Last December, according to Disability Scoop, the unemployment rate for the U.S. was 9.5%. Among people with disabilities, the unemployment rate was 45 percent higher, at 13.8%. There are many possible and sometimes conflicting reasons for the 45% difference, but we can generally agree on a significant cause of this disparity: negative perceptions on the…
Read More That Resume Looks Fantastic! (Psst…She’s Disabled.)So far out, even my wife didn’t like the idea of this. Picture me sitting in front of the TV, flipping channels by waving my hand in the air. No remote, no controller, no anything. As strange as it sounds, this technology is actually being developed and marketed by Microsoft and Hitachi. An article in…
Read More Gesture-Recognition Technology: Not So Far OutOver the weekend, I came across an article in the Adventures in Modern Life blog by Ben Mattlin, a contributing editor at Institutional Investor. In it, he posts a letter from the mother of a 26-year-old woman with disabilities, expressing her offense at people who use inappropriate terms like “retarded” to describe people with disabilities.…
Read More So Who’s Disabled?For many people, videogames are a luxury, a guilt trip, like eating a piece of sinful chocolate. It is not always looked on favorably, usually by parents, if videogames are played more than a few hours each day. For people with disabilities, the perspective is refreshingly different. Video games have been an effective way for…
Read More Making Videogames Accessible for Disabled Gamers: The Value of Brand Equity(Note: This is a followup to my December 3rd post on the Video Relay Services arrests. Click here for the original article.) This Thursday, in the aftermath of the November 19 arrests of 26 people in the Video Relay Services (VRS) industry for allegedly defrauding the U.S. Government of up to $50 million in Federal…
Read More Your 50-Cent Contribution: Part DeuxWhen I came across this Tuesday’s New York Times article about an annual 10k race in Cambodia for athletes with artificial legs, as part of the Angkor Wat International Half-Marathon, I was intrigued, because I visited this country two years ago. In the summer of 2007, my then-girlfriend (now wife) and I traveled through Laos…
Read More Running on Artificial Legs in CambodiaThe FCC has announced a workshop to review the VRS program in light of the November 19 arrests: Link to FCC Press Release I will comment on this when I have a chance. It’s actually the first time I’m posting to my blog from my iPhone – so, obviously, I’m both pressed for time and…
Read More Your 50-Cent Contribution: FollowupBridging the communication gap with the hearing world has always been at the forefront of deaf and hard-of-hearing people’s efforts to utilize technologies to communicate with hearing people. Thus, it is so appropriate that, in the context of recent news, my first real post on my new blog would be about Video Relay Services (VRS),…
Read More Your 50-Cent ContributionAfter many years of following the blogosphere, a blog I can finally call my own. I will use this blog to write about issues in the technology and accessibility space. Depending on how I utilize this blog, I may write about other topics not related to the above. The driving force behind this blog is…
Read More Introducing My Blog