From the NY Daily News (9/1/09):
Gov't bill would make Internet more accessible for disabled via real-time texting, closed captioning
BY Eitan Gavish
This month, as Congress returns from break, health care reform is not the only imperative issue on their plate. A new bill will aim to make content on the Internet more friendly to those with disabilities.
The "21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009" (H.R. 3101) plans to modernize disability standards by making such accessibility features as closed captioning, video description and real-time texting a standard for Internet technologies...
“When we first sat down a couple years ago we realized that the communication act that the FCC regulates and administers was not keeping up with all the changes going on in communications, particular with everything starting to move through the internet,” said Jenifer Simpson, Senior Director of Government Affairs at the American Association of People with Disabilities, a founding member of COAT...
...The new bill would make closed captioning mandatory for large Internet television and movie distributors, excluding user-based sites such as YouTube. The bill would also lift an outdated standard enforcing closed captioning only on TV sets of 13 inches or greater, opening up captioning to smart phones and other portable devices that display video...
Comments