With the increasing popularity of mainstream wearable devices, it is critical to assess the accessibility implications of such technologies. For people with visual impairments, who do not always need the visual display of a mobile phone, alternative means of eyes-free wearable interaction are particularly appealing. To explore the potential impacts of such technology, we conducted two studies. The first was an online survey that included 114 participants with visual impairments and 101 sighted participants; we compare the two groups in terms of current device use. The second was an interview and design probe study with 10 participants with visual impairments. Our findings expand on past work to characterize a range of trends in smartphone use and accessibility issues therein. Participants with visual impairments also responded positively to two eyes-free wearable device scenarios: a wristband or ring and a glasses-based device. Discussions on projected use of these devices suggest that small, easily accessible, and discreet wearable input could positively impact the ability of people with visual impairments to access information on the go and to participate in certain social interactions.

Real-time applications have become increasingly common and necessary to perform everyday tasks for many users. These applications speed up their communications by connecting users to the closest servers and clustering nearby users together. In replica server selection and client clustering, determination of the closest host quickly and accurately is crucial to quick delivery of application responses and the satisfaction of users' expectations. Researchers commonly use latency as the primary metric of network proximity and have developed various latency approximation tools. However, these tools do not yet offer an attractive balance of measurement accuracy, scalability, and maintainability. In this paper, we propose a new latency estimation system for arbitrary hosts using host-to-CDN latency measurements. Compared to existing latency estimation tools, our technique offers superior coverage of the IP address space and latency estimation accuracy. With improved coverage and accuracy of latency estimation it will become easier to establish low latency connections between hosts in a network, improving the responsiveness of real-time and interactive Internet applications.