Deaf/hearing impaired Digital Technology & Online Media news

New Amazon Kindle tablets to include accessibility

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After promising last year, Amazon announced on Wednesday that its new Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HDX tablets will come with improved accessibility features.

Both the updated Kindle Fire HD and the new Kindle Fire HDX will run on the Fire 3.0 operating system (Fire OS 3.0) called ‘Mojito’. The OS is a version of Google Android and will allow Kindle Fire tablets to be compatible with some Android apps. While Kindle Fire HD will come with a 7 inch screen, Kindle Fire HDX will come in 7 inch and 8.9 inch options.

The accessibility features in Fire OS 3.0 include:

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eReader producers continue fight to avoid accessibility

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eReader manufacturers Amazon, Kobo and Sony have petitioned the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to seek exemption from laws requiring products to be accessible to users with disabilities.

The issue for the companies centres around the 21st Century Video and Communications and Video Accessibility Act requiring any product offering ‘advanced communication services’ to be “accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities”. However, the companies argue that their budget eReaders, including the Amazon Kindle, are used primarily just for reading, and therefore the Act should not apply. The companies argue that adding accessibility features would lead to products being more expensive, heavier and with shorter battery life.

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Accessibility celebrated at game developer awards

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The development of games designed to include people with disabilities will be recognised at this year’s Australian Game Developers Awards with the introduction of the Accessibility Award.

Presented at the Game Connect Asia Pacific (GCAP) conference, the awards recognise excellence and innovation in games developed in Australia. For the first time, they have added accessibility as an award category. According to the conference website, accessibility is defined as “mainstream games that make an effort to avoid unnecessarily excluding people with motor, cognitive, hearing speech or vision impairments.”

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Captioning Awards 2013: get your nominations in

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Nominations are now open for the 2013 Deafness Forum of Australia Captioning Awards. The Awards are held annually to recognise and encourage excellence in captioning across all forms of Australian media.

The categories for this year are:

TV captioning: recognises a significant achievement in the captioning of a TV program, series or event.
Entertainment, cinema and the arts: for an organisation that has made consistent efforts to provide and/or promote captioned performances, screenings or events.
Online captioning and digital innovation: for an organisation which has taken the initiative to consistently provide captions on a website or mobile app or which has used technology in an innovative way to enhance use or awareness of captions.

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