YouTube launched its live captioning feature with the Google I/O live video stream today. According to Naomi Black, Google’s Technical Program Manager for Accessibility Engineering, the feature will be available to all YouTube partners including competing live streaming websites.
This year has seen major technology releases with Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 and Mozilla Firefox 4 and updates to screen readers NVDA and JAWS.
Most updates are linked to developments in the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the organisation responsible for making web standards such as HTML, the code that makes web pages possible.
Six months ago, the implementation of accessibility-friendly W3C standards, especially in relation to media players and screen readers, seemed pretty clear, with all web browsers having some level of implementation of HTML5 except for Internet Explorer 8. The HTML5 standard has since evolved rapidly, particularly in January and with updates in April.
