So what's on the agenda. I'm planning on getting to four sessions this morning before I hop back on the tube to my office in West London - where the rail stations have less exotic names. East India? Canada Water? No, Shepherd's Bush.

First sesh of the day is with Ugo Vallauri from Computer Aid - an organisation that refurbishes old 'puters and passes them on to partners in the developing world. They've refurbed and delivered over 150,000 PCs now. Gosh. His subject was about using free and open source software to make computers more accessible.

Basically, he was saying that assistive technology like the screenreaders for blind people used in the developed world are just too expensive. Too true, best part of a grand if I recall. Visually impaired people in Sub-Saharan Africa - where the level of blindness is very high - can't afford it, purchasing the operating system is an issue too.

So he uses free screenreader software such as NVDA made by a couple of Australian blind fellas. He thinks libraries in the UK, or other places with budget constraints, could install this free software on their machines to good effect - that was a bit of an aside but interesting.

The thing I took away was that there are no flexible free screen magnifying applications that could, say, work well with free screenreaders such as NVDA to bring greater access for people with low vision. Money is needed and Ugo seemed to prefer the 'open source' approach to developing software as it breaks out of product development groups with limited resources, and allows coders all over the world to enhance products and add features or plug-ins that will work better for more people.

Don't ask me to explain 'open source' to you. It's almost like a religion!

Computer Aid also works on other projects such as telemedicine and learning for remote regions in Africa, Kenya, Latin America etc.

So send your broken down PC to somewhere useful. It's the green thing to do.

Next up, it's 10:30 and we're into a dose of social networking the screenreading way. Brian Hartgen from a blindie consultancy firm demonstrates with his talking computer on stage. Say 'talking computer' to a blind person if you fancy annoying them, incidentally. Screenreaders popular in the UK are HAL Supernova, WindowEyes and the genre-busting JAWS which has the lion share of the market right now.

A very practical session where he demos Twitter and Facebook - the two giants of social networking in the world - and proves, live in front of everyone, that screenreader users can indeed use them and be part of the Twitterverse and whatever we're calling the Facebook world these days.

"They break down social barriers and isolation" says Hartgen. And talks about how it's all about keeping in touch with friends, family and colleagues. He omits to mention that Twitter is equally about finding like-minded people by subject and you can see 'top trending topics' on its front page and can tell what the world's collective conscious is thinking, right now, in realtime, instantly.

He mentions that there are some blind specific communities that might be even better as you can talk just like as if you were on the phone with lots of other people at once. He mentions Accessible World and the UK based Accessible Friends Network.

He thinks that Twitter is more blind friendly as it's all about the text whereas Facebook preoccupies itself with photos and video ... which is basically just 'eyes stuff'.

They're both accessible but Hartgen prefers to use Facebook's mobile site on his PC as it's a more cut down version and easier to navigate. And for those who'd rather not have to bother with Twitter on the web, you could download Twinbox - a free application from techkit.com which lets you use Outlook email to engage with other twitterers or tweeters. McTwit is an accessible Twitter application developed by an American blind fella called Jamal. So there are some alternative options to an already accessible site.

at 11:40 Michel Pepin from Humanware demoed the as yet unreleased but much anticipated Orator software. It's a screenreader for the Blakberry smart phone. Developed with Code Factory (who make the Mobile Speak screenreader software for phones) it's taking a long time because it's being developed on the JAVA ME platform that Text To Speech has never been added to before. Symbian and Windows Mobile are the phone operating systems that currently give the kind of access that blind people require.

RIM, who make the Blackberry, have had an Accessibility program for 8 years now. They already have access solutions for people with hearing, low vision and motor function issues apparently. The screenreader is the last outpost of inaccess for this much used business product that boasts high security.

To make it accessible they've created a core accessibility application which will only be available in two of their phones initially: the Curve 8520 and Tour 9630. The Storm and other phones in the range should have accessibility added within 8 months in new model releases.

They launch in the autumn with US English speech. December to January for UK English speech. And "further into 2010" for other languages like French and Spanish.

Pricing: a single licence will be 450 US dollars or 300 UK pounds. he has spoken to some phone carriers who if they take up the option of supplying Orator, may give a better price.

When it came to questions, there seemed to be a bit of unease in the audience. One person voiced disappointment that the product was so expensive, "Double the price of similar products" and that the iPhone now gives speech access completely free of charge. Michel briefly acknowledged the questioner with a noise I couldn't quite hear.

At 12:40 there was a lunchtime session with a blind software developer from MicroSoft-Saqib Sheikh. He talked up the accessibility features in the new operating system Windows 7 which goes on sale on October 22 and is the successor to Vista.Saqib works on the search engine Bing ... accessibility is his hobby not his job.

He said he felt there was a real desire to make all parts of Windows accessible right now. "A billion people use windows: it's not a case of making it accessible, it's about there being so many different people from all walks of life using it. Certain products you can narrowly focus but not Windows."

The two stand out accessibility features for me in Windows 7 were the enhancement of their built-in screen magnifier which now enlarges video and all parts of the screen. And Chess is now accessible to screenreader users - I gather it must be a built in game that you get when you buy it. That's quite cool.

He went on to talking about how Silverlight is now accessible in versions 2 and 3 if you use NVDA or JAWS 11 screenreaders. Silverlight is a tool which is kind of like Flash but different, according to Saqib.

OK that was me. I couldn't stay for the rest of the conference. I hope We've helped give you an overview of some of the things going on at this year's Techshare. Next week AbilityNet is doing another Accessibility 2.0 conference as mentioned in our newsletter a couple of weeks ago. It seems I'm on a panel talking about the net beyond the computer: phones and that.

Yesterday afternoon, I attended a session by the RNIB on accessible set-top boxes. Basically, they have two products in development, software which can go on many of the mainstream boxes, and a specialised box, which they hope to bring to the market in early 2010. They say it shouldn't cost any more than the price of a good quality mainstream version. All the menus talk on this baby, as does the electronic programme guide and it also has the ability to record TV. The voice is a bit of a nightmare to listen to though, so I hope they change that before it arrives in shops.

Next, I headed to a session about mobile web. Henny Swan from Opera spoke eloquently about whether this is enabled or disabled by design and when it isn't, what can be done. To be honest, it was a fairly technical presentation and mostly about making text bigger and the page as a whole easier to see, so a lot of it went over my head. I'm fairly sure though that the main thrust was that, contrary to some theories, a website should avoid making a mobile version of it's sight where possible. This is all well and good, but I use Facebook mobile and the Guardian's mobile sight on my PC because the main websites are more difficult to use. I'm hoping they both improve the accessibility of their main sites before getting rid of the mobile version.

Later on in the evening we had the conference dinner. Talking GPS pioneer and blind man turned VI Mike May was the main speaker. He told us about how he wangled his way on to mainstream football teams as a kid, how he was the first blind person to ski at the Olympics and about what it was like to gain some sight having been blind from the age of 3. I reckoned he deserved a shot at 13 Questions for his trouble, the interview will follow soon, including news of a bit of rivalry between him and Myles Hilton-Barber.

Today, I interviewed accessibility champion, Cynthia Waddell. As Damon mentioned, she spoke at the opening of the event yesterday. Cynthia is hearing impaired and her life's work is to ensure that disability rights laws are kept and changed where necessary, and in her words, "to improve the lives of disabled people by fighting for systemic change". She's a fascinating woman. Her 13 Questions will also follow shortly.

One more thing before I sign off. Have you heard of the Kapsys Kapten? It's a talking GPS system which was developed for joggers and cyclists and is controlled through voice activation. I Didn't get to feel or test the product, because someone had run off with it to try it out, but I want it. The Captain only costs around £150, so I really, really hope that it does the job well. We won't know until it goes on the market properly in a couple of weeks time.

Right I'm off. Have a lovely weekend.

I went to a session this morning where a lovely, passionate phone user with dyslexia, showed us how to get the most out of our handsets and how they can be really useful if you have a disability. He personally uses the calendar constantly to remind him of everything, he says that he wouldn't get from A to B at all if he didn't have GPS on his phone, and he uses a piece of software that he created, called Captura Talk, to take a picture of a page and get it read back to him. He spoke about the ups and downs of voice recognition and how unfortunately, it still only works for carrying out basic functions.

Something I absolutely did not know is that on-phone projectors are on the way. This means that you can project material from your phone on to any surface, creating as big a screen as you like. We will all have these apparently.

After lunch I caught the second half of a session regarding the popular virtual world, Second Life. I thought this would be mostly about its accessibility and while it was, a little bit, mostly the presenter pointed out that it isn't just used by a large number of disabled people, but that there are areas specifically developed by and for. These include Virtual Ability Island where the built environment is actually accessible, including wide doorways, ramps etc, and a rehab centre, set up to help patients explore areas which they might find difficult to deal with in real life. Kell Smith, the presenter, talked about avatars. You can create a wheelchair using avatar if you so wish, but also, as we have discussed on the talk show in the past, Second Life affords disabled people the opportunity to do things we would never be able to in real life. Your avatar could be able to fly if you wanted it to.

Finally, Kell spoke about how some people on the autistic spectrum use Second Life to take first steps into social interaction, which they wouldn't necessarily feel they could do in the real world.

Obviously there are worries and issues around anonymity, and over-use of the virtual world, with possible negative impact on real socialisation, but all in all, something to think about. Should Ouch! Have a presence on Second Life?

The conference continues, so I'll write more tomorrow. Catch you then!

Interesting findings from Abilitynet's Veronika Jermolina on mobile phones - from a field study she did in 2008.

She didn't concentrate on deep internet codey techie talk like the earlier presentation
- some of which was a bit fast movingly dry and pitched very high. No, Veronika took a holistic view of the whole mobile phone experience from purchase to use. First you choose a handset, a network, then you may need assistive technology and after that it's all about the accessibility of the various services. If all these don't gel or work well, disabled people, especially the visually impaired subset, can fare really rather badly.

She noted visually impaired people had a good community setup and were far more likely to buy a phone based on recommendations of others in their situation rather than from a salesperson in a shop. Absolutely! What self respecting blindie isn't on the Access-UK mailing list? I'd far rather someone else went on the learning curve rather than me.

One big thing was that Veronika was very keen to have mobile phone shops displaying real phones rather than dummy phones in their stores. Nice to see the size and shape, yes, but disabled people will want to test out the text size, handlability, etc. Too true V'ronika, I hate that in moby shops ... it's like you're talking my language.

Crucially, she went on, mobile sites didn't have very usable or accessible pages detailing their pay structures ... which she figured was a big reason why people aren't using mobile internet. It can be very expensive you know, like 4 quid a day before you even realise you're spending money!!! Only 42% of her sample user set used the mobile net as opposed to 97% who used the phone to make calls and 91% for SMS text messaging we all know and love.

This study was done in 2008. However, it's my personal perception that my blind brethren, at least, have really picked up and run with mobile internet the last year since we all sussed Facebook was too damn hard to use on our computers.

Even later in the morning was a session from Andrew Arch about how older people use the internet.

It's perhaps unsurprising to find that his studies revealed that older people and disabled people share a lot of the same difficulties when it comes to using the web. But one interesting thing he mentioned was that older people didn't grow up with computers, didn't use them for leisure nor in the office, so it's hard to quantify where inaccessibility starts and a lifetime of no computer experience kicks in and just muddies the waters. And is that actually relevant anyway? Interesting but ... relevant? Older people are using the web in the same ways as us all for many things: social reasons, ecommerce (especially when leaving the house becomes an issue), local services, banking and all that.
Emma Tracey went to other sessions and will be with you in a while ... more from me at Techshare tomorrow. Ciao.

So here goes. Lets start with session number 1 which started at 10am today.

When you ask disabled people about computer access, you tend to get a series of small problems hurled in your direction. Makes you think that it's a mess, heavily fragmented with lots of individual projects needed to fix lots of software.

But Richard Schwerdtfeger (accessibility strategist at IBM) and Cynthia Waddell (International Centre for Disability Resources) helped give the audience a glimpse at the bigger picture.

As well as lots of technical speak about how we got to where we are today, we all got a sense of the local and global work going on to fix standards and laws to make ICT accessible to as many people as possible. It's an incredible enabler and has real negative impact if not implemented, or implemented incorrectly.

When the web first started, thank you Sir Tim Berner's Lee, it was just a clever way of linking bog standard documents together. Pages of written text with pictures. It wasn't too difficult giving access to basic documents but now websites are becoming richer, more dynamic with active pages that move and change on the fly.

Richard talked about ARIA - Accessible Rich Internet Applications. He thinks this is the biggest advancement in web access in the last 10 years. It helps address access to pages that aren't just static text like the internet of old.

Cynthia, a legal expert, concentrated on the laws and standards which will underpin future accessibility. "Technology changes but civil rights do not" was her favourite phrase.

International Standards Organisation (ISO), Web Access Initiative (WAI), , various local laws and interestingly this much talked about UN convention on disability - ratified by the UK and president Obama this year. Really interesting to hear that, on tech access, the convention goes further than even the ADA (American's with Disabilities Act, similar to our DDA in the UK) so once ratified by senate the world should have a better focus on technology rights for disabled people.

'Interoperrability' was a word they both liked, by the way. I hope I've given an accessible overview of the first hour.

Robin Spinks, Techshare organiser talked about the upcoming Techshare India and Techshare Africa conferences. All good stuff.

Robin then played a video from Microsoft's Norm Hodne, Windows 7 accessibility manager (Windows 7 is the new Vista in case you don't know). He talked a good talk about collaboration with 200 assistive technology vendors and the development of UIA - a new accessibility framework in the forthcoming operating system. He said it was more stable.

The other big thing I drew from this video was that the new magnifier in Windows 7 will work with video, not just text.

More later ...

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch

Are you disabled? About to start university for the first time? if so, we want to hear from you.

The BBC's disability website 'Ouch!' is planning a feature called Disabled Student Diaries. We want to follow 3 disabled students in their first few weeks at university, focusing on everything from access to lectures and campus, through to how you're getting on living independently away from home and your new social life.

We will expect our chosen students to write a diary for us for the first 4 weeks at uni plus some other 'stuff' including a little filming before you go to uni and a lovely care package the contents of which are secret - sssh.

We're keen to work with you so we don't disrupt your life too much at this crucial time. We will be offering some payment as well as other potentially interesting opportunities.

How do I get involved?

Email us now: ouch@bbc.co.uk ... and tell us a bit about you.

When mailing us, give answers to as many of the following questions as possible, to help us get to know you:

* Name:

* Age:

* Where do you live:

* Your mobile phone number?
(or details of the best way to contact you if you don't' do phones)

* What university are you attending:

* What course?

* Details about your disability and access requirements at university:

* What are you most looking forward to from your university experience?

* Your interests and anything you think we'd like to know:

* What would your friends say about you if we asked them?

* What job do you hope to get after uni?

And if you have a social networking page or website, give us the address.

If you have any queries about our project, we're quite friendly so just drop us a mail ouch@bbc.co.uk or call on 020 8752 4427

Clearing is used by applicants who have not managed to secure a place at university or college for the current year, a system that is criticised by Trailblazers, a group of student campaigners, who say it fails to leave disabled students enough time to find a course and research whether the university will provide adequate facilities. 

Instead of just complaining, Trailblazers have decided to do something to help their fellow disabled students by organising an emergency clearing hotline. The hotline is being operated in conjunction with a new report, University Challenge, published by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign's Trailblazers earlier
in the week, showing that disabled students are being penalised when choosing a university due to a lack of room for hired carers and access to shared
spaces, such as libraries and cafes. 

By calling freephone 0800 652 6352,on Thursday 20 August from 12-3pm, or emailing trailblazers@muscular-distrophy.org you can receive advice and support in choosing a university which best suits your needs.

From all the Ouch! team, best of luck for tomorrow.

Gary McKinnon is the 43 year old man waiting to find out if he is to be extradited to the US on charges of hacking into military computers in the USA. On Friday, the next chapter in the story will open, or close, as we find out the results of a judicial review into his extradition to the US to face trial.

Mr McKinnon admits hacking into 97 US government computers, including those of Nasa and the Pentagon, during 2001 and 2002.

The judicial review focuses on whether Mr McKinnon should have been allowed to face trial in the UK and whether the decision to extradite him should have been reconsidered in light of a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome last year.

If found guilty, McKinnon could be facing a 70 year prison sentence.

It is said that his autism spectrum disorder will lead to him suffering acutely if removed from his own country, friends and family. Further, McKinnon and his supporters say he is not a malicious cyber criminal and that his hacking is a symptom of his neuro untypical behaviour and obsessions. One US prosecutor accused him of committing "the biggest military computer hack of all time" and it is felt that the US government is likely to be hard on him in order to deter others.

Mr McKinnon recently told BBC 5 Live's Victoria Derbyshire that he was on a "moral crusade" to prove US intelligence had found an alien craft run on clean fuel.

A user called Knellerman posted the folllowing on Victoria's blog during the show:

How Asperger's works.

My son has it. One day at end of school he pulled out a fence post and ran across the field. The head saw this and called it vandalism.

I asked him what he thought he was doing. He said he had spotted some dog poo and wanted to move it so younger children would not fall into it.

The head's heart melted. Welcome to Asperger's: Right motive, wrong action.

Gary was looking for UFOs, not hacking into military secrets. My son's behaviour was impulsive but that impulsive behavior can become obbsessive, as in Gary's case. What do I know? I was diagnosed with AS at the age of 50.

Video: BBC's Huw Edwards interviews Gary McKinnon - 30 July 2008

Interview with Gary who explains his motives. He talks to the BBC's Spencer Kelly about and antigravity and other technologies that are being hidden from us and which he was hoping to uncover. Also discussed is the lack of security in the US department of defence and details of his hacking exploits across two years.

Hacker Gary McKinnon will receive no pity, insists US - Telegraph

Free Gary campaign.

For the duration of BBLive, Ouch! ran a stand, giving out sweets, memory sticks and slightly darkly humoured postcards to an unsuspecting public. This was really fantastic, because instead of being stuck at our desks in west London, we got to sit in a big tent, known to the organisers as the second hall, chatting to random disableds. We waxed lyrical about the website we love all day and they told us what they were interested in and what they would like to see on Ouch. Hopefully we all came away with something good.

As well as the formal stand area, Rob Crossan and Liz Carr presented a live version of the Ouch! Talk Show at lunchtime each day. An interactive quiz show complete with bad puns, silly games and lots of audience participation, this went down a treat. On day one, the amazing blind pianist Derek Paravacini took the stage to help Rob and Liz out, playing endless game show theme tunes and even a couple of Michael Jackson numbers. On day two, Heavy Load, the punk band with and without learning difficulties, did the honours. They shook the tent we were housed in to its very core and put everyone in top form for the rest of the afternoon.

Here are some of the best bits from the weekend in the form of a slideshow. Unfortunately Heavy Load don't feature, but we hope to have some video to put up shortly. It is definitely worth waiting for.

Your next opportunity to meet the Ouch! team and to experience the wonder that is the live talk show will be at Liberty Festival, a one day disability arts event taking place on the fifth of September in Trafalgar Square. We look forward to seeing you there.

Blind people love their tech. Maybe it's cos the Ouch team sports two blind members of staff, we don't know, but we reckon blindies get all the best gizmos. I mean, grab sticks? Hoists? We know they're important but you wouldn't get them out and show them off in the office, would you. Not like, say, a talking colour detector that tells you if your clothes are blue, red or dark olive? Woah I'm salivating just thinking about it. Don't go feeling bad if you're not blind, though.

Anyway, cutting to the chase now. We dispatched gizmo crazy Emma Tracey to the event today so visit Ouch's home page in the next couple of days to see what grabbed her attention most of all.

Personally speaking, I'm quite happy with my talking basket weaver kit.

If you went to the event, tell us about what you saw in the comments space below. Or maybe you have a fave gizmo you're dying to tell us about.

Louisa Summerfield from WheelieChix-Chic - an online clothes retailer for 'wheelechair women' joins Mat and Liz on this month's Ouch Talk Show to discuss your clothing highs and woes. They're joined also by Human Hi colimnist Claire Jennings, a blind journalist with lots to say about image.

Click here to listen to the Ouch Talk Show #41

Our 'Clothes Clinic', as we're calling it, starts about 10 minutes into the show and features several disabled people who came forward with a wide range of really interesting questions for our panel. There's more to this disability clothes thing than meets the eye.

Were the panel able to send our callers home happy? Tune in and find out.

And if you know nothing about clothes, clevages seemd to get an awful lot of mentions. Accentuate the positives, ladies. Apparently. But be careful you're fastened up properly, won't ya.

Plenty of other stuff on the show besides, including: disabled pigeons, our Vegetable Vegetable or Vegetable quiz and the usual unsigned disabled artist.

You can podcast the show or listen to it on the web by clicking our play button.

and if you want to hear or read more about clothes on Ouch, drop us a line: ouch@bbc.co.uk.

If you weren't there, you missed out on a live quiz version of our Talk Show presented by Liz Carr and Rob Crossan.

On stage with us was musical genius Derek Parivacini - playing keyboards for us on Saturday. And the legendary not-so-musical punk geniuses of Heavy Load on Sunday. If you weren't there, you missed something pretty special!

Mr. Johnny is, as Jamie says himself, "an ambiguous character". The play is set in 1939, so no disability language is used as such, but he does have an untypical way of speaking and is described by one of the other characters early on as being, "simpler than most".

However, as the play progresses, we begin to realise that this isn't necessarily true and that he is more likely to have been misunderstood by most. Mr. Johnny gains respect as he stands up for himself when ridiculed for his disability. He comforts Carrie the main character when she is distressed and he is the one who solves an important mystery as the play nears its conclusion.

Jamie Beddard is one of Britain's most acclaimed disabled actors and has played key roles in some of the BBC's top disability related dramas including Scallagrigg and The Egg. He was offered the role of Mr. Johnny and afforded the opportunity to make it his own. His other skills include writing and directing, and these certainly came to the fore in his interpretation of a strong and well integrated disabled character.

Opening in UK cinemas on Friday 7th August, Adam is a quirky romantic comedy starring Hugh Dancy (previously seen in The Jane Austen Book Club and Confessions of a Shopaholic and Rose Byrne (who has starred in Damages and 28 Weeks Later). Adam is a handsome but intriguing young man with Asperger's who has led a sheltered life - but all that changes when he meets his new neighbour, Beth, a beautiful and brainy writer damaged from a past relationship. She finds his awkwardness perplexing (difficulty in social situations being one of the traits of AS), but is undeniably attracted to him ... ah, it's already beginning to sound like heartwarming Sunday afternoon film fare, isn't it? Break out the chocolates.

The movie has already won an award at the influential Sundance Film Festival, and has also been selected as the closing night premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival at the end of June. In the meantime, the rest of us can watch the official movie trailer on YouTube. Keep an eye on Ouch! too, as closer to the film's release date we're hoping to bring you a review.

The Convention is a landmark agreement that aims to give the world's 650 million disabled people full equality, and ratification means that a country accepts its legal obligations under the treaty and ensures that any necessary laws are passed.

But what rights are guaranteed for disabled people by this Convention? Well, in summary, it's about protecting your rights when it comes to making your own decisions; saying no to being placed in an institution; saying no to medical or psychological treatment; and living in the community. It also seeks to remove barriers to participation in daily life and enable equal opportunities for all.

Getting to this point has been a slow process, though. The United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the treaty way back in December 2006; it was opened for signatures by UN member countries in March 2007; and it came into force in May last year when Ecuador, the twentieth of the 139 signatories to the Convention, ratified it.

The UK government, meanwhile, has been criticised in recent months for delaying our ratification - although it was one of the first countries to sign the original treaty - and for seeking a series of 'reservations' or opt-outs to particular parts of the Convention relating to immigration, education and the armed forces. (If you want to read more about these, there are details on the government's Office for Disability Issues website.)

But after all the official discussions and debates, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is finally here. We're interested to know what you think of it, and whether you foresee it bringing about any big changes in the lives of disabled people. Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

• In March 2008, Ouch's own Tom Shakespeare wrote about the UN Convention, saying: "Passing disability civil rights statutes is relatively simple and looks nice. Doing something to improve the situation for disabled people is complicated, costly and difficult. So expect lots of the former and less of the latter in future". Read the full article here.