I gave a talk at Ohio State on April 24 titled “If Disability is the Medium, What is the Massage?” The venue was the annual Multiple Perspectives on Access, Inclusion, and Disability Conference. The talk is based on Marshall McLuhan’s 1967 book, The Medium is the Massage, itself a pun on his well-known trope, “The medium is the message.” I’m still working on the accessible text layer of the PowerPoint presentation, so I’m not ready to post it on this site.

One the slides uses this still shot from the 1977 Woody Allen film, Annie Hall. McLuhan plays himself in a scene in which Allen argues with an academically officious film professor who cites McLuhan while waiting in line to get into a movie. McLuhan steps in from the wings to tell the pedant, “You know nothing of my work!”

While planning the talk, I contemplated showing a video clip of the scene. Then a friend reminded me that I had a reputation for accessibility to maintain, and showing a clip without captioning would be unacceptable at Multiple Perspectives. In the end, I had more fun acting out the scene for my audience.

Here is the video clip, and below is a transcript of dialogue at the scene’s end (quoted in Douglas Coupland’s 2010 book on McLuhan, which reprises the “know nothing” quote in its subtitle.)

Coupland (p. 190) identifies the film professor who “blathers on about McLuhan’s media theories” as BORE in this transcript:

WOODY ALLEN: You don’t know anything about Marshall McLuhan’s work.

BORE: Really? Really? I happen to teach a class at Columbia called “TV, Media and Culture,” so I think that my insights into Mr. McLuhan, well, have a great deal of validity.  WOODY

ALLEN: Oh, do you?

BORE: Yeah.

WOODY ALLEN: Oh, that’s funny, because I happen to  have Mr. McLuhan right here. Come over here for a second?

BORE: Oh.

WOODY ALLEN: Tell him.

MARSHALL McLUHAN: I heard, I heard what you were saying. You know nothing of my work. How you ever got to teach a course on anything is totally amazing.

WOODY ALLEN: Boy, if life were only like this.

Silences.

And here, thanks to Ken Petri at OSU, are two sites where captioning can be added to the video, if anyone has the time , motive and tech savvy to make it happen.

Universal Subtitles and DotSub.

Ken notes: “DotSub will do any uploaded video. Universal Subtitles will do Vimeo and your own hosted HTML5 video, as well as YouTube.”

On May 31, 2011, the Justice Department’s Disability Rights Section and Office of the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California entered into a comprehensive settlement agreement with Wells Fargo & Company. Under the Agreement, Wells Fargo will pay up to $16 million to compensate individuals who experienced discrimination in violation of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) when trying to call Wells Fargo, access Wells Fargo’s services, or visit one of Wells Fargo’s retail stores.

• How to file a claim for compensation from Wells Fargo
• Settlement Agreement between United States and Wells Fargo
• Fact Sheet about Agreement

Wells Fargo owns or operates almost 10,000 retail stores and 12,000 ATMs located throughout the United States. Wells Fargo offers a wide variety of financial services, including personal and commercial banking, mortgages, brokerage, insurance, and investments. The Department initiated its investigation after receiving complaints under Title III of the ADA filed by numerous individuals who are deaf, are hard of hearing, or have speech disabilities. The complainants alleged that Wells Fargo would not do business with them over the phone using a telecommunications relay service. Instead, the individuals were directed to call a TTY/TDD line that asked them to leave a message, which went unanswered. The Department determined that these actions violated the ADA. The Department also received a variety of other complaints alleging ADA violations by Wells Fargo, including the failure to provide financial documents to people who are blind or have low vision in alternate formats (e.g., Braille or large print), the failure to provide appropriate auxiliary aids and services upon request for in-person meetings between Wells Fargo staff and individuals who are deaf, and the failure to remove barriers to access for individuals with mobility disabilities. The settlement agreement provides for resolution of all complaints alleging violation of the ADA in connection with Wells Fargo’s financial services and retail facilities based on events occurring before May 31, 2011.

The settlement agreement requires Wells Fargo to accept calls made through a relay service by customers who are deaf, are hard of hearing, or have speech disabilities; remove physical barriers to access identified at its retail stores; provide appropriate auxiliary aids and services, including qualified sign language or oral interpreters, computer-assisted real-time transcription, qualified readers, and documents in alternate formats (Braille, large print, audio format, accessible electronic format) to persons with disabilities when necessary to ensure effective communication throughout its financial services and programs; ensure that its ATMs and websites are accessible to individuals with disabilities; and remedy all other instances of discrimination – including architectural barriers and operational issues — under Title III of the ADA that are identified during the claims process. In addition, the agreement requires Wells Fargo to make $1 million in charitable donations to non-profit organizations that will assist veterans with disabilities caused by injuries sustained while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan to live independently in the community. Wells Fargo will also pay a $55,000 civil penalty to the United States Treasury.

Today, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued guidance through Dear Colleague Letters to elementary and secondary schools and institutions of higher education along with a Frequently Asked Questions document on the legal obligation to provide students with disabilities an equal opportunity to enjoy the benefits of technology. This guidance is a critical step in the Department’s ongoing efforts to ensure that students with disabilities receive equal access to the educational benefits and services provided by their schools, colleges and universities. All students, including those with disabilities, must have the tools needed to obtain a world-class education that prepares them for success in college and careers.

Today’s guidance provides information to schools about their responsibilities under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The guidance supplements a June 2010 letter issued jointly by OCR and the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The June letter explains that technological devices must be accessible to students with disabilities, including students who are blind or have low vision, unless the benefits of the technology are provided equally through other means. Today’s guidance highlights what educational institutions need to know and take into consideration in order to ensure that students with disabilities enjoy equal access when information and resources are provided through technology.

“Technology can be a critical investment in enhancing educational opportunities for all students,” said Russlynn Ali, assistant secretary for civil rights. “The Department is firmly committed to ensuring that schools provide students with disabilities equal access to the benefits of technological advances.”

Today’s guidance is part of a larger effort by the Department and Obama administration to better serve the needs of people with disabilities. Last month, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan joined Kareem Dale, associate director for the White House Office of Public Engagement and special assistant to the President for disability policy, for a conference call with stakeholders to talk about some of the Department’s efforts. During the call, Duncan discussed the Department’s commitment to maintaining accountability in No Child Left Behind for all subgroups, including students with disabilities, and highlighted the Department’s proposal to increase funding for students with disabilities in the fiscal year 2012 budget. Ali will also join Dale for a stakeholder conference call where she will discuss today’s guidance and address the Department’s work to ensure that all schools are fulfilling their responsibilities under the federal disability laws that OCR enforces.

To read the Dear Colleague Letter to elementary and secondary schools, see http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201105-ese.html.

To read the Dear Colleague Letter to institutions of higher education, see http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201105-pse.html.

The FAQ is available at http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/dcl-ebook-faq-201105.html.

To read the June 29, 2010 letter, see http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-20100629.html.

So I’ve been musing lately about the profusion of videos that I post on my blogs. Those embeds are an easy way to present, document, and listen to a lot of diverse content. Television was never like that. I guess I’m making peace with video.

Radio Berkman 167 features an excellent discussion of how my own attitudes could be transformed in this way by the possibilities of open video on the Internet:

The 2nd Annual Open Video Conference brought together filmmakers, students, thinkers, inventors, hackers, businessfolks, and lawyers for panels, screenings, performances, and exhibits, all focused on the future of video.

We talked with Tiffiniy Cheng and Holmes Wilson, co-founders of the Participatory Culture Foundation, about some technologies in the works to make video more accessible. We spoke with keynote presenter Adam Chodikoff, senior producer of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, about the value of the mainstream media. And we put together our own ad hoc panel to help us define what Open Video means and how we can get it.

I was particularly interested in the discussion of the participatory Culture Foundation’s Universal Subtitles project, a crowd-sourcing approach to making videos accessible for Deaf people and across languages.

The public sphere is an area in social life where people can get together and freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. It is “a discursive space in which individuals and groups congregate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgment.”^[1] The public sphere can be seen as “a theater in modern societies in which political participation is enacted through the medium of talk”^[2] and “a realm of social life in which public opinion can be formed”.^[3]

The public sphere mediates between the “private sphere” and the “Sphere of Public Authority”,^[4] “The private sphere comprised civil society in the narrower sense, that is to say, the realm of commodity exchange and of social labor.”^[5] Whereas the “Sphere of Public Authority” dealt with the State, or realm of the police, and the ruling class,^[5] the public sphere crossed over both these realms and “Through the vehicle of public opinion it put the state in touch with the needs of society.”^[6] “This area is conceptually distinct from the state: it [is] a site for the production and circulation of discourses that can in principle be critical of the state.”^[7] The public sphere ‘is also distinct from the official economy; it is not an arena of market relations but rather one of discursive relations, a theater for debating and deliberating rather than for buying and selling.”^[7] These distinctions between “state apparatuses, economic markets, and democratic associations…are essential to democratic theory.”^[8] The people themselves came to see the public sphere as a regulatory institution against the authority of the state.^[9] The study of the public sphere centers on the idea of participatory democracy, and how public opinion becomes political action.

The basic belief in public sphere theory is that political action is steered by the public sphere, and that the only legitimate governments are those that listen to the public sphere.^[10] “Democratic governance rests on the capacity of and opportunity for citizens to engage in enlightened debate”.^[11] Much of the debate over the public sphere involves what is the basic theoretical structure of the public sphere, how information is deliberated in the public sphere, and what influence the public sphere has over society.

The concept of public sphere is grounded in the work of Jürgen Habermas, who wrote the book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (1962). I plan to undertake a systematic close reading of the book, which I will document here in the Fair Use Lab. The first step will be rendering the text in a format accessible to me.

Other Internet sources:

• Public Sphere Guide A Research Guide, Teaching Guide and Resource for the Renewal of the Public Sphere
• Transformations of the Public Sphere Essay Forum
• Jürgen Habermas, “The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article,” New German Critique 3 (1974)
• Spark summary of Habermas’ public sphere book

I champion accessible books of all kinds, so I applaud this one. I bet it gets more media hype than actual sales, though. News stories tout it as “Braille porn” but the staggering price and hand-crafted construction, albeit with plastic thermoform paper and spiral binding, make it more of an art book. Each copy is numbered and signed by the artist, who volunteers at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB).

Like many accessible technologies, it sounds like a clever concept but economies of scale put it beyond the reach of most blind people. A thousand sexy words are cheaper.

Here’s how the story was spun by flashnews.com:

TORONTO (Wireless Flash – FlashNews) – Porn has never been so touching – especially now that there’s a Braille version for the blind.

Photographer Lisa J. Murphy has just created Tactile Mind, a book of nude images sculpted on thermoform plastic pages – the same material used in Braille paper.

All the lines, ridges, and crevices of the body parts are touchable, so the pictures can be enjoyed by the visually impaired. To fully feel the erotica, they each come with an accompanying description in Braille.

Murphy, who’s a volunteer at the Canadian National Institute For The Blind, calls the book a “labor of love.”

Each sexy image took her about 50 hours to sculpt so it would be interpreted accurately by the sightless.

Her tactile creations include a woman’s naked breasts, an uncircumcised penis and testicles, and a shaved vagina.

None of her art seems to be getting lost in translation because in her words, “Blind folks say my work is good. Wink, wink.”

Tek Talk offers an early look at Blio, the new touchstone in accessible e-book reading for everyone, Monday, April 5, 2010. This will provide an opportunity to learn more about the exploding world of e-books and the especially exciting e-book reader called Blio just being released by K-NFB Reading Technology.

As publishing of books around the world moves from ink on paper to digital bits and bytes, blind people have mobilized to insist that new products and media being developed must be accessible. Protests about lack of access with the Amazon Kindle have attracted public notice, but now comes Blio, providing a dynamic and accessible presentation of e-books to everyone. Therefore, during this week’s Tek Talk event, James Gashel, Vice President of Business Development at K-NFB Reading Technology will demonstrate how Blio works and explain how this technology is about to make millions of books readily available on computers and mobile devices. Tired of waiting for books to be reproduced or transcribed in to accessible formats? Join us and learn how Blio gives blind people equal access in the mainstream world of books, newspapers, and magazines. Following the presentation, there will be plenty of time for questions from the virtual audience.

Contact: James Gashel

Email: jim@knfbreader.com

Date: Monday, April 5, 2010

Time: 5:00 PM PDT, 6:00 PM MDT, 7:00 PM CDT, and 8:00 PM EDT

and elsewhere in the world Tuesday 0:00 GMT

Approximately 15 minutes prior to the event start time; go to The Pat Price Tek Talk Training Room at:

http://conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rsc9613dc89eb2

Or, alternatively.

Select The Pat Price Tek Talk Training Room at: www.accessibleworld.org

Enter your first and last names on the sign-in screen.

All Tek Talk training events are recorded so if you are unable to participate live at the above times then you may download the presentation or podcast from the Tek Talk archives on our website at www.accessibleworld.org

If you are a first-time user of the Talking Communities online conferencing software, there is a small, safe software program that you need to download and then run. A link to the software is available on every entry screen to the Accessible World online rooms.

All online interactive programs require no password, are free of charge, and open to anyone worldwide having an Internet connection, a computer, speakers, and a sound card. Those with microphones can interact audibly with the presenters and others in the virtual audience or text chat with the attendees. To speak to us, hold down the control key and talk; then let up to listen.

Accessible World uses News Wires, like this one, to inform people of the topic and times for the many Discussion Groups on Accessible World. The lists are announce only to keep the traffic to a minimum. You can join the Accessible World Announce List, the Tek Talk Announce List or the Sports Talk Announce List by completing the form at: www.accessibleworld.org/mailinglists

Accessible World also provides a Tek Talk Discussion List. This list is intended to give you an opportunity to ask computer related questions, suggest topics to be used in the weekly Monday training programs, or just to interact with others interested in using assistive devices to access computers. You may sign up for this list by selecting the Tek Talk Discussion link on the same page and completing the form.

Accessible World Contacts:
Robert Acosta, Chair
Accessible World
818-998-0044
Email: boacosta@pacbell.net
Web: www.helpinghands4theblind.org

Joann Becker, Events Coordinator
Accessible World
617-487-8795
Email: joannbecker@comcast.net

Steve Hoffman, President
Talking Communities
Email: steve@talkingcommunities.com

The Accessible World, a division of Helping Hands For The Blind, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, seeks to educate the general public, the disabled community and the professionals who serve them by providing highly relevant information about new products, services, and training opportunities designed specifically to eliminate geographic and access barriers that adversely affect them

via NCTI QuickClicks for 032510:

FCC RELEASES BROADBAND PLAN

The FCC Broadband Plan was released on March 16, 2010. Get details of the Plan and learn about how accessibilty and the needs of people with disabilities are considered and included. Add your comments to the FCC website.

NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY PLAN

The U.S. National Ed Tech Plan, released March 5, 2010, sets an ambitious agenda for using technology to transform teaching and learning. See Linda Roberts’ video on the importance of setting the right goals. Add your comments on how well the plan accommodates and includes students with disabilities.

The National Center for Technology Innovation (NCTI) advances learning opportunities for all students, with a special focus on individuals with disabilities.

***Follow NCTI on Twitter at http://twitter.com/NCTI2; become a fan of our Facebook page; visit us on Classroom 2.0.

Daniel Reetz, founder and steward of the DIY Book Scanner community

Tuesday, March 23, 12:30 pm
Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, second floor
This event will be webcast live at 12:30 pm ET and archived on our site shortly after.

The DIY Book Scanner community (founded in June 2009) has produced a diverse ecosystem of book scanning hardware and software to address a wide range of human needs, both domestically and internationally. Daniel will motivate these efforts with case studies from the community, and hope to foster discussion on the future of digital books in light of these unmet needs.

Daniel will be bringing and demonstrating how scanner works at this lunch talk.

About Daniel

Daniel Reetz is an artist and a Ph.D student studying visual neuroscience. Since 2003 He has been employed as an artist and as a researcher at the intersection of those interests, working on NIH, NSF, and US D.o.Ed funded projects.

He recently developed a high-speed book scanning system using open source technology, cheap cameras, and garbage. This free and open scanner design won the Epilog Grand Challenge, has been featured in Wired, and is now being improved and instantiated by a group of over 300 DIY’ers who believe that the future of digital books is too important to be decided solely by corporate interests…

Links

• DIY Book Scanner
• Wired Magazine on the DIY Book Scanner
• OnTheCommons: DIY Book Scanner Takes Off

Pictures of the book scanner

According to reports from MediaMemo, NPR is removing all traces of Adobe Flash, which powers its website’s media and graphics, from its iPad-only version. Although many news organizations use Flash to display multimedia presentations and audio and video content, NPR in particular was going to be heavily affected by Apple’s refusal to support Flash on the new iPad devices. That’s because a key feature on NPR’s website is its Flash-based audio player, something that’s featured on nearly every webpage site-wide.

Kinsey Wilson, senior vice president and general manager of NPR Digital Media, recently told Poynter that their developers decided to work around the problem by implementing an HTML5-based player instead. Wilson also noted that the company has a “launch sponsor” for the iPad-only site, since it won’t be able to support web ads, which are often coded in Flash.