IBM Seeks to Make Streaming Media Accessible to Visually Impaired
From: Computerworld - 03/26/2007
By: Todd R. Weiss

IBM researcher Chieko Asakawa, who is blind herself, recently discussed IBM's
work in making multimedia content accessible for the blind. She explains that
if accessibility is not maintained as the Internet grows and changes, a
"digital gap" will form between the sighted and the blind. The tool her team
has developed recognizes multimedia buttons that would normally require a
mouse click, and imposes them onto a unified shortcut key used to run video
and animation. External metadata is adapted "on the fly" to make pages
accessible, explains Asakawa. "Once a user opens a Web page, the browser
automatically analyzes multimedia objects inside the page, then the browser
[establishes] a connection to each multimedia object." The tool, which
currently has adaptors for Flash and Windows Media Player, also creates a
text-based interface from manually created XML, which can be read aloud to a
blind user. Content owners or authors would have to create these audio
descriptions, although they could be added after the content is posted. Users
can control the volume and speed of the description of what is happening in a
video and the video's soundtrack. Asakawa says the tool allows her to use
multimedia content that was previously inaccessible to her. The team
eventually plans to make the tool compatible with other media players, and it
will soon undergo usability tests before being open sourced. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=software&articleId=9014186&taxonomyId=18&intsrc=kc_feat

Links:
IBM Scientists Develop Streaming Video for Visually Impaired
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=VB21TD42IPMMCQSNDLRSKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=198000619

Links:
New tech clears up online picture for the blind
http://www.ibm.com/news/us/en/2007/03/2007_03_14.html

Helping the Blind "See" Internet Multimedia
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/21230.wss

Frances West
http://www-03.ibm.com/able/news/senate_support.html

Chieko Asakawa
http://www.witi.com/center/witimuseum/halloffame/2003/casawaka.php
http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_people.nsf/pages/chie.index.html

aDesigner
http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/adesigner
