Other News

July 2013 — The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) announced that they are accepting nominations for the 2014 Access Awards, due by August 30, 2013.  The awards are given annually to honor individuals, corporations, and organizations that use “exceptional and innovative efforts” to improve the lives of people who are blind or have low vision through “enhancing access to information, the environment, technology, education, or employment.”  The awards will be presented at the AFB Leadership Conference on February 28, 2014 in New York.

July 2013 — Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile released reports outlining their progress to deployment of text-to-911.  These reports were issued following an agreement made between the wireless providers, the National Emergency Number Association (NENA), and APCO International to offer text-to-911 services to subscribers.  The reports note that while the four providers all deliver bounce-back messages to subscribers who attempt to send text messages to 911 in areas where the services is not yet provided, each provider is currently in a different state of text-to-911 deployment.

July 2013 — The Seeing Eye and the Sendero Group released The Seeing Eye GPS app, described as the first fully accessible GPS product for the iPhone. The app provides turn-by-turn directions, and includes features such as announcing the orientation of cross streets at all intersections, “heads-up” announcements for upcoming turns, automatic recalculation if the individual wanders off the route, and the LookAround Wand, which audibly lists nearby establishments depending on the direction the phone is pointed.

June 2013 — The U.S.

June 2013 — The World Intellectual Property Organization met at the end of June to finalize the terms of a treaty, which would legally allow for copyrighted material to be made accessible to people who are blind or have low vision. Currently, less than one percent of all the world’s books are available in accessible formats including Braille, large print or audio recordings.