Sensory impairment

AGIMO, which is part of the Department of Finance and Deregulation, is tasked with delivering the Web Accessibility National Transition Strategy – a strategy that requires government websites to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.  

The strategy requires all Federal, State, and Territory government websites to conform to the Single A level of the WCAG 2.0 by the end of 2012.  All Commonwealth Government websites must conform to the Double A level of WCAG 2.0 by the end of 2014.

The principal organiser is world-renowned arts accessibility expert Betty Siegel from the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington DC. The conference features accessibility experts from museums, galleries, performing arts and venues. This is the primary arts access conference in the world.

The conference program with a registration form can be downloaded from the Kennedy Center website.

Access to cinema relates to how people with disabilities, particularly those who are blind and deaf, view films at the cinema through solutions such as captioning and audio description. The forum is part of new Israeli international film festival, Shekel - Reframing Reality, ‘challenging the concept of disability’, which focuses on disability-centred films from 2010-2011.

The HAS provides a set-top box, installation and an antenna, if needed, to eligible households. These households are usually vulnerable people that are elderly, isolated or have a disability.

“The HAS is a model for how government programs should be run,“ said Media Access Australia CEO Alex Varley. “It has been designed in consultation with the people it will help and is sensitive and responsive to their needs.”

The rollout of these access solutions will take place in conjunction with the group’s digital cinema rollout, and will be available for widespread use in America over the next 12 to 18 months.

Chief Administrative Officer & Counsel Randy Smith said, “almost every Regal location nationwide will be fully equipped with digital cinema systems and be further equipped to provide closed captions and descriptive video for our deaf, hard of hearing and blind guests”.

The new section includes an overview of The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy’s (the DBCDE’s) review into convergent media, with details of how you can get involved.

Under British communications law, EPG providers must produce annual statements of the steps they have taken and plan to take to facilitate the use of EPGs by people with disabilities.

The annual conference will feature a range of experts, including Media Access Australia CEO Alex Varley.  The panel discussion will look at the upcoming audio description trial proposed for the ABC in the second half of 2011, as well as the trial that is now running in New Zealand.  Entitled ‘Access to Digital TV, Audio Description and beyond’, the discussion will be on Sunday 22 May at the Bayview on the Park hotel in Melbourne.