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October 2012
Date Published	News headline and description
25 October 2012	Audio description comes to New Zealand subscription TV The audio description service which has been provided on the free-to-air channels TV One and TV2 since 2011 will now be available to people who watch them through SKY TV, after a NZ$50,000 upgrade.
24 October 2012	Call in your feedback on the audio description trial With the trial of audio description on the ABC coming to a close, Blind Citizens Australia (BCA) is hosting a series of teleconferences to gather feedback on it from blind and vision impaired viewers. This feedback will inform the submission to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy which will advocate for a continued audio description (AD) service on ABC 1.
19 October 2012	World’s first accessible gaming arcade The AbleGamers Foundation has opened an Accessibility Arcade at the Washington DC Public Library in the USA, providing a permanent space for people to experience accessible gaming.
17 October 2012	Send a postcard before 31 October to support audio description on TV The national campaign to keep audio description on Australian TV is building momentum. Two weeks remain to get involved in the campaign that has seen thousands of postcards sent to Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy and ABC Managing Director Mark Scott to appeal for a continuing audio description (AD) service on TV.
15 October 2012	Open captions for movies – the real story Accessible cinema, which offers movies with captions for the Deaf and hearing impaired and audio description for the blind and vision impaired, is a much-debated topic worldwide as cinemas move from analogue to digital systems. The one constant in the debates is the issue of open captions.
12 October 2012	Netflix to caption 100% of its content Netflix, the popular US-based video on demand service, has reached an agreement with the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) to provide 100% of its content with captions by 2014.
12 October 2012	Access All Areas Film Festival 2012 The annual Access All Areas Film Festival, showcasing Australian short and feature films with accessible features, has announced its program for 2012. It includes a number of independent productions and the biggest Australian movie of the year, The Sapphires.
11 October 2012	Amendments to Broadcast Services Act a win for Deaf viewers The Broadcast Services Act (BSA) has been amended to include increased quotas and quality guarantees for captioning on free-to-air and subscription television. These long-awaited amendments are being celebrated by Deaf and hearing impaired viewers who can now expect a greater variety of programs with captions meeting certain basic standards.
10 October 2012	YouTube asks users to report lack of captions YouTube has posted a notification on its site asking users to report videos that lack captions. The online video streaming website is asking users to fill out a form if they believe a video posted on YouTube should have captions. This follows the mandate set by the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act 2010 (CVAA)that makes it compulsory for TV networks to make closed captions available on their content online.
08 October 2012	Media Access Australia named internet award finalist Media Access Australia’s sociABILITY: social media for people with a disability project has been named a finalist in the Australia New Zealand Internet Awards (ANZIAs).
03 October 2012	Access to cinema promoted in UK and USA Organisations in the UK and the USA have recently produced advertising campaigns to promote movies with audio description and captions to the general public.
03 October 2012	Campaign for equal access to ABC TV kicks off today Australian blindness and consumer organisations have today launched a national campaign to promote the importance of audio description currently being trialled on ABC TV, and appeal to Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy and ABC Managing Director Mark Scott to make the service permanent.
03 October 2012	September accessible DVD releases The month of September has seen at least 23 new movies released to the DVD market with both access features of closed captions and audio description. 76 titles were researched by Media Access Australia, of which 31 per cent were audio described and 63 per cent captioned.
02 October 2012	SBS adds captions to catch-up TV Captions are now available for all non-live programs on SBS’s On Demand service. This makes it the second Australian ‘catch-up TV’ service to have captions after the ABC’s iView, which introduced captioning in 2010.
02 October 2012	Apple Maps misses accuracy but shows accessibility Last week when Apple released iOS 6, the software for its mobile devices, many critics pointed out the shortcomings of the newly created Apple Maps app. The app replaced Google Maps, which was the default navigation app used in all iOS devices until the release of iOS 6. Media Access Australia tested how the Apple Maps app works with the default screen reader, VoiceOver, on an iPhone 4S and found that while there are some obvious holes, there are some new features that show Apple is considering accessibility in its app development.

September 2012
Date Published	News headline and description
27 September 2012	Ofcom releases television access scorecard UK regulator Ofcom has released its first report for 2012 on the levels of access services, including captions, audio description and signing, showing that most broadcasters are continuing to exceed the required quotas.
26 September 2012	Windows 8 accessibility The latest version of Microsoft Windows, Windows 8, is due for release in late October 2012 and is radically different to its predecessors. The main difference is that Windows 8 has been developed for both traditional computers and touchscreen devices such as tablets.
21 September 2012	Apple iOS 6 accessibility The release of iOS 6, the latest version of Apple's operating system for mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad, has come with new features that improve accessibility.
18 September 2012	Accessible cinema a way to learn for British schools The world’s largest free cinema festival for young people is being held in the UK this October. In its 17^th year, National Schools Film Week will host more events with services for students with hearing and vision loss than ever before. This reflects the cinema industry’s expansion of captioned and audio described sessions worldwide through the conversion to digital cinema.
17 September 2012	Six new accessible cinema locations announced Both Hoyts and Event Cinemas have announced the commencement of closed captioned and audio described movies at six of their locations collectively.