‘Misc’ Archives

29/April/2010 marks the fifth anniversary of the release of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and the VoiceOver screen reader. The Screenless Switchers podcast offers a retrospective in episode 36, looking back at the last five years of Apple accessibility with a couple of the earliest Mac converts, and ahead to the future.

On 29/April/2005, Apple Inc. released Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, the first commercial operating system with a built-in screen reader: VoiceOver. A lot has changed since the introduction of VoiceOver. Here are some highlights: The creation of the Mac Visionaries community of visually impaired Mac users The birth of the Screenless Switchers podcast The introduction [...]

Many visually impaired users of Facebook.com had begun using Facebook Lite, a slimmed down version of the popular social networking site which offered most of the features of the full site, but a cleaner interface and better accessibility, regardless of the platform or screen reader being used to access the service. Earlier this week, Facebook [...]

Today, Adobe Systems announced their intention to support accessibility with their Flash and Flex tools on multiple OS platforms, including Mac OS X. The full statement reads: Adobe understands how important it is for computer users with disabilities to be able to access the entire Internet. In recognition of the needs of computer users with [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]