Would it make sense to REQUIRE all book publishers to publish extra copies in braille for example? I can certainly see the value of regulations which said that if the publisher (or website author) doesn't do it themselves a third-party service provider must not be prevented from (legally) making the information accessible but to require all websites to do it themselves would put a huge burden on website authors and may just cause a lot of people to stop putting information on the web unless they need to or their is a compelling commercial reason to do so.
Not these days, but it would make sense to require that they provide access to an electronic copy that could then be run through whatever reader hardware/software a person might require to access that content.
The proposal is relating to the websites of public accommodations. There is mentioned quite far in about debate regarding whether or not a business that has an online only presence can reasonably be considered a public accommodations.
It would seem that hasn't yet been decided. Better get your comments in now!
Using the logic they are proposing here, restaurants should not be allowed to have printed menus because some people can't see them, not allowed to have audio menus because some people can't hear them, not be allowed, in short, to have any menu short of a computer that can adapt to any combination of disability. That's simply wrong. Restaurants must allow everyone to order and be served but it's insane to think they would use the same media or tools for each.
If you read the linked documents, you'll see that they bring up the point of alternative means of access to goods/services/info. In your restaurant scenario, that means that fulfilling the accessibility obligation can include having somebody read the menu to you, provide you a braille menu, bring a sampler tray and let you nod at what you want.
Section 508 standards have long had a provision for alternative presentations of information. An accessible website can be achieved by presenting otherwise media rich content in a plain text page as an alternative. There's no reason to think that would change.
Look at the history of the implementation of the ADA to see how this will likely work. We didn't rip up every sidewalk in the nation to add curb cuts. No, the way these projects were handled was that accessibility improvements were tied to new construction or to significant reconstruction of a road, building, et cetera.
If handled the same way, web sites will need to start rolling in ADA improvements with new releases of the site or even individual pages (depending on architecture). If you design a site with ADA/508 in mind, the cost isn't all that great.
First, it's DMCA. Second, the DoJ doesn't often initiate actions against ADA offenders. That's usually left to individual plaintiffs. For example, http://jimthatcher.com/law-target.htm
Sure they have: http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/902cm.html
Illiteracy by itself is not a disability unless it is closely tied to a learning impairment. Nor is knowledge of the English language.
People who are physically unable to click (by this you mean click a mouse button?) have had options for a while: sip/puff switches; eye gaze/blink; touch screens compatible with mouth-held stylus.
Screen readers are only as successful as the web site they're reading. The new regulations would likely build on the Section 508 and WAI standards to ensure that all sites of public accommodations would be reader compatible.
The biggest challenges are for heavy users of Flash and AJAX who have likely not spent any time considering accessibility.
You are sick of political correctness because you are not adversely affected by the lack of it.
My 8 year old kid with cerebral palsy benefits every day from the ADA, medical assistance, school systems forced to treat him like a human being, and the market for niche medical equipment that has blossomed as a result.
Perhaps he should have just accepted that he was different and sat there staring off into space, awash in his drool, instead of partaking in a life full of experiences.
Those restrictions aren't forced on the web, unless your site falls under the jurisdiction of Section 508 requirements because it is used by a government entity.
So exercise your freedoms all you want. Nobody is stopping you.
I dropped out of college after two years having "majored" in Secondary Ed German, but I had been computing since the age of 10... which was significant in the mid-80s.
After dropping out, I took a temp job doing internal support for a local company and, within a month, was offered a full time position as their sysadmin.
My "few years of experience" were all on my own time, at home, at user groups, online, and in the dorms. My certifications were non-existent. My good recommendations/connections came from my own effort in proving myself to be valuable beyond the job for which I was hired.
To this day, I still lack a degree or a certification and am still working in the IT space.
What people want to jam is not cell phones in movie theaters and restaurants. What they want to ban are the people that abuse cell phone use in those environments.
I mention this because it seems like I'm the one guy that always has to pop into "ban the phones" threads to remind people that some of us use cell phones for emergency purposes and would rather not have to give up eating at local establishments or seeing first-run movies just because not everybody is good enough to put the phone on vibrate and leave the company of others when they get a call.
So, hopefully movie theaters and restaurants never do it. My wife and I go out very infrequently as it is because of our son's medical needs. I wouldn't want to lose what little opportunity we have to enjoy an evening out.
Those who have been in the "consumer" software space for a while might remember CyberMedia First Aid, a total piece of shit program for Windows 95 that actually launched Telnet when prompting the user to grab a file via FTP. First Aid 98 improved on things a bit, but not much.
There was also Symantec's short-lived PC Handyman that did the same thing as the Microsoft PC Advisor but also included instructional videos, an NLP interface sitting on top of an inference case base, and limited functionality tie-ins of Norton AntiVirus and Utilities.
Obviously, neither caught long term fire with the public. I'm not sure why Microsoft thinks PC Advisor will be any different.
While I recognize the humor in the statement, it should be noted that pages with audio components tend to drown out the sound of a blind user's screen reader.
Of all things, this is not a sign of bias. It is a simple fact that people typically equate "computer" with "Windows", meaning that they would expect to pick up one of these cheap PCs and be able to install their newly purchased American Chopper game on it.
The review rightly states that anybody who buys it should have no such expectations.
But even in that environment, you could do "pick up the phone and phone home" where the software generates a challenge code that you can call into a company's support line and receive a response code that will activate the software.
The activation on our software products even allows you to print this information for faxing should you wish to have a hard copy of it.
What is also cut and dry is that the ESRB said that content that garnered the AO rating was changed or removed to bring it back into M territory. This is no different than films initially rated R cutting content in order to achieve a PG-13 and yet no politicians demand to see detailed change lists for every movie re-rating.
Just another reason to stick with the PC and not get an XBox I guess
Yeah, but...
4 of the 5 gripes you listed apply only to PC demos. I don't have to sign an agreement with FilePlanet, FileShack, 3DFiles, WorthPlaying, et cetera to get my Xbox Live demo - just gotta subscribe to Live. I don't have to wait in a queue to download it unless I've already queued up several other Live downloads. There aren't any pop up ads on Live, though there are sponsorships and blade page ads off to the side. My speeds are always higher than 6KBps, and I never have streaming ads.
That last item, though, applies to almost all of the Live hosted demos.
So, taking that all into account, it would almost seem better to stick with the XBox rather than the PC since the ubiquity of the Live service means never (for now) having to put up with all the annoyances that come with getting most PC demos.
For what it's worth, the CPS guys spent a lot of their time at Symantec talking about how inferior Norton Desktop was. Actually, so did the folks that called tech support. I joined the ex-CPS devs/QA after a short stint in Symantec support and got to hear all about their displeasure.
That team created Norton Navigator, Norton Internet FastFind, Norton CrashGuard, LiveUpdate, HealthyPC, and PC Handyman under Symantec and then went on to release CyberMedia Uninstaller and CyberMedia Guard Dog after the whole lot of us left for, obviously, CyberMedia.
We pretty much went our separate ways after CyberMedia was acquired by Network Solutions/McAfee, though a few folks are still there. A chunk of them ended up at Tripwire.
Really, though, the best product we released was the Painkeep mod for Quake 1.:)
Sometimes you do have to use direct deposit. My employer actually mandates it for everyone in order to reduce the administrative hassle of distributing checks.
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Would it make sense to REQUIRE all book publishers to publish extra copies in braille for example? I can certainly see the value of regulations which said that if the publisher (or website author) doesn't do it themselves a third-party service provider must not be prevented from (legally) making the information accessible but to require all websites to do it themselves would put a huge burden on website authors and may just cause a lot of people to stop putting information on the web unless they need to or their is a compelling commercial reason to do so.
Not these days, but it would make sense to require that they provide access to an electronic copy that could then be run through whatever reader hardware/software a person might require to access that content.
The proposal is relating to the websites of public accommodations. There is mentioned quite far in about debate regarding whether or not a business that has an online only presence can reasonably be considered a public accommodations.
It would seem that hasn't yet been decided. Better get your comments in now!
Using the logic they are proposing here, restaurants should not be allowed to have printed menus because some people can't see them, not allowed to have audio menus because some people can't hear them, not be allowed, in short, to have any menu short of a computer that can adapt to any combination of disability. That's simply wrong. Restaurants must allow everyone to order and be served but it's insane to think they would use the same media or tools for each.
If you read the linked documents, you'll see that they bring up the point of alternative means of access to goods/services/info. In your restaurant scenario, that means that fulfilling the accessibility obligation can include having somebody read the menu to you, provide you a braille menu, bring a sampler tray and let you nod at what you want.
Section 508 standards have long had a provision for alternative presentations of information. An accessible website can be achieved by presenting otherwise media rich content in a plain text page as an alternative. There's no reason to think that would change.
Look at the history of the implementation of the ADA to see how this will likely work. We didn't rip up every sidewalk in the nation to add curb cuts. No, the way these projects were handled was that accessibility improvements were tied to new construction or to significant reconstruction of a road, building, et cetera.
If handled the same way, web sites will need to start rolling in ADA improvements with new releases of the site or even individual pages (depending on architecture). If you design a site with ADA/508 in mind, the cost isn't all that great.
First, it's DMCA. Second, the DoJ doesn't often initiate actions against ADA offenders. That's usually left to individual plaintiffs. For example, http://jimthatcher.com/law-target.htm
Sure they have: http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/902cm.html
Illiteracy by itself is not a disability unless it is closely tied to a learning impairment. Nor is knowledge of the English language.
People who are physically unable to click (by this you mean click a mouse button?) have had options for a while: sip/puff switches; eye gaze/blink; touch screens compatible with mouth-held stylus.
Screen readers are only as successful as the web site they're reading. The new regulations would likely build on the Section 508 and WAI standards to ensure that all sites of public accommodations would be reader compatible.
The biggest challenges are for heavy users of Flash and AJAX who have likely not spent any time considering accessibility.
You are sick of political correctness because you are not adversely affected by the lack of it.
My 8 year old kid with cerebral palsy benefits every day from the ADA, medical assistance, school systems forced to treat him like a human being, and the market for niche medical equipment that has blossomed as a result.
Perhaps he should have just accepted that he was different and sat there staring off into space, awash in his drool, instead of partaking in a life full of experiences.
Those restrictions aren't forced on the web, unless your site falls under the jurisdiction of Section 508 requirements because it is used by a government entity.
So exercise your freedoms all you want. Nobody is stopping you.
WARNING: Excessive exposure to the world and other violent organisms has been linked to aggressive behavior.
Violence isn't new, and it most certainly predates videogames.
Trackballs in general got shafted. I love my Kensington Expert Mouse trackball. Horrible name, though.
You say "and" as though all three are required.
I dropped out of college after two years having "majored" in Secondary Ed German, but I had been computing since the age of 10... which was significant in the mid-80s.
After dropping out, I took a temp job doing internal support for a local company and, within a month, was offered a full time position as their sysadmin.
My "few years of experience" were all on my own time, at home, at user groups, online, and in the dorms. My certifications were non-existent. My good recommendations/connections came from my own effort in proving myself to be valuable beyond the job for which I was hired.
To this day, I still lack a degree or a certification and am still working in the IT space.
What people want to jam is not cell phones in movie theaters and restaurants. What they want to ban are the people that abuse cell phone use in those environments.
I mention this because it seems like I'm the one guy that always has to pop into "ban the phones" threads to remind people that some of us use cell phones for emergency purposes and would rather not have to give up eating at local establishments or seeing first-run movies just because not everybody is good enough to put the phone on vibrate and leave the company of others when they get a call.
So, hopefully movie theaters and restaurants never do it. My wife and I go out very infrequently as it is because of our son's medical needs. I wouldn't want to lose what little opportunity we have to enjoy an evening out.
I can't believe a full half of that response was trying to turn back 30 years of the generic use of "PC" to mean a machine running Microsoft product.
I'd like to see you continue this tirade, so I'm going to suggest that I'm writing this from my "IBM compatible" computer.
It's not like PC Pitstop was there first. HealthyPC.com tried the same thing over 10 years ago.
Those who have been in the "consumer" software space for a while might remember CyberMedia First Aid, a total piece of shit program for Windows 95 that actually launched Telnet when prompting the user to grab a file via FTP. First Aid 98 improved on things a bit, but not much.
There was also Symantec's short-lived PC Handyman that did the same thing as the Microsoft PC Advisor but also included instructional videos, an NLP interface sitting on top of an inference case base, and limited functionality tie-ins of Norton AntiVirus and Utilities.
Obviously, neither caught long term fire with the public. I'm not sure why Microsoft thinks PC Advisor will be any different.
While I recognize the humor in the statement, it should be noted that pages with audio components tend to drown out the sound of a blind user's screen reader.
Of all things, this is not a sign of bias. It is a simple fact that people typically equate "computer" with "Windows", meaning that they would expect to pick up one of these cheap PCs and be able to install their newly purchased American Chopper game on it.
The review rightly states that anybody who buys it should have no such expectations.
People must not care too much since Six Apart announced this a month ago at SoftSummit during a panel discussion.
But even in that environment, you could do "pick up the phone and phone home" where the software generates a challenge code that you can call into a company's support line and receive a response code that will activate the software.
The activation on our software products even allows you to print this information for faxing should you wish to have a hard copy of it.
What is also cut and dry is that the ESRB said that content that garnered the AO rating was changed or removed to bring it back into M territory. This is no different than films initially rated R cutting content in order to achieve a PG-13 and yet no politicians demand to see detailed change lists for every movie re-rating.
You do have to protect your trademarks, but you probably shouldn't wait 120 years to do it. Just sayin'.
Yeah, but...
4 of the 5 gripes you listed apply only to PC demos. I don't have to sign an agreement with FilePlanet, FileShack, 3DFiles, WorthPlaying, et cetera to get my Xbox Live demo - just gotta subscribe to Live. I don't have to wait in a queue to download it unless I've already queued up several other Live downloads. There aren't any pop up ads on Live, though there are sponsorships and blade page ads off to the side. My speeds are always higher than 6KBps, and I never have streaming ads.
That last item, though, applies to almost all of the Live hosted demos.
So, taking that all into account, it would almost seem better to stick with the XBox rather than the PC since the ubiquity of the Live service means never (for now) having to put up with all the annoyances that come with getting most PC demos.
For what it's worth, the CPS guys spent a lot of their time at Symantec talking about how inferior Norton Desktop was. Actually, so did the folks that called tech support. I joined the ex-CPS devs/QA after a short stint in Symantec support and got to hear all about their displeasure.
:)
That team created Norton Navigator, Norton Internet FastFind, Norton CrashGuard, LiveUpdate, HealthyPC, and PC Handyman under Symantec and then went on to release CyberMedia Uninstaller and CyberMedia Guard Dog after the whole lot of us left for, obviously, CyberMedia.
We pretty much went our separate ways after CyberMedia was acquired by Network Solutions/McAfee, though a few folks are still there. A chunk of them ended up at Tripwire.
Really, though, the best product we released was the Painkeep mod for Quake 1.
It's just semantics, really. I'd say that .plan files were really the first blogs.
Sometimes you do have to use direct deposit. My employer actually mandates it for everyone in order to reduce the administrative hassle of distributing checks.