Smartphones

According to Media Access Australia’s resident web accessibility expert, Dr Scott Hollier, cloud—the process of delivering computing resources, data, services and media over an internet connection rather than directly from a personal computer or a mobile device—now enables everything from internet banking and shopping, to purchasing insurance and superannuation, to paying bills, taxes and registering cars.

However, while businesses still had a choice of whether to adopt cloud services or not, consumers often had little choice, he said.

The conference, being run at Swinburne University’s Hawthorn campus from 9-11 July, tackles a diverse range of issues in the media and communication space, including issues around disability and media access.

The company, better known for its Kindle e-reader and its online shopping site, has stated that its Fire smartphone contains features to address vision, hearing and motor-related impairments.

The new operating systems have a range of accessibility features, such as Spotlight which makes web searches and launching applications and documents easier for people with motor-related disabilities, and a ‘dark mode’ which switches black text on a white background to white text on a black background, aiding people with vision-related disabilities.