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Accessible eBooks for Equal Opportunity

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

One of their main challenges is that they do not have adequate access to educational materials that are necessary to learn and succeed in school. Accessible ebooks and Bookshare have helped sixth grader Kevin Leong overcome his reading challenges.

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Accessibility Excitement in Geneva

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

This is totally the “how sausage and law are made” view, so don’t read this unless you want to know more about global accessibility in detail! WIPO has a mandate from its member states, and is working to address the need to change laws and get more accessible books flowing.

professionals

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Increasing Accessible Publishing Globally

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Plenary Talk at the Eighth General Assembly of the World Blind Union Access to published information is an essential requirement for education, employment and full social inclusion. People with vision impairments and other print disabilities deserve equal access to that treasure of information.

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Social DRM: It’s About Equal Access for All

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Next month, I will be heading to TOC a couple of days early in order to participate in a W3C Workshop on eBooks and the Open Web Platform, where I will be talking about Social DRM (Digital Rights Management). However, strong DRM turns out to be an impediment to the commercial distribution of accessible ebooks. See you there!

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Fighting Accessibity Weaseling by Amazon et al, Victory!

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Last September, I wrote a Beneblog post: Objecting to Accessibility Weaseling , about Amazon and other ebook reader makers trying to dodge out on making their devices accessible. The refusal to grant an indefinite waiver is a big deal, because it will keep accessibility on the agenda. This is an update on that fight.

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Mass Market Accessible Books

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

We take their files and convert them to the DAISY format which is a digital format designed specifically to create accessible materials for people with print disabilities. We're excited about this trend and the opportunities it creates for the commercial availability of mass market accessible books. Why is this a big deal?

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Objecting to Accessibility Weaseling

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Last week, the National Federation of the Blind and 22 organizations serving people with disabilities filed detailed objections to a petition from a group of makers of e-reader devices led by Amazon to be exempted from accessibility requirements under the relatively new Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act.