Filed under: Themes, Deaf Jam, Campaign Watch

Quoting Amy Cohen Efron’s recent complaint letter, titled Good Bye and Good Riddance Netflix!:

Dear Netflix, I canceled my subscription with you after being a loyal customer for 5 years today. I picked the reasons why I canceled today online, but I do want to emphasize with you about the main reason why I left you today. You did not provide online streaming captions for the Wizard of Oz. We tried to tell you many times for two years, but you released the special feature today without captions. I, among with other 30 million people felt left out. You want me to rent a DVD to watch Wizard of Oz. You are discriminating me from others. You are excluding me. I have high speed internet service, with fast computer and why cannot I enjoy movies as other people are enjoying the Wizard of Oz? Good bye and good riddance, Amy Cohen Efron

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Quoting Karen Putz, also a renowned deaf blogger, taking to her official Twitter account:

I’m boycotting because no captions for Wizard of Oz means 30 Mil Deaf and hard of hearing ppl are shut out

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Learn about Netflix’s captioning controversy
Read the NAD’s advocacy letter
Check out the Deaf Movie Club

Then…

Read all Irked posts tagged “deaf”
Read all Irked posts tagged “Karen Putz”

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Filed under: Uncategorized

Excerpting Meagan VanBurkleo’s phenomenal article for gameinformer.com, titled Accessibility: Creating Games For A Diverse Audience:

The practice of escapism intuitively becomes more important to an individual who is disabled by society or their surroundings. Whether the individual has a physical, auditory or cognitive impairment, the video-game experience in theory should act as a great equalizer. As we said, [in] the world of video games anything is possible, if the capacity to engage in these experiences is not denied to us. What if a physical limitation leaves a gamer unable to use a standard console controller? What if the lack of subtitles prohibits the entire Deaf community from experiencing a blockbuster title? The bottom line is that the majority of video-game hardware, software and peripherals are unnecessarily inaccessible to many gamers with disabilities. Through simple lack of awareness or an intentional marginalization of their demographic, disabled gamers routinely take the backseat in the game-development process. There is no denying that the vast range and degrees of disabilities makes the situation complicated, however, there are simple steps developers can take to improve the accessibility of their titles. By studying the basics of accessibility and usability, fostering an awareness of common disabilities and how they affect gameplay, and giving disabled gamers a voice through participation in game testing—the current situation can be vastly improved.

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“Well, it’s a fact that your gaming abilities do not remain the same throughout your life, linked to your physical and mental health. There’s a line of thought that all non-disabled people are ‘TABs’—Temporarily Able Bodied. Everyone’s abilities will lessen with time, either due to accident, illness or age.”

— Barrie Ellis, creator of OneSwitch.org and member of the International Game Developers Association’s Game Accessibility Special Interest Group

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Read all Irked posts tagged “video games”

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Filed under: Uncategorized

Quoting Nomensa.com:

Nomensa have created an accessible media player, capable of playing audio and video content. The player can also pull in content from YouTube, making it the perfect accessible YouTube player for embedding into any website. A standard Flash media player has been wrapped in HTML/CSS content, to give it an accessible interface. Advanced techniques, including Accessible Rich Internet Application (ARIA) code, have been used to produce this revolutionary media player. The media player is keyboard accessible, making it enjoyable for people to use without a mouse. It’s screen reader friendly as well, and also offers an unparalleled experience for people using the latest screen readers with ARIA support. People who are deaf or hard of hearing can also enjoy using the media player, as it has the ability to display captions as standard. It really offers an inclusive experience for everyone visiting the website. Most Flash based media players use a fixed interface, but the accessible media player from Nomensa can be adapted to suit any website. The HTML/CSS interface provides great flexibility for branding and styling. Compared to other options, such as the standard YouTube player, the Nomensa accessible media player really offers some tremendous benefits. It’s accessible, can be uniquely branded, and offers a truly inclusive experience. The Nomensa accessible media player is perfect for public, private or third sector websites wanting to participate in the social media scene. To find out more about including content without excluding people, please contact us.

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Learn more at nomensa.com

Then…

Read all Irked posts tagged accessibility

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Filed under: Themes, Blind Visionaries, Irked Videos

Quoting Julian Hattem, via The Huffington Post:

Monique Zimmerman-Stein has been nearly blind for the last two years from Stickler syndrome, a rare genetic disorder. She recently decided to forego her own treatment to save funds to treat her two daughters, who also suffer from the condition, reports Lane DeGregory of the St. Petersburg Times. The family is covered under husband Gary’s Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan, but that coverage only pays for 80 percent of medical expenses. She will no longer get treatment to preserve that last slice of light. The injections that might help cost $380 after insurance, and she needs one every six weeks. She could be spending that money on her daughters’ care. If forgoing treatment might help them see, she said, “That’s a choice any mom would make.”

Read the rest of this article >>

Read Gary Stein’s beautiful statement >>

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Tampabay.com put together an excellent video to accompany the story:

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According to examiner.com, if you would like to assist the Steins in their struggle, you may contact them at:

Monique Zimmerman-Stein
P.O. Box 7506
Wesley Chapel, FL
33545

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Filed under: Themes, Blind Visionaries

Quoting guardian.co.uk:

EyesFree, a new interface for Google’s Android mobile phone operating system, provides a perfect illustration of what today’s “assistive technology” researchers are looking for. It provides a way for blind people to use a phone with a touch-sensitive screen, but the corollary is that it also provides sighted people with an easier way to use the phone. In fact, they can make calls without even looking at it. The idea behind EyesFree is that wherever you put your finger on the touchscreen represents the number 5. If you want 1, you move your finger up and to the left, and if you want 8 then you move it straight down, and so on. In alpha mode, your finger is surrounded by letters instead. You get spoken feedback for each selection, and if you pick the wrong number or letter, you can delete it by shaking the phone . . . EyesFree was developed by TV Raman, a blind research scientist at Google in Mountain View, California, and his colleague Charles Chen. Harty says it will be included in the next version (1.6) of the Android development kit, which also includes a text-to-speech engine and accessibility APIs (applications program interfaces). “It’s up to the carriers to ship it,” says Harty, “but users can download it from the Android marketplace, and developers can get the source code from code.google.com.”

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Filed under: Themes, Wheelchairman of the Board

Some of you may remember Kenny Cieplik, the maverick Accessibility Consultant we profiled on Irked last month. Well, we’re not the only ones who think Kenny is truly phenomenal (not by a long shot!). Mark J. Belanger, a columnist for The Middleboro Gazette, recently wrote a wonderful, earnest, insightful piece about Kenny’s advocacy work titled Changing the world, one review at a time.

Click to continue »

Filed under: Themes, Blind Visionaries, Irked Videos

Quoting guardian.co.uk:

The RNIB’s PenFriend, launched at [Techshare 2009], looks like a handheld microphone, and lets people use their voices to label things: books or CDs, food packages, medicine bottles, bills that have arrived in the post, or whatever. You start by sticking a small round label to the object, register that using the optical scanner at the PenFriend’s tip, then record your comment. Pointing to the label will then play back the associated comment.

The RNIB’s Mark Prouse, who explained PenFriend to me, pays someone to read his post to tags. He says: “It’ll be a household must, I think.” PenFriend was developed by the RNIB and a London company, Mantra Lingua, and uses optical identification technology (OID) for the re-usable labels. OID is cheaper than RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), and the PenFriend only costs £63.24. It also works as an MP3 player and can store about 70 hours of notes. The audio for a tag could therefore be the type of medicine and the dosage, the name of a food product plus the use-by date, the full text of a letter, or the track-listing for a CD, and so on. Packs of 380 extra labels will cost £11.49, so the system is cheap enough to use for address books and diaries. While it was good to see the enthusiastic reception that PenFriend got at Techshare, it’s disappointing that it takes the RNIB’s involvement to get something like this to market. John Lamb, editor and publisher of Ability magazine, says: “Technology for disabled people still remains a minority sport, and that’s surprising given the cutting-edge nature of assistive technologies such as optical character recognition, eye gaze control and haptic feedback. ”Things are beginning to change thanks to tighter legislation, more awareness of disabled people’s rights, and belated interest from major technology companies. However, it’s an uphill struggle to undo years of indifference,” says Lamb. “Assistive technology is one way for the IT industry to pay society back for the billions it has made from us all.”

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Quoting onlineshop.rnib.org/uk:

No computer required. Use to label: food items, including freezer items, film and music collections, household objects or even to organise letters and other paperwork as well as record shopping lists or leave audio messages. It can also be used as a portable notetaker, record your message and keep track of it by placing the allocated label in a small notebook or in your diary.

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Watch this fascinating YouTube clip:

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Filed under: Irked Videos

In 1977, 150 disabled people and their supporters held a historic 26-day sit-in at the San Francisco Federal Building to demand legislation protecting people with disabilities as equals. These activists succeeded in obtaining the signing of regulations implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. In essence, a federal law was passed designed to protect the rights of individuals with disabilities in programs and activities that receive Federal financial assistance. The legislation was not perfect, but it mattered very, very much. And some even say it was the “public birth” of a movement.

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Watch this riveting, award-winning two-part documentary to learn all about it:

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Filed under: Themes, Wheelchairman of the Board, Irked Videos

Many, many, MANY hats off to Jeff Preston for making this truly fantastic online documentary chronicling the lack of accessible transportation in London, Ontario and across the province. Follow Jeff on his mission to bring about change the disabled population desperately needs by driving his wheelchair over 650km from his home in London, Ontario to the nation’s capital in Ottawa.

Awesome documentary…after the jump!

Click to continue »

Filed under: Themes, Wheelchairman of the Board, Irked Videos

Until recently, wheelchairs couldn’t provide access to nature’s most beautiful spots. Parks and beaches . . . sand, gravel, lightly-packed snow . . . oceanside, lakeside, national parks, cobbled botanical gardens. The Landeez all-terrain wheelchair promises to change all that. Ideal for traveling by car, it can be disassembled and placed in the trunk in seconds after removing two pins in the rear wheels. The sporty Landeez can be equipped with optional accessories that make using it more enjoyable in the great outdoors, including a colorful beach umbrella, a reading stand, a handy drink holder, and a latch for binoculars.

With the Landeez all-terrain wheelchair, you can enjoy life’s simple pleasures.

Visit landeez.com

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