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December 26, 2006

Google Maps Offers Speech-Friendly Alternatives

Over at the Google blog, Googler T.V. Raman shares useful tips as a technologist who is visually impaired.

For blind searchers and others who use spoken outputs, screenreaders or a Braille display, the visual display that is returned from a Google Maps or Google Local search is often translated poorly in such readers.

So Google has added a simple, alternative view into Google Maps for visually impaired users, with the Textual Maps UI. It's also extremely useful for any searcher using a non-graphical display and can quickly look up a location by typing a simple English query of the form of a start address to end address.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski at December 26, 2006 2:31 PM