Blind and vision impaired

US Government releases FAQs for accessible eReader laws and rules

The United States Department of Education has released a new guide that provides further clarification for schools and colleges about the laws and rules they must follow to ensure eBook readers and other emerging technologies are accessible to all students.

The guide is a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the June 29, 2010, Dear Colleague Letter that was sent to college and university presidents expressing concern that these institutions were using electronic book readers that were inaccessible to people who were blind or vision impaired.

The FAQs, released on 26 May 2011, reinforce that the same considerations apply to:

Taxonomy:

General

Blind or vision impaired

Digital media and technology:

eReaders

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iPhone app uses real-life people to answer questions for blind and vision impaired

A new iPhone app enables people who are blind or vision impaired to recruit sighted users to answer questions about an item they have taken a photo of.

The VizWiz app, being developed by Rochester Human Computer Interaction, allows iPhone users to take a photo of an item they have a query about, record their question and send the photo and question to a team of real-life people to answer. These people record the answer, which is then sent back to the user.