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Greetings WOW Members and Web Professionals everywhere! Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute.

Today s podcast is a continuation of the coverage of the topic of Web accessibility. While researching this topic a bit this week, I stumbled across a Accessibility Internet Browser for Multimedia from IBM that I’d like to bring your attention. Check out: WOW Technology Minute

The Accessibility Internet Browser for Multimedia is a tool that enables multimedia content on the Internet to be enjoyed by people with visual impairments.

As you know first hand the use of multimedia content has increased dramatically over the last few years, but people with limited or no vision have not been able to fully enjoy the benefits of these advances. This new multimedia browsing accessibility tool provides people with visual impairments a level of control more comparable to a sighted person using a mouse. For example, while enjoying a streaming video, visually impaired people can now select the play button by simply pressing a predefined shortcut key instead of searching in the content for buttons that control the video.

According to IBM, users can also adjust the volume of an individual source in order to identify and listen to different sound sources without losing track of the screen-reading software because of the sound of a video. If a content creator wants to provide a voice narrative for a video, he can write a text script as a piece of metadata; the tool adds the audio descriptions by using text-to-speech engines. Future plans for extending this technology include enabling flexible audio speed control and contributing this work to an open-source development project. Such contribution will accelerate development and adoption of tools that make Web-based multimedia content accessible to the visually impaired.

How does it work? (Compliments of http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/aibrowser)

Usually, people with visual impairments browse Web pages using either screen-reading software (such as JAWS for Windows) or a voice-enabled browser (such as IBM® Home Page Reader). However, these tools cannot handle multimedia applications properly. Visually impaired users cannot see the multimedia control buttons that appear on a screen. In addition, the audio of a streaming video — which automatically starts playing after the page is loaded — interferes with the synthesized assistive voice generated from screen-reading software, a vital assistant for visually impaired users. Furthermore, most multimedia content operates only with a mouse rather than a keyboard, making it virtually impossible for visually impaired people to appreciate multimedia content.
IBM Accessibility Internet Browser for Multimedia is built on top of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform, and it works as a stand-alone application. After a user opens a Web page, the tool automatically analyzes the multimedia content embedded inside the page. Then the tool lets the users control the multimedia content — letting them play, stop, or pause the videos, change the replay speed, adjust the volume, and so on — by using simple predefined shortcut keys.

The tool also has a function for providing an alternative text-based interface for the content based on XML metadata. By using metadata, the tool can reorganize or simplify the original content and can provide additional information or navigation methods. Although someone must create the metadata manually, once created, the usability of the site is drastically improved. Usually, multimedia content is designed only for sighted users with mouse operations, so it is impossible or difficult to understand the visually rich content with a voice interface and or to control it by using a keyboard.

This tool also provides functions for adding audio descriptions to movies based on XML metadata by using text-to-speech engines. Audio descriptions are usually created by content creators as an additional sound track for a movie. For example, we are presently using an existing text-to-speech engine to add audio descriptions. Not only developers and creators, but also volunteers are able to add audio descriptions easily and cost-effectively.

The system can also provide additional information or navigation methods, thus allowing users to enjoy the content using their preferred methods.

The tool can work with screen readers (JAWS and Window-Eyes) by making it speak as well as it might work as a self-talking browser.

1. Is IBM® Accessibility Internet Browser for Multimedia available on Linux®?

No; it runs only on Windows® XP or above.

2. Can I change the text-to-speech (TTS) engines used in IBM Accessibility Internet Browser for Multimedia?

This tool supports Windows Speech API(SAPI)5. After installation of additional TTS engines, please select your preferred TTS engine in the preference dialog box.

3. Can IBM Accessibility Internet Browser for Multimedia work with screen-reading softwares?

The tool supports JAWS screen reader versions above 7.10 and Window-Eyes versions above 5.5.

4. Which language does the tool support?

Currently, the messages and descriptions are available in English and Japanese. Users can read the target content based on the languages of the TTS engines or screen-reading software.

5. What kind of multimedia content embedded inside Web pages does the tool support?

This version supports Flash (Versions 5-8), Windows Media, RealMedia, and Quick Time.

Today’s WOW Technology Minute is sponsored by the Adobe Corporation and the “Getting Started with Dreamweaver and CSS Seminar Tour”.

Learn everything you need to know about building compelling websites using Adobe Dreamweaver CS3! Whether you’re totally new to building websites, or migrating from GoLive or a previous version of Dreamweaver, this fast-paced one-day seminar brings the entire workflow together—from design and prototyping through development and testing—using easy-to-understand examples from a designer’s point of view. Most importantly, you’ll learn the key to cool, functional, and flexible Web layouts: CSS—how it works, and how you can use it to your advantage.

For more information or to register for seminars in Los Angeles (May 29), New York (June 4), Washington DC (June 17), Chicago (June 24)
and Boston (June 26) go Adobe Seminar Tour

 

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Greetings WOW Members and Web Professionals everywhere! Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute.

Today s podcast is a continuation of the coverage of the topic of Web accessibility and I’m on the phone with Kel Smith Principal, Anikto LLC a Web accessibility consulting firm from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Good afternoon Kel and thanks for agreeing this interview. Kel, you contacted WOW in regards to the interview on the topic of Web accessibility with T.V. Raman at Google. Can you expand on the comments made by T.V. Raman and can you share with the listeners of this podcast what Web accessibility means to you?

Kel is a knowledgeable professional with some great things to share about Web accessibility, usability and universal design. To listen to the three minute interview complete with some great links to Kel’s consultant and blog website Anikto.com check out today’s WOW Technology Minute at: http://www.wowtechminute.com WOW Technology Minute

Today’s WOW Technology minute is sponsored by the “Voices That Matter” series of Conferences. This years Voices That Matter Web Design conference is a unique event brought to you by New Riders, the leading publisher of Web design books and resources—and home to the most popular Web design authors, trainers, and speakers. This year’s Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference will take place June 10-13, 2008, in Nashville, Tennessee.

Voices That Matter Conference

Check it out today! http://www.voicesthatmatter.com/webdesign2008/

 

 Web Accessibility Interview with T.V. Raman, Research Scientist at Google in a Flash Format: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Greetings WOW Members and Web Professionals everywhere!
Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute.

If you’ve been following along with this months podcast, than you’re aware that we’ve been covering the goings on at the seventeenth annual WWW2008 Conference in Beijing. In addition to delivering WOW education and training and covering the keynotes, I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing a handful of the delegates attending the conference.

For today’s podcast, I have the distinct pleasure of covering the topic of Web accessibility with T.V. Raman, Research Scientist at Google.

T.V. is legally blind and in addition to being a truly nice guy T.V. has a real handle on the topic of the need for Web accessibility and its business benefits as well. In fact, as a result of this interview, I’ve decided to dedicate the remainder of this month’s podcast to the topic and will be interviewing a wide variety of Web professionals for the remainder of the month of May.

Here are the questions that I asked T.V. Raman:

•Are we progressing as an industry with respect to Web accessibility?
•Why is this issue important and significant?
•How can we explain the benefits to Web accessibility to our customers and can you explain the benefits to business?

Make it point to turn up your speaker volume and hone in on this must listen to interview with T.V. Raman from Google. Check out additional resources from T.V. Raman at the Google Webmaster Blog located at: Google Webmaster Blog

Thank you for listening and watching today’s WOW Technology Minute.

Today’s WOW Technology Minute is brought to you by WebProTraining.org check it out at: WebProTraining.org

 

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Greetings WOW Members and Web Professionals everywhere! Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute.

Today s podcast is a continuation of the coverage of the WWW2008 event last week in Beijing. To provide us with a summary of the event, I had the pleasure of interviewing Professor Mark DuBois, from Illinois Central College and WOW’s Director of Education.

Mark participated in many of the sessions and keynotes and as a result he has a unique perspective on the value of the conference. Knowledge gained from the conference will allow us to report back to WOW members and Web professionals via this podcast and WOW’s educational outreach to high schools and colleges worldwide.

Check out the three minute interview at: WOWTechnologyMinute

Today s podcast is sponsored by the Webmaster Survival Guide. Check out all of the great resources and links at: WebmasterSurvivalGuide

 

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Greetings WOW Members and Web Professionals everywhere! Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute.

Today s podcast is a continuation of the coverage of the WWW2008 event in Beijing. For day three of the event, I sat in on the Microsoft Keynote presented by Dr. Harry Shum, Corporate Vice President.

The title of the Dr. Shum s keynote was “Taking Search to New Frontiers” and the abstract went something like this:

Today s search engines not only have become one of the most important services on the Web but are also driving the development of next generation computing platform for the global Internet economy. In addition to connecting people to information at the speed of light with the use of automatic algorithms, search technologies are also revolutionizing many other aspects of people’s lives, including shopping, commerce, entertainment, travel, health care, and social activities.

Dr. Harry Shum first introduced Microsoft s latest research and product development efforts toward building an infrastructure for webscale data management and data analysis to better structure the Web. He also talked about how MS will take Web search further into these new frontiers and how our efforts will empower people to do things that were not possible before.

Special thanks to Professor Mark DuBois for the following notes from the Microsoft keynote:

•Search is still at its infancy
•Search is not a battle it’s a war
•Current search engines took advantage of keywords today pushing boundary of keyword model
•Phenomenon explosive growth of content more and more user generated content, also multimedia content (challenging few words), unprecedented challenge in scale
•Web becoming dynamic, interactive place for users social networking people want to interact
•Long way to go 40% unanswered queries, 50% require refinement for searches
•Need to understand semantics this is right way to go. How can this be extracted

The crowd was introduced to a video search demo that MS research Asia been heading up. Although China s firewall posed some challenges the results looked pretty amazing.

Also, MS is working on a research project entitled Guanxi. The demo was all about relationships people oriented search. How we are related to other people and organizations and locations and skills. Who I am is contained in these relationships. For additional details, I shot a couple of minutes of video and audio, check them out in a raw and unedited format at the WOW Tech Minute http://www.wowtechminute.com

For your information more info about Libra can be found at:
http://libra.msra.cn/