Freedom Scientific is a company that makes accessibility products for computer users with low vision and blindness. The software they create enables screen magnification,

screen reading Screen reading is the act of reading a text on a computer screen, smartphone, e-book reader, Discovery Louis Émile Javal, a French ophthalmologist and founder of an ophthalmology laboratory in Paris is credited with the introduction of the term ...

, and use of

refreshable braille display A refreshable braille display or braille terminal is an electro-mechanical device for displaying braille characters, usually by means of round-tipped pins raised through holes in a flat surface. Visually impaired computer users who cannot use a s ...

s with modern computers. The company is a subsidiary of Vispero and is based in

Clearwater Clearwater or Clear Water may refer to: Places Canada * Clear Water Academy, a private Catholic school located in Calgary, Alberta * Clearwater (provincial electoral district), a former provincial electoral district in Alberta * Clearwater, Briti ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

History

Former motorcycle racer Ted Henter developed the

JAWS Jaws or Jaw may refer to: Anatomy * Jaw, an opposable articulated structure at the entrance of the mouth ** Mandible, the lower jaw Arts, entertainment, and media * Jaws (James Bond), a character in ''The Spy Who Loved Me'' and ''Moonraker'' * ...

screen reader after he became blind as a result of a car accident. Henter and Bill Joyce founded Henter-Joyce in 1987 in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, Florida, producing an

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

version of JAWS and later a

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

version. Henter-Joyce merged with Arkenstone and Blazie Engineering in 2000 to form Freedom Scientific.

References

External links

* {{official Computer companies of the United States Companies based in Clearwater, Florida Blindness equipment