Braille eReader

From our friends at Engadget comes word that a research and design team are working on a Braille eReader! The technology will rely on electroactive polymers in order to change the surface's shape as pages are turned.

Battery life might be an issue as this is going to take considerable energy, but with new developments in battery technology on the horizon, that may be a moot point.

Of course, the naysayers are spouting their ignorance about the value of such a device, i.e. "what does Braille provide that audio doesn't." Oh, what they don't know. I have two loyal visually impaired students I work with every day that prefer everything in Braille. They will do audio if they absolutely must, but they much prefer Braille.

I think I probably would, too.

Google Continues to Make Accessibility a Priority

A quick link to Google's current accessibility page. I see new things every time I look to see what's been updated.

Google Accessibility

Facebook Challenged by the Visually Impaired, and Acts

Facebook has teamed up with the American Foundation for the Blind in making Facebook more accessible to visually impaired users. A long time in coming, the master programmers are Facebook have been working diligently on this project for two years, and have made considerable and consistent improvements to meet the demands of visually impaired users. Some of the things they've worked on:

audio captcha for signups
non-java-scripted access to apps like the gift shop
an html-only version of Facebook for IE, Firefox, and Safari
shortcut keys for keyboard-only users for navigation
making chat accessible to JAWS

They also take suggestions from users and try to incorporate those changes as much as possible as they continue to develop Facebook itself.

They are doing it right, and I'm pleased to see the hard work that has been put into this effort. If you'd like to see Facebook's rundown of accessibility features, click here.