In Apple’s rush to debut the new iPad tablet it forgot one little piece of marketing: Accessibility. Apple has an accessibility page but it didn’t bother to add the iPad before launching it yesterday at its headquarters. And even though Steve Jobs’ keynote was likely prepared, Apple didn’t bother to add captions for deaf or [...]
I wonder if Intel feels sheepish right now. Here they are, thinking they’ve just launched a great new product for the blind, a mobile device that reads text aloud. Intel partnered with assistive tech pioneer HumanWare and reached out to the blind community to get their input, too. But the Intel Reader, announced yesterday, has [...]
BusinessWeek magazine ran an article by Reena Jana about how technology for the disabled is being marketed more as mainstream innovations. Apple is one of the leaders in this space, and its products for people with disabilities are discussed at length, including its new iPhone voice control option and the not-so-new VoiceOver product, which is [...]
The New York Times article about insurers refusing to pay for speech-generating devices has hit a sore point among the disability community. Today's newspaper reserves a section for comments from people who use these devices, including Roger Ebert, the film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times.
Insurance companies argue that many of today's speech-generating devices are not eligible for reimbursement because they can also perform "fun and games" -- like e-mail and web browsing. But is it really fair? The disabled say they'd rather have an all-in-one device that lets them speak while doing computer work and web browsing. But they can't simply walk into a Best Buy or Circuit City to get what they need, unless they pay for it out of pocket.
The new service, which turns voice messages into text and delivers it as e-mail, will benefit people with hearing and other disabilities.
Apple introduces its screen reader for the iPhone, and other accessibility innovations for people with disabilities.
Skype has launched a free iPhone application, bringing its much-anticipated Internet-based phone service to Apple's mobile platform. But more needs to be done to make the mobile version accessible to people who are sight- or hearing-impaired.
A new iPhone app from G.P Imports can "talk" each key on the phone's keypad, a feature that can help those who have a hard time seeing the screen.
With the release of iTunes 8.0, Apple has made significant improvements in the accessibility of the iTunes software to let blind and visually impaired people access the digital library and download music, books and movies. These moves, however, followed on the heels of a lawsuit in Massachusetts that claimed the computer maker wasn’t doing enough to make college textbooks available in accessible formats.
