• RT @ppatel Webaim is conducting a screen reader user survey o gather more definitive data on screen reader users: http://tinyurl.com/3rmwte # 2008/12/18
• News: Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.5.6 http://www.lioncourt.com/?p=250 # 2008/12/15
• Retweet: @cookiecrook BusinessWeek: Apple is greener than Greenpeace says. http://tinyurl.com/57v4fp # 2008/12/08
• Retweet: @vmwarefusion : Fusion 50% off today, one day only. Details: http://is.gd/9Gqi Coupon code "CyberMondayDeal" # 2008/12/01
• It's Thanksgiving Day in the United States. We're thankful for Apple's commitment to accessibility in their products. # 2008/11/27

A new version of the Mozzilla Firefox web browser extension Firevox has been released with full support for Apple’s TTS engine in Mac OS X. The update also includes some bug fixes for users of the Orca screen reader under Linux.

Unfortunately, installation of Firefox and Firevox is still quite difficult with VoiceOver, but once it is completed, visually impaired users can take advantage of the open source browser through Firevox’s self-voicing capabilities.

Unfortunately, improvements to accessibility of Firefox on the Mac OS X has stalled, and is no longer being actively worked on, to our knowledge. If you’d like access to this browser, we encourage you to let the Mozzilla Foundation know.

Wired.com published an interesting story today by Fred Vogelstein. It gives a "behind the scenes" look at the history of the iPhone’s development. This lengthy article focuses heavily on how the iPhone has and will continue to change the wireless communications industry, as well as describing the massive challenges, particularly technical, that APple faced as it worked to develop the iPhone.

It seems quite clear that Apple was working to an almost impossible deadline, and how the device only just made it to market a the time that it needed to. This seems to offer some reasonable explanation, which had been suspected by many for some time, that Apple simply did not have the ability to get the product to market when it needed to, and incorporate extensive accessibility features.

Given Apple’s track record of a strong commitment to accessibility, it seems logical to deduce that it is only a matter of time before this and similar devices from the company have more access features. We encourage you to continue to contact Apple Accessibility if you want to see access to this and other products.

Following an investigation by an EU commission, Apple has announced it will cut the price of music downloads in its UK iTunes store within six months. Currently, song downloads are more expensive on the UK version of the popular music download service than in the rest of Europe.

Apple blames the higher price on record companies, and has warned that it may drop any labels from the UK store who do not lower their pricing within the next six months.

Currently, songs cost £0.79 (US $1.56).

The commission determined that Apple was guilty of no wrong doing, and any discrepancy in pricing across Europe was due to inconsistent copyright laws from country to country, as well as other factors.

Just a week before MacWorld Expo, Apple updated their online store with substantial updated configuration options for the Mac Pro and Xserve desktop computers.

The new Mac Pros boast of having two of the new Intel 45 nanometer Xeon quad-Core chips clocked at 3.2GHz, and a choice of high-end graphics cards from ATI or NVIDIA. It also can come with up to 4TB of internal storage.

The Xserve now has the option of the same Xeon Quad-Core chips as the Mac Pro, although the Xserve chips are clocked at 3.0GHz, a max of 32GB of RAM, and 3TB of hard drive space. It also boasts two PCI-Express 2.0 expansion slots, faster memory, and a faster frontside bus.

Both machines have the same visual design as they have for quite some time, and this announcement means that Apple will have far more exciting things to talk about than Mac Pro refreshes at next weeks’ keynote from Steve Jobs.