Digital technology

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Adobe plans major upgrades to accessibility support in Flash Player

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Adobe has announced that future upgrades to accessibility support in Adobe Flash Player will enhance accessibility across the three major operating systems: Windows, Mac and Linux. Mac users will particularly benefit from this upgrade, which will result in the ability to access Flash content using VoiceOver, Apple’s inbuilt text-to-speech application.

In a blog post, Andrew Kirkpatrick, Senior Product Manager for Accessibility at Adobe Systems, states that, “[t]he Flash Player will employ IAccessible2 from the Linux Foundation and the WAI-ARIA specification from the W3C to address user and developer needs and to ease interoperability with assistive technology vendors.”

Upgrades are expected to start with the next major release of Adobe Flash Player (following Flash Player 10.1).

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Apple confirms VoiceOver will dictate e-books

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Apple has confirmed that VoiceOver, an integrated accessibility tool that uses text-to-speech technology to help vision impaired users use the iPad, will also work to dictate e-books.

The free iPad application, iBooks, enables users to not only read e-books but also browse and shop for e-books online. VoiceOver ensures that users who are vision impaired have access to these features.
 

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IBM supports research to make mobile devices more accessible

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IBM, in collaboration with India's National Institute of Design and the University of Tokyo's Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, is commencing a research project to make mainstream gadgets and mobile devices more accessible to people with disabilities.

The aim of the project is to provide a freely available interface which can be adapted by manufacturers to a variety of consumer gadgets and mobile devices, resulting in better access to mainstream products and lower product cost for people with disabilities. It also has the potential to make people with disabilities less dependent on the purchase of alternative specialist devices for popular mainstream products.

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Airing tonight at 8pm: ABC TV's New Inventors Access and Ability special

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Three inventions to help disabled people are featured in a special edition of the ABC1 television program The New Inventors screening tonight, 10 March 2010 at 8pm. One of the inventions is directly connected to access to new media – a web-based, free screen reader.

This invention, the NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA), was invented by two blind men, James Teh and Michael Curran. There are existing screen readers, but these specialist pieces of equipment cost thousands of dollars. The NVDA is free to the user. 

 

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