Multimedia Accessibility

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.

Time and again, the Author's Guild has shown itself to be the epitome of a venal special interest group, the kind of grasping, foolish posturers that make the public cynically assume that the profession it represents is a racket, not a trade. This is, after all, the same gang of weirdos who opposed the used book trade going online. I think there's plenty not to like about the Kindle -- the DRM, the proprietary file format, both imposed on authors and publishers even if they don't want it -- and about Amazon's real audiobook section, Audible (the DRM -- again, imposed on authors and publishers even if they'd prefer not to use it). But if there's one thing Amazon has demonstrated, it's that it plans on selling several bazillion metric tons of audiobooks. They control something like 90 percent of the market. To accuse them of setting out to destroy it just doesn't pass the giggle-test.

What's really at stake with Kindle is Amazon's desire to re-invent itself as a company where the buying and selling of retail goods is not an end in itself but also a means by which to obtain valuable client data. In a more abstract sense, Amazon.com is actively producing laboring subjects in and around an everyday practice-the reading of books and periodicals-which to my knowledge has never shared as direct a relationship to economically productive activity as it does with Kindle.

The Authors Guild is pressuring Amazon to modify the Kindle 2 so that the synthetic speech function can only be used with the express authorization of the owner of the copyright of a work. A coalition of organizations that represent or work with persons with reading disabilities is organizing a protest to persuade the Guild to change its position. KEI supports the protest, and makes this statement on the Kindle 2 issue:

A coalition of organizations representing people who cannot read print will protest the removal of the text-to-speech function from e-books for the Amazon Kindle 2 at the Authors Guild headquarters in NY City at 31 East 32nd Street on April 7, 2009, 12 to 2:00 p.m. Join us there! Manon

The Web Accessibility Initiative's Protocols and Formats working group directly address the issue of making rich Internet applications accessible, and we borrow some of their concepts to investigate methods of ensuring that Ajax applications work with lea

Reading Text Online Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D., Chief of Advanced Studies and Projects for HFI, discusses reading text online. Are we really ready to make research based decisions?

Graphic Testimony It's possible to provide long descriptions for dynamically generated graphs By Stan Berman

with APA refs from citationmachine.net

Dec. 5, 06. "Accessibility agency Nomensa tested the leading websites in five different sectors across 20 countries. Only three websites (...) The report, commissioned by the United Nations as part of its International Day of Disabled Persons ..."

In his 26 April 1999 column on the AWARE Center, CNET builder.com's "Master Builder" Dan Shafer wrote: As I've pointed out, there are strong, selfish advantages to be gained by making your site accessible; but, not all of your efforts apply only to those

...The CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) has developed two such tools, version 1.0 and 2.01 of the Media Access Generator (MAGpie), for creating captions and audio descriptions for rich media. ...

Accessible Javascript Menu 4.5 by Brothercake UDM is a fully-featured and accessible DHTML menu, that provides useable content to all browsers - including screenreaders, search-engines and text-only browsers.

This is an experimental service provided by the Adaptive Technology Resource Center (ATRC) at the University Of Toronto.

Questo è un servizio sperimentale offerto dall'Adaptive Technology Resource Center (ATRC) presso l'Università di Toronto.

Ciò nonostante, si assiste ad un trend preoccupante, che non ha trovato freno nell'attivo coinvolgimento degli utenti in qualità di co-autori, ma che tende addirittura ad offuscare quanto di "umano" vi sia su internet.

Barriers and Bridges to Learning as Perceived by Postsecondary Students with Learning Disabilities - Addressing Student Diversity in the Classroom: The Approaches of Outstanding University Professors - Disability Service Providers' Perceptions about Impl

...qualcuno ha provato a portare il 2.0 nella PA, si tratta del comune di Torino con CambiaTo.

Via http://www.lucamascaro.info/blog/2006/12/accessibilit-oracle.html nel blog di Luca Mascaro