March 2014 — Technology and Disability Policy Highlights (TDPH) editors produced over 160 stories in 2013, covering a wide range of disability issues. The “hot” topics were education, employment, health and implementation of the Twenty First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act. Measured by social media sharing rates, last year’s top five stories were:
- The 2013 Hearing Aid Compatibility Survey
- New Deadlines for Closed Captioning Rules
- The Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) Survey
- Accelerating Deployment of Broadband Infrastructure
- New Smartphone and Services for People who are Blind or have Low Vision
Other popular reports were broad and diverse in their scope, ranging from “Louisiana Tech to Change Policies Following ADA Settlement” to “FCC Recommendations on Deployment of NG911 Services,” and from making emergency information via video programming accessible to ensuring the National Weather Service (NWS) uses terms in their messaging that can be translated into American Sign Language (ASL).
While our most frequent information source was the Federal Communications Commission, we developed reports from a variety of homes: the American Foundation for the Blind, Carnegie Mellon, FEMA, Mobile Manufacturing Forum, HumanWare, Sprint, a total of 179 discrete sources in all.
The TDPH reaches 580 subscribers directly via email, and extends to a much greater audience through social media. We engage over 740 members in our LinkedIn Group (ATPG), 460 followers on Twitter (@CACPGT_wRERC), and 206 fans on Facebook (WirelessRERC). In 2013 alone, the Wireless RERC’s social media presence on Twitter was able to reach more than 1.2 million people.
None of this would be possible without you, our readers. You may receive the newsletter directly as a monthly digest, or as-it-happens updates on social media. Either way we appreciate your being a part of our network. As always…thanks for reading!
To subscribe to the TDPH monthly newsletter, send an email to salimah@cacp.gatech.edu.
