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Web Accessibility Day

Web Accessibility Day is Tuesday, September 22 in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. It’s a a one-day event teaching how to create web accessible content including PDFs and graphics, and how to use evaluation tools.

The keynote speaker is Shawn Lawton Henry, Outreach Coordinator for the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Exhibitors include: Oracle, Knowbility, Nuance Communications, and Browse Aloud.

Web Accessibility Day is presented by The National Federation of the Blind and the Maryland Technology Assistance Program. Support for the Web Accessibility Training Day is provided by the State of Maryland Deparment of Information Technology.

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NFB and ACB Join Forces

5 Colleges named in NFB/ACB complaints to OCR & USDOJ are Case Western, U. of Virginia – Darden School of Bus, Pace U., Princeton & Reed College

NFB and ACB file complaints with Office for Civil Rights of US Dept of Ed and USDOJ against 5 Higher Ed Institutions

NFB and ACB file lawsuit vs. Arizona State U- Kindle DX program discriminates vs. the Blind – ADA and Rehab Act violations

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Apple to Make iTunes Fully Accessible

So instead of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) having to sue the computer giant, Apple has agreed to make its dominant iTunes software accessible by next year. Here’s a link to the press release from the NFB:

National Federation of the Blind and Commonwealth of Massachusetts Announce Agreement with Apple to Make iTunes Fully Accessible

Apple will make iTunes U (a dedicated area of the iTunes Store for content provided by colleges and universities) fully accessible by December 31, 2008, and will ensure the full accessibility of the iTunes software and the rest of the iTunes Store to blind people using both Mac and Windows operating systems by June 30, 2009.

Also, it seems that the iPod is not accessible. Only the newly released iPod Nano (generation 4) has accessibility features such as spoken menus and high contrast screens.

More:

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NFB vs. Target Lawsuit is Settled!

Big news! The NFB versus Target lawsuit is settled! As expected, there are good points and bad points to the settlement. You may read an excellent summary of the settlement by Jared Smith of WebAIM in the blog entry Target lawsuit settled. Some of the wins from the lawsuit are:

  • Target will pay NFB $90,000 for the certification and first year of monitoring and then $40,000 per year thereafter.
  • Target’s web developers will receive at least one day of accessibility training, to be provided by NFB at a cost of up to $15,000 per session.
  • Target will respond to accessibility complaints from web site users.
  • Target will pay damages of $6,000,000 to the class action claimants, or at most $7000 per claimant, and will pay $20,000 to the California Center for the Blind.

If you’re really interested, you may read the actual NFB vs. Target Settlement from the Northern District of California. (I find it ironic that the HTML title of this page doesn’t pass accessibility guidelines; it says “Untitled Document”.)

Addendum:
Here’s a press release from NFB from last year (October 7, 2007) with more background on the lawsuit:
Court Ruling Says California Disabled Rights Law Applies to the Web

Addendum:
More on this subject from Accessify, Bruce Lawson, and Access Matters:

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Amazon.com and NFB

If you haven’t heard yet, Amazon.com stated that they are now committed to making improvements to web site accessibility. After Amazon.com has been singled out for its lack of web accessibility, let’s hope they can make up for it. The online retail giant will reportedly be working with the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) to make its web site more accessible.