Group items tagged

" * Posted by Justin Harris on September 4, 2010 at 12:20pm in Bugs and Issues Hello, I am a blind network creator and have noticed a few problems with ning accessibility. For the most part, the platform is quite accessible. But here's what I've found. 1. The area where you can add or take away features in your network is not accessible because of the drag and drop. While drag and drop can be done in some instances, it is very dificult, and at other times, it doesn't work at all. I always have to have someone help me with it. 2. I can't get ning chat to work. I've even tried third party solutions, but they use flash, which is not very blind friendly. I don't know if anything can be done about either of these problems, but I really hope so. I still want a site that looks good, but at the same time, accessibility in those areas would be nice. I don't know if there is some kind of script ning could run to see if someone is using a screen reader, and if so, could they generate a different admin interface? That way, those who don't need any changes could keep using the service as normal. But then blind users could check or uncheck items in a feature list. Then, depending on the feature, maybe ning could auto place the feature in a good spot, so that the users network still remains organizedd"

This isn't a new issue. George Kerscher and I wrote a major essay on the topic seven(!) years ago entitled the Soundproof Book. In it, we pointed out the irony that the first generation of ebook readers being inaccessible to blind people. This irony continues: it's a terrible shame that Amazon (and other ebook device vendors) keeps putting out ebook products that are inaccessible to the blind! More on that in another essay. The essence of the Soundproof Book essay was the dueling moral high grounds: author's rights vs. the right to access. Since these are both generally good from society's standpoint, how do you handle the conflict between them?

The blind and other readers have the right for books to be presented to us in the format that is most useful to us, and we are not violating copyright law as long as we use readers, either human or machine, for private rather than public listening. The key point is that reading aloud in private is the same whether done by a person or a machine, and reading aloud in private is never an infringement of copyright. Amazon has taken a step in the right direction by including text-to-speech technology for reading e-books aloud on its new Kindle 2". More details are available on the Forbes website.

The Zenbox Project's main objective is to provide easy access to a Linux-based graphical desktop environment to blind users of notebooks.

Welcome to Camera Obscura, the womb without a view http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/blind.html ...\n(skip to detailed site map)

Di B., Paolini P., Speroni M. (2004 (to appear)). Web Accessibility for Blind Users Towards Advanced Guidelines. UI4ALL Conference (User Interfaces for All), Vien [sic]

Same as in Forbes' but on the NFB site with contact info

Alex Helmick and the Guru check out the hot new ebook, the Amazon Kindle 2... but nothing on controversy about TTS, Authors' Guild, blind people's reactions to AG and Amazon caving in to AG. Nothing about DRM either.

Ossia: Trattato di Marrakech per facilitare l'accesso alle opere pubblicate per le persone cieche, ipovedenti o con altre disabilità che impediscono l'uso dei testi stampati" Pagina del sito dell'OMPI dal quale il trattato può essere scaricato in inglese, francese, spagnolo, arabo, cinese e russo.

Vischeck is a way of showing you what things look like to someone who is color blind. You can try Vischeck online- either run Vischeck on your own image files or run Vischeck on a web page. You can also download programs to let you run it on your own comp

A PDF file equipped with well-formed tags may be "reflowed" to fit different page or screen widths, and will display well on handheld devices. Tagged PDF files also work better with the screen-reader devices used by many blind and other disabled users. In most cases, tags are necessary in order to make a PDF file comply with Section 508.

A common method of limiting access to services made available over the Web is visual verification of a bitmapped image. This presents a major problem to users who are blind, have low vision, or have a learning disability such as dyslexia.

Behind_The_Mike_40-09-29_ep03_Babys_Cries.mp3 also about blind children learning to make and use radio sets (towards the end)

Listening to the examples demonstrates that nobody non-blind and non-masochistic would use the Kindle 2 text-to-speech feature. And as blind people can't use the Kindle 2, what is the point of that feature - and of the Authors' Guild ruckus about it?

February 25, 2009. Text-to-speech (TTS) programs have been in use for a number of years, and they're improving. As Roy Blount says in an op-ed in today's New York Times, Kindle 2's TTS isn't Jim Dale reading "Harry Potter," but it's listenable. There's no need to take our word for it; have a listen to the sample below.

"1 luglio 2013 Antonella De Robbio Soltanto il 5% dei libri pubblicati nel mondo - meno dell'1% nei Paesi in via di sviluppo - è disponibile in formati accessibili per gli oltre 287 milioni di non vedenti e ipovedenti - in termini tecnici, visually impaired persons, persone con danni visivi - che non hanno accesso alla cultura nei supporti a stampa e in video, essendo inabilitate alla lettura per disabilità fisica. A fare fin qui da ostacolo il numero relativamente ristretto dei potenziali fruitori e, soprattutto, i vincoli posti dalle leggi a protezione dei diritti di proprietà intellettuale. Ma la situazione potrebbe cambiare: contro ogni aspettativa, si è concluso positivamente in questi giorni lo storico trattato di Marrakech, in seno alla conferenza diplomatica Ompi (Organizzazione Mondiale per la Proprietà Intellettuale, Wipo) tenutasi dal 17 al 28 giugno 2013. Il lavoro di lobbing dei diretti interessati, appoggiati dalla Chiesa cattolica che si è ufficialmente schierata a favore del trattato, non ha precedenti in termini di efficacia. L'Unione mondiale dei ciechi (Wbu) denunciava il rischio che quattro anni e mezzo di negoziati su un nuovo trattato per le persone cieche o con difficoltà di lettura potessero concludersi con un vuoto accordo "di facciata" o con un nulla di fatto. "Un trattato per i non vedenti o per chi detiene i diritti?" ci si chiedeva anche tra le associazioni bibliotecarie, dopo la sessione informale e la sessione speciale del Comitato permanente per il diritto d'autore e diritti connessi dell'Ompi."

NPR, Harris Corporation and Towson University today announced a new initiative to make radio more accessible to the hundreds of millions of hearing and visually impaired people around the world.

Sadly, the Authors Guild does not support equal access for us. The Guild has told us that to read your books with text-to-speech we must either submit to a burdensome special registration system and prove our disabilities -- or pay extra. The Guild's position is outrageous and discriminates against the millions of people with print disabilities who are eager to be your readers and customers.

And here is a powerful statement from Carrie Russel, Director Program on Public Access to Information, ALA Office for Information Technology Policy "It is hard to know what is worse - Amazon cowtowing to the Authors Guild's request to remove the text to speech function or the Authors Guild seeking to squeeze every penny they can from the visually impaired who are already paying for the Kindle books. Amazon did not have to cave - there was no license they had agreed to with the Authors Guild to remove the speech function that would have expanded rights to private reading. Shame on the Authors Guild for being greedy and downright mean to the visually impaired."