More CAPTCHA follies
We’ve posted a good bit about CAPTCHAs, the automated techniques that try to distinguish humans from vile software bots when visiting websites or registering for accounts, such as the blurry letters you have to type into a box. It’s an arms race between CAPTCHA designers and bot designers, with visually impaired users as collateral damage.
The latest design calls for users to click near the geometric center of any image in a composite set of wall-to-wall images drawn from a database. That’s only step one; step two shows you another image, which you must identify from a list of options. They’re gonna have to get really creative to figure out a non-visual approach to this task. And hey, webmaster, is your site’s porn late medieval Italian poetry really worth all this effort?
Ars Technica: Researchers stay step ahead of bots with image-based CAPTCHA
Pod? Aye…
Heathrow will be introducing a fleet of on-demand four-passenger transport pods to zip travelers to whatever airport destination they choose. Ideal for people with disabilities, you say? Well, the schematic shows something of a lip between floor and platform, and no particular space for a wheelchair to go. And then there’s the touchscreen for destination selection, which we have to assume isn’t blind-friendly. Sigh.
You can’t hear me now
First there was a study linking repetitive stress injury to over-texting, and now it turns out that using your cell phone more than 60 minutes per day, especially without a headset, can damage the ability to hear high frequency sounds–like consonants. In response, we’re now back to using to semaphores, Aldis lamps, and smoke signals.
Daily India.com: Long term mobile use may damage high frequency hearing ability
Trudge Report
Two MIT geniuses have come up with a way to make walking even more difficult. They want to capture human energy from thousands of walkers at train stations and arenas, and convert it into electricity. The technique would require spongy surfaces that would absorb some of each footfall, requiring a bit more effort to take the next step. And the next step? Hanging carrots in front of wheelchairs.
Tangled Web, take 2
Over a year ago, we wrote about accessibility and general problems with UK government websites. Flash forward: The British National Audit Office just found that many governmental websites are “still too complicated and difficult to use” for the general public, oh and have significant accessibility problems as well. Much of this might be attributable to confusion and ambiguity from the administration that just left office, a.k.a. the Blair which? project.
Access to grind
We like to start Monday mornings with a pleasant surprise–and this ain’t it: a recent survey found that implementation of Web 2.0 features can result in an accessibility drop of 38%. Says our fellow accessibility blogger Paul Crichton, “The irony is that Web 2.0 features are usually introduced to make websites more user-friendly.” Sure, if the user has guaranteed 20/10 vision and fingers of steel…
Hi-def, so goodbye Deaf
Just in time for the wave of people with hearing loss due to aging, iPods, or the current Iggy Pop tour: HDTV is having technical and logistical problems displaying captioning, and multiple regulatory agencies are pleading blissful ignorance that there’s even a problem.