Author Archives: Jim Tobias

Inclusive Technologies at CSUN 2013

Going to be at the International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference in San Diego this week? Please visit our presentations if you’re interested, and stop by to say “hi”.

Not on the program, so bonus points for anyone who asks me about inClue or Mr. Potential Head.

Posted in News | Leave a comment

New Resource for Accessible Workplace ICT

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office on Disability Employment Policy has funded a new project — the Accessible Technology Action Center; Inclusive Technologies’s Jim Tobias will be its Technical Director. To quote from the ODEP press release:

“The development and adoption of accessible, universally designed technology is vital to ensuring that individuals with disabilities are hired and successful at work,” said Kathy Martinez, assistant secretary of labor for disability employment policy. “We are extremely excited about the creativity and expertise RESNA will bring to our newest effort to promote accessible technology in the workplace.”

ATAC will collect and disseminate highly detailed information that employers and employees can use right away, and workplace ICT developers can use to make their products more accessible. We’ll be gathering much of this information from the grassroots, so please contact us to learn more and hook up.

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Inclusive Technologies Joins New Project on Cloud-based Accessibility

As part of its support for the idea of a Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure (GPII), the U.S. Department of Education recently funded a project to develop ways for people to explore, refine, and store their needs and preferences for interfaces. Inclusive Technologies will be part of the team; we’ll be focusing on possible users and stakeholders — who they are, how they operate now, and how they might like such a system to work for them.

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Department of Labor Office on Disability Employment Policy Webcast on Emerging Technologies

Jim Tobias of Inclusive Technologies participated in an Office on Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) webcast on August 16, 2012. It was a chance to discuss how emerging technologies like the cloud and mobile apps will address accessibility. Under Secretary Kathy Martinez, Vint Cerf of Google, and Jim kicked around some interesting ideas about the Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure and getting information out to more people who could benefit from accessible solutions.

Posted in Building the culture of accessibility | Leave a comment

New Spider-Man movie fails to break “disavillainy” connection

There’s a new Spider-Man movie out (no, I won’t link to it — if you haven’t already been slimed by the promos, you probably don’t live close enough to a theatre anyway). And like seemingly every work of fiction since the Bible (no comments, please), the bad guy just has to be someone with a disability. In the current case, the real trouble begins when the character attempts to do something about his missing arm. So the message is … leave half-well enough alone? Stay tuned for the accessible technology remakes: wheelchairs become Transformers that swallow their riders whole; Chucky as an AAC device that whispers and kills; JAWS terrorizes web surfers.

Posted in Building the culture of accessibility | Leave a comment

Web accessibility video — please comment on the rough cut

We’ve put together a new music video about web accessibility, called “POUR Me a Website”. Take a look and leave a comment here or on YouTube.

Posted in Building the culture of accessibility | 1 Comment