E-Access Bulletin Live

Three of the biggest e-book reader manufacturers – Amazon, Kobo and Sony – have petitioned the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to ask for exemptions from US laws requiring products to be accessible to users with disabilities.

The three are urging the commission to waive parts of the 21st Century Video and Communications and Video Accessibility Act which require any product offering ‘advanced communication services’ (ACS) to be “accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities.” The manufacturers say that as e-readers are used almost exclusively for reading, they do not provide more generic ACS. They argue that to make them fully accessible would increase their cost and weight and decrease battery life, essentially turning them into different devices more similar to tablet computers.

(more…)

Accessibility functions on mobile devices are becoming mainstream and mobile manufacturers are now competing to make their devices more accessible, the president of international digital accessibility body G3ict has said.

Speaking at the M-Enabling Australasia 2013 event in Australia, Axel Leblois said accessibility has become a driving force in the mobile market.

(more…)

GB Paralympics star Hannah Cockroft MBE, winner of two gold medals at the London 2012 Paralympic Games in wheelchair sprint races, is this year’s inspirational keynote speaker at e-Access ‘13, the UK’s leading event on access to technology by people with disabilities.

The event will analyse the ‘Paralympics effect’, focusing on how increased public and media interest in disability after the 2012 Paralympic Games can be used to maximum benefit for accessibility progress. Other speakers include Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative industries Ed Vaizey, who will update delegates on how the government is addressing accessibility; and disability consultant and campaigner Simon Stevens, star of a Channel Four TV comedy show.

(more…)

By Donna Jodhan.

In 2000 I embarked on a journey to encourage the Canadian Government to work with blind Canadians to make their websites more accessible to all Canadians. At that time, my main objective was to raise awareness of the inaccessibility of government websites, and to convince officials of the importance of making their websites fully accessible as soon as possible.

I started my mission by taking my concerns to various departmental heads within the government and my presentations focused on the importance of making information fully accessible to all Canadians. I focused specifically on the fact that we are now living in an information society and a knowledge-based economy and blind Canadians, like everyone else, needed immediate access to information to make vital everyday decisions that affected such things as our health, safety, security and social welfare.

(more…)