Access on Main Street

Transferjet is a new consortium of some of the biggest names in the electronics biz (Sony, Panasonic, Hitachi…) assembled to create a new wireless standard. What caught our eye immediately is that a primary goal is eliminating any need for cabling devices together–e.g., you could take digital snapshots and then view them simply by putting your camera on top of the TV. Accessibility implications aplenty, particularly for people with visual and cognitive disabilities as well as those with dexterity disabilities. Woohoo!

Gizmodo: Sony and others form Transferjet consortium to make short-range wireless tech

In the original Business Week article being critiqued in the posting linked below, there seemed to be an even division: the first five “commandments” of Web design were reasonably consistent with accessibility principles, and the second five–especially with their heavy emphasis on Web 2.0 technologies–could pose problems. Interesting in this article that accessibility issues are mentioned in discussion of some of the former but none of the latter.

Sitepoint: Why the 10 Commandments of Web Design are complete baloney

Hitachi is creating an optical character recognition technology for use with captioned media, ostensibly to make it easier to find specific scenes. Of course, for this to work, captioning not only needs to be added more universally but also needs to meet reasonable quality standards…ooh, people with hearing and learning disabilities are going to like this.

Tech-On!: Hitachi’s New Technology Recognizes Characters in Video Subtitles

In late July, the Mexican government issued a ten-item manifesto on “Usability and Accessibility for Mexican Government Websites,” the first item of which is “To ensure the democratic access to government information and services by everyone, including users with disabilities, by embracing W3C recommendations.” Recuerdos, compadres, for better luck than the Brits are having…

UA Web: Manifesto on Usability and Accessibility for Mexican Government Websites

There’s now a Personal Healthcare Device Working Group whose purpose is to encourage the development of all kinds of health monitoring devices with USB connectors so that information can be uploaded to PCs and cell phones. Ostensibly this exists to make communcation with health care providers easier, but the standard could be very useful for people with visual or cognitive disabilities–or, essentially, anyone who prefers to access information in an electronic format.

USB-IF Announces Healthcare USB Device Class

A team of Ryukoku University researchers is working on emergency information signs that can glow in the dark in a range of colors, not just traditional blue and green phosphor. Let’s hope they include people with various visual disabilities–including colorblindness and aging-related vision impairment–in any usability testing before deciding on standards for color combinations.

Full-colour glow-in-the-dark materials unveiled

Just in time for the holidays: info on how to make sure your expensive electronic gift doesn’t end up as a couple of paperweights. We applaud the use of color-coding to help make sure Plug A goes correctly into Slot B–but that’s not going to be much help to people with colorblindness or some other types of visual disabilities. A little information redundancy could go a long way here.

Get it together: expert tips for surviving your holiday assembly