Assistive Technology

Recently Google added advanced voice search to the Chrome browser . Google's advance voice search feature was previously only available for Android and iOS , but is now available on Mac and Windows . The feature is similar to Apple's Siri ,but works on your computer as well as mobile devices. To access the feature, navigate to Google using the Chrome browser and press the microphone icon to the right of the search bar. Then you can search by voice and Google will speak back select results. I have found the voice recognition to be very fast and accurate. One of the most notable features for struggling spellers is that you can ask how to spell a word and then Google will speak back the correct spelling. Google will also provide spoken responses for many other queries as well. Watch the above video to learn more.

Fleksy the eyes-free typing app that originally debuted for iOS is now available in beta for Android . Fleksy uses gestures and text prediction to allow users to type without looking a the screen. Fleksy can be extremely helpful for the blind and visually impaired and can dramatically increase typing speed people who cannot see the screen. Unlike the iOS version the Android version can replace the default keyboard and be used with any app. In iOS you cannot use Fleksy in an email app or with the messages app but on Android you can. Besides integration with Android apps the Android version will be similar to the iOS version. Android users can try the Fleksy by visiting the Fleksy Beta Google+ page. Click read more below to view a video about Fleksy.