| A screen reader is a software application that attempts to identify and obtain what is being displayed on the screen.
This is then presented to a blind user as speech (by text-to-speech) or
by driving a Braille display.
The first screen readers captured text sent to the command line. With the arrival of graphical user interfaces, they employed
new low-level techniques to allow them to capture what was being sent to the screen by the operating system. More recently
operating systems and applications have made efforts to support screen readers by providing them with alternative and accessible
representations of what they are displaying on the screen. Examples include Microsoft Active Accessibility and the Java Access
Bridge.
A screen reader can read, among others:
Leading screen readers include:
Windows 2000 and XP come with a very simple built-in screen reader called Narrator. This can be activated by the key
combination Windows Key + U. It can be used for Windows Explorer and Notepad but not Office or Internet Explorer.
In 2004, Apple announced that a future version of Mac OS X would include a full-featured screen reader, later named VoiceOver.
In early 2005, Serotek Corporation, makers of FreedomBox (http://www.freedombox.info/),
released an inexpensive Windows screen reader called FreedomBox System Access. System Access provides access to more applications
than Narrator, including Microsoft Word, Internet Explorer, and Outlook Express; but it isn't a fully-fledged screen reader like
JAWS or Window-Eyes.
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