Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 22, 2013

This has created the ironic situation where blind people, who because of their disability require access to digital copies, have been effectively locked out of purchasing ebooks for the last decade. The digital content is presented as text, but the built-in read-aloud capability is disabled because of ambiguity over audio rights.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 3, 2011

The Day aims to raise awareness of disability issues with a focus on the rights of persons with disabilities and the benefits derived from their integration in the social, economic, cultural and political life of their communities. The annual observance of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) is today, December 3rd.

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Impact Technology eBook Student 140

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 9, 2018

Consider the issues with printed books. The miracle of ebooks What if we had the ability to overcome these accessibility barriers, barriers that affect most of humanity, not just people with identified disabilities, wouldn’t we have the moral obligation to act? We can use the same ebook file to deliver the content ten different ways.

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Accessibility eBook People Copyright 135

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 3, 2013

In what is known as the “ braille provision ,” the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004 mandates that the teams who help write educational plans for students with disabilities presume that all blind and visually impaired children should be taught Braille unless it is determined to be inappropriate. Accordingly, U.S.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 23, 2014

Benetech is tackling these issues on two fronts, thanks to the leadership of Enrique Piracés, who joined us last year from Human Rights Watch. Second, we are stepping up our efforts to increase the awareness of this critical issue and practical actions that can be taken. What about yet another order of magnitude beyond that?

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Literacy eBook United Kingdom Accessibility 158

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

We expect that many of the big issues with the current text will get ironed out this week. After the last WIPO session in November, the World Blind Union convened a group of experts to review the current Treaty draft and make recommendations to the WBU on the most important issues for WBU to work on in this next session.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 5, 2016

Before Benetech was founded, blind people were read to either in person by a family member, volunteer, or paid reader, or via audio cassette tape. The first was the ebook. Fundamentally, the Arkenstone Reader allowed blind people to create their own personal ebook as a text file that could be read in something like Microsoft Word.

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