‘Education’ Archives

In the

In our latest editorial, Apple in the "Blind" World, Mac-cessibility contributor M.J. Phoenix voices her frustration with an article from the RNIB regarding the iPad, which includes some blatant mis-statements.

According to a post from AppAdvice.com, the entire Project Gutenberg library will be directly available from within Apple’s upcoming iBooks application and store for electronic books. The library contains over 30,000 titles from the public domain free of charge, and has become increasingly popular. Many classic titles are available in a variety of formats, including [...]

As Apple began taking pre-orders today for its new iPad device, they released a few more details about the product. Most exciting among these for VoiceOver users is the news that iBooks, the application that doubles as a digital bookstore and electronic book reader, will support VoiceOver. Apple’s iBooks page describes its accessibility thus: Unlike [...]

In the seventh episode of the Mac-cessibility Round Table Podcast, knights Cara Quinn, Eric Troup, Darcy Burnard, Holly Anderson, Steve Sawczyn, and Josh de Lioncourt discuss Apple’s big event to introduce the iPad slate computing device, its accessibility, speculation on how VoiceOver may differ from the iPhone, and what we think it means for the [...]

Apple.com launched a new page in its Education section devoted to Special Education and the accessibility features included in Mac OS X. The Special Education page offers many video sessions that introduce and demonstrate key accessibility technologies such as VoiceOver, Zoom, and others for a wide range of physical and cognitive disabilities. This page should [...]

On Monday, 13/April, Jim Denham will be presenting "An Overview of an Accessible Leopard" for AccessibleWorld.org, a division of Helping Hands for the Blind.. The Mac OS X operating system includes some powerful accessibility features for users who are blind or visually impaired. The built-in VoiceOver screen reading software provides fantastic access to the Mac [...]

Yesterday, in a brief post on Amazon’s Kindle Blog, the Kindle development team notes that they’ve received a great deal of feedback from visually impaired readers, and that they are working to make the Kindle more accessible in the future. Specifically, the post mentions adding speech feedback to the navigation system of the device. While [...]

Apple Inc. will be participating in the CSUN Center on Disabilities International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference in Los Angeles next month. The sessions Apple will be participating in are as follows: Session ID: WWW-2033 Title: Mac OS X Accessibility Features Speakers: Mary Beth Janes, Mike Shebanek Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 10:40 AM [...]

We’ve just received word that there will be an accessibility workshop at the Apple Store Chicago on Michigan Avenue, Sunday, February 22nd from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM. The workshop will cover the general accessibility features of Mac OS X, including VoiceOver and a demonstration of spoken menus on the iPod nano 4G. You can [...]

While not strictly Mac related, we feel that this situation is a serious problem, and could potentially effect access to printed materials and mobile devices for the blind and visually impaired at large. The Author’s Guild has taken issue with the new text-to-speech capabilities of the Kindle device from Amazon.com

The Washington University’s Accessibility Interaction and MObility Group (AIM Group) has demonstrated a technique for how the Apple iPhone could be made accessible to users who are blind or visually impaired. You can see a remarkable video demonstrating this technique by clicking the YouTube.com link. This is a very exciting advancement that shows the possibilities. [...]