut-keys and text/speech commands (interpreted within VoiceXML). Visit VXML Website!

2.	Support for separate dialog threads for Firefox tabs, allowing users to switch context and continue browsing from the same position where they left off.

3.	Support for dynamic updates by updating the VoiceXML dialog context (AJAX-like dialogs), notifying users of update events with earcons (sound-clips), allowing to navigate the updated content (marked with earcons), and return to the original position.

Click here for demonstration video of Hearsay3

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Hearsay Older Version: Hearsay2

Beta version of HearSay2, based on a built-in Mozilla browser, was released in January 2008. It supports context-directed browsing and block-level navigation on the webpage. But, the support for this version will be discontinued because of insurmountable architectural limitations.

Click here for demonstration video of Hearsay2

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VXMLSurfer v1 Alpha has been released!

VxmlSurfer is a VoiceXML interpreter used as a dialog manager in HearSay. Please click HERE for more details. Download VXMLSurfer v1 Alpha.

For more information about HearSay see the Publications page.

The HearSay project is funded by the National Science Foundation

Last Updated 7/17/08