E-reader accessibility fight re-Kindled
Here we go again. First the Kindle promised compatibility with speech output, then the Authors Guild objected. Looks like we might be heading into a similar fray with the iPad, which will have VoiceOver, Apple’s proprietary blindness-friendly screen reader, built in. Will it make a difference that VoiceOver, unlike Kindle’s speech technology, works with all apps instead of just e-books? Stay tuned.
Gizmodo: Apple’s iPad Will (Perhaps Controversially) Read E-Books Aloud
ETA: Things are looking up. The Authors Guild has just joined a coalition to “ensure that when the marketplace offers alternative formats to print books, such as audio and electronic books, print-disabled consumers can access the contents of these alternative formats to the same extent as all other consumers.”
Authors Guild: White House Applauds Joint Effort for Print Disabled
Like a Virgin?
We’re mulling over the news that Virgin America has decided to remove Flash from its site (well, from some of the site, anyway…as noted on the TUAW comments, it’s still on the Route Map page at least) because it won’t run on iPhones. Is this a good thing for accessibility? Would it be better to keep Flash but also follow the guidelines for providing accessible Flash alternatives? And while we’re at it, could Virgin address some of their other issues, such as the inaccessible navigation bar?
TUAW: Virgin America dumps Flash over lack of iPhone support
Two thumbs infuriated
We’ve previously discussed the benefits of running augmentative communication software on mainstream platforms, such as computers and iPhones, over having monopurpose AugCom devices. Cost efficiency is one argument; normalization another. But in the middle of this month’s moving Esquire interview with Roger Ebert, a striking advantage emerged: the broad functionality of mainstream tech permits creativity of expression in a way that developers of specialized devices might never foresee.
“This time, the anger [over Disney's deletion of videos honoring Gene Siskel that were linked from Ebert's website] lasts long enough for Ebert to write it down. He opens a new page in his text-to-speech program, a blank white sheet. He types in capital letters, stabbing at the keys with his delicate, trembling hands: MY TRIBUTE, appears behind the cursor in the top left corner. ON THE FIRST SHOW AFTER HIS DEATH. But Ebert doesn’t press the button that fires up the speakers. He presses a different button, a button that makes the words bigger. He presses the button again and again and again, the words growing bigger and bigger and bigger until they become too big to fit the screen, now they’re just letters, but he keeps hitting the button, bigger and bigger still, now just shapes and angles, just geometry filling the white screen with black like the three squares. Roger Ebert is shaking, his entire body is shaking, and he’s still hitting the button, bang, bang, bang, and he’s shouting now. He’s standing outside on the street corner and he’s arching his back and he’s shouting at the top of his lungs.”
Blio us away
The latest developer to enter the e-book fray is Ray Kurzweil, who this week will be revealing Blio. Instead of taking a hardware approach, though, Blio is platform-independent, free software that will present books in a consistent format–rather like PDF–that also supports use of color and video. People with learning disabilities will be particularly happy to hear that this format supports use of text-to-speech synchronized with text highlighting, and that markup such as bookmarks will be imported when the file is shared among devices. Not clear what the implications will be for blind individuals; we’ll probably learn more when Blio is formally announced at the Consumer Electronics Show this week.
Wired: Singularity Proponent Ray Kurzweil Reinvents the Book, Again
Talking with my g-g-generation
AARP and Microsoft just published the results of a (small) market survey of 50-60 year old Boomers and their attitudes towards technology. Although assistive features didn’t seem to come up by name, the inevitable Boomer self-centric world view resulted in a call for features that modify themselves to the user’s changing needs rather than the other way around. (We love one respondent’s comment on voice recognition-enhanced appliances: “I don’t really care if it talks back. Although I certainly don’t want it to have an opinion.”) As our needs get increasingly changinger, we hope this attitude smoothly transitions into calls for larger print, buttons that require less force, and other good design practices already acknowledged in the accessibility field. And since 1/3 of the US population will be 50-plus by next year, developers should start to pay attention if they hope we buy as we get old.
AARP/Microsoft: Boomers and Technology: An Extended Conversation
When in Rome, do like a Roman
Now that we think about it, it makes sense: fear of H1N1 may be driving development of touch-free products light years forward. Take the Holy Water dispenser that some Italian churches are installing and which work on the same principle as the auto faucets that have become commonplace in the U.S. The side benefit is that many devout folks who couldn’t use the traditional font should now have a significant measure of accessibility. Let’s hope this technology stays in place after the flu has flown.
New Launches: Auto Holy Water dispenser, Italy’s religious swine flu prevention technique
People with Up
What do the films How The Grinch Stole Christmas and Up have in common? Besides (despite?) featuring unapologetic curmudgeons as primary characters, they both represent accessibility landmarks: Grinch was the first commercially-released DVD to have a closed-captioned option, and Up is the first to have the audio-described (DVS) track available for sale on iTunes. Of course, you don’t have to be blind to appreciate the DVS version–it could find the same drive-time audience as audio books, which means there would be more DVS-only versions of movies available, which would benefit blind people…yeah, we could live with that.
Amended to add: apparently more careful research than mine (thank you, codeman) has raised doubts about Grinch; with luck, an equally befuddled future investigator will find clearer documentation for the historic value of Up.