‘Misc’ Archives

Yesterday, APple held it’s annual shareholders meeting. The meeting included over an hour’s worth of questions answered by CEO Steve Jobs, COO Tim Cook, and CFO Peter Oppenheimer. Most of the discussion revolved around the company’s efforts regarding environmental issues, management, and acquisitions.
One shareholder and former Apple employee, asked why Apple will not be [...]

UK tech publication The Register recently published a piece reporting on something quite important which has unfortunately garnered so little attention that it slipped under our notice. Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding discussed the possibility of a "European Disability Act" to compel EU nations to adopt web accessibility rules resulting in all European [...]

We provide some commentary on the National Federation of the Blind’s recent review of VoiceOver and the Mac, and their subsequent response to the outcry from users in our latest editorial.

It’s time for this month’s edition of the Mac-cessibility Round Table Podcast. This month’s episode is #2, entitled "Sedated". Josh de Lioncourt’s sound quality is not quite on par this time, for which we apologize. He was travelling and away from his usual equipment.
Topics covered:

Introduce this month’s panelists, including Holly Anderson, Darcy Burnard, [...]

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 hopeful [...]

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 BBC is reporting on a new technology being developed by a team of Japanese researchers which uses focused ultrasonic waves to produce the illusion of solid objects in mid-air to the sense of touch.
While still in its infancy, the researchers believe the technique could be used in video games to provide a more immersive [...]

Last week, the National Federation of the Blind settled out of court with Target Stores Inc. regarding access for the blind and visually impaired to its website and online store for an amount in excess of $6M.
In an insightful entry to their blog, Disability Nation points out the shortfalls of this settlement, particularly where the [...]

The most recent issue, (#4), of the Assistiveware Newsletter focuses on persons with visual impairments and their solutions to access issues on the Macintosh platform.
The newsletter is comprised of contributions by users of Assistiveware products, and includes no advertising.

In the 119th episode of the MacWorld Podcast, host Christopher Breen is joined by Josh de Lioncourt to discuss VoiceOver and Apple’s progress in accessibility for the blind and visually impaired. The show also discusses the recent news of Mac clones.
We’d like to thank Mr. Breen and MacWorld.com for taking the time to explore [...]

In a lengthy article, ComputerWorld.com discusses access to computers for the blind and visually impaired. Though the article is extensive, covering topics from general computer access to web accessibility issues, there’s no acknowledgement of VoiceOver’s existence or Apple’s work to provide universal access to the visually impaired and other disabled groups. In fact, [...]

We’d like to ask you to join us in lifting a glass of cider…or whatever beverage is your fancy…and toast Apple Inc. on its thirty-second birthday. It was April 1st, 1976, when the company was first founded. A lot has happened in those thirty-two years, and through them Apple has frequently been at [...]