- Breaking News San Mateo County ninth-graders struggle to stay fit
- Breaking News Food and wine events
- Breaking News Ask Amy: What To Do When the Doctor Isn t in the House
- Breaking News Ed Blonz: Keep your diet normal pre-surgery
Blind gain more use of Internet
0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Aug 30, 2004 | by JIM BAINBRIDGE Gazette online reporter
In one of the first steps toward compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act on the Internet, two major travel services have agreed to make their Web sites more accessible to the blind and visually impaired.
Priceline.com and Ramada. com have agreed to changes that will allow users with "screen reader software" and other technology to navigate and listen to the text throughout their Web sites, according to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
Although the software and other devices, including a vibrating mouse that lets users "feel" boxes and images on the computer screen, have been available for years, Web sites must have specific coding for equipment to operate.
Most Popular Articles
Most Recent Articles
"This is a precedent-setting decision," Carl Augusto, president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind, told The Associated Press. "We hope it's going to be influencing other companies throughout the United States so that the 10 million blind and visually impaired people can fully participate in our society at all levels." "It's the right thing to do, and it's good business," said Augusto, who is visually impaired.
E-tail set to reach $316 billion by 2010
The Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research firm is projecting that online retail sales in the United States will rise 7 percent from 2004 to $316 billion in 2010. Site enhancements and consumers growing more comfortable with the medium were cited as reasons.
The number of households that begin shopping online will slow between 2004 and 2007, but momentum will build again between 2007 and 2009 when half of U.S. households will have broadband at home, Forrester projects. (The broadband projection seems off or too conservative. Nielsen//Net-Ratings recently reported that more than 50 percent of the U.S. Web-surfing population accessed the Web via broadband in July).
Entertainment execs frustrated by ruling
Entertainment industry officials are pondering their next move after a federal appeals court ruled makers of two leading file- sharing programs are not legally liable for the films, songs and other copyright works their users swap online.
The ruling by San Francisco's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc. is likely to force the industry to take the more costly and unpopular route of going directly after file-swappers. Recording companies already have sued more than 3,400 such users; at least 600 of the cases eventually were settled for roughly $3,000 each.
Mitch Bainwol, chairman of the Recording Industry Association of America, said the decision begs the question of whether "digital music will be enjoyed in a fashion that supports the creative process or one that robs it of its future."
CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0126 or bainbird@gazette.com
- Getting to the root of beautiful hair: shiny, silky hair begins with a healthy scalp - includes list of resources and a recipe for an herbal scalp tonic
- Industry Experts Launch Money Management Resources to Help People Overcome Debt and Learn Proper Money Management Practices
- Portfolio forecasting tools: what you need to know
- Made from scratch: When Honda built a plant in Alabama it also built a workforce-using local workers who had no experience in making cars - Recruitment & Hiring
- SAS #82: sword or shield?
- Taylor Fund L.P. Gains 40.53% in Third Quarter
- A multi-class SVM classifier utilizing binary decision tree
- Why fly solo when an executive assistant can accelerate your CLNC® business?
Content provided in partnership with
