I used the tool Radio Userland released yesterday to make a list of the books I plan to read this summer. I'mina be busy. (link fixed)

10:17:45 PM    

Mark Pilgrim sent an email on Tuesday saying that he now has his own wiener boys, and he "gets it." I said I support what he's doing, his narratives of real-world case studies for accessibility are just what I wanted, to help me understand what the issues are, and what solutions exist. Some people are making fun of Mark, and that's cool too, because so far the parodies have been well done. I know it can be hard to look in such a harsh mirror. So I also support what he's doing because it's valuable to me and I don't worry about what may appear to be preaching. I've gotten to know Mark as a smart person with strong opinions who doesn't cut corners. That's harder to do that it might appear. [Scripting News]

Is it possible to set up a CSS that will override all the text info on a page, so that when you browse around the web it will automatically render the text in a larger font? What if the browser used a frame (don't hit me!) that had a sidebar which held your favorites, and then rendered each page inside the frame, applying the style sheet? What is there was a CSS in the OS itself that set the fonts to an easily readable size?

I know this was one of my long time problems with Flash, the inablity to set the fonts as relative for users with imparied vision. The reason I careda bout this was that back in '93 I had met someone who had a disease that left her with rapidly deteriorating retinas. As a result, she needed a 21" monitor with a magnifer built on (not unlike Brazil) which would allow her to read the text, which was by now about 2" high.

It would be four years before I would be in a postion to anything with web design, but as soon as I learned that you could do relative font sizes instead of fixed, I went that way. Usability is key, and to deny anyone accessability is to cut off information for people with a perspective that is different form yours. That has always been a bad choice in my experience.

11:18:45 AM    

SpaceDaily.  Soldier of the future.  I particularly like the use of the RPV.

>>>Already developed is a reinforced helmet built of kevlar-type material that integrates night-vision goggles, cameras, infra-red targeting, biological and chemical alarms, a Global Positioning System, an electronic method to distinguish between friends and foes, and of course radio communications.

But in the future, US infantrymen could be going into combat aboard a 250-kilo (550 pound) robotic "mule." Soldiers could travel up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) per hour aboard this wheeled machine, also designed to follow them at a distance carrying heavy equipment when the soldiers travel on foot.  The vehicle, equipped with a silent hybrid electric-fuel engine, will also serve as a power generator and water generator and purifier, and come equipped with a cannon or a white phosphorus smoke launcher.  The top-line "mules" will even come with a mini-drone, a small pilotless plane that will enable soldiers to view their environment from the sky, De Gay said.<<< [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

I hope that they harden the suits against EMP pulses, as well as the RPV's, otherwise you are a sitting duck in a fancy suit. I also hope that the hemet can be opened up in some manner (unlike the motorcycle helmet they are displaying now) so that the soldiers can rely on their own hearing when entering/clearing structures.

10:25:10 AM    

Backseat Drivers Get an Office. Introducing the car that does everything. Also: Ford disses telematics business ... North Korea to go mobile ... Clear cell-phone calls in Australia ... and more, in this week's Unwired News. By Elisa Batista. [Wired News]

Most interesting is the last item on the list:

Unlimited text messaging: Leap Wireless, which operates in the United States under the "Cricket" brand, has launched an unlimited text messaging service in 30 markets across the country for $5 a month.

This is a part of what Jenny has been talking about, in terms of getting the prices for SMS down to a reasonable rate. Good move Cricket!

6:57:13 AM    

Now You're Speaking *Your* Language.

Yesterday's discussion about language translation on-the-fly (make sure you read the <A href="javascript:void(0)">comments) is taking a new turn. Brent Ashley (he who figured out how I could provide an abridged RSS feed for my site) is taking his fascinating BlogChat tool to a whole new level with language translation. Bear witness:

"I've been playing with realtime translation with BlogChat. I'm at a pretty early proof-of-concept stage, but have used it to good effect already. Here's a capture of a session:

It's simple to use and quite fast. I've got a whole bunch of ideas of how to build a useful translating chat. Time to leap into the conversation, I guess!"

This is great news, and kudos to Brent for this work. Of course, my next question is how do we get on-the-fly translation into news aggregators, but I'm sure we're a ways off from that.

[The Shifted Librarian]

While I'm on my TTS kick, if this could also read you the phrases in the other language, it could help you to learn it much faster, especially if the translator transliterated as well as translated the phrases entered.

1:17:52 AM    

Is it just me, or do other people think that XML feeds like RSS can help make information more accessible to people with disabilities? What about outliners? [Scripting News]

It's not just you. Having a custom browser that handles text to speech interpreting the XML, or an outline reader that do the same would be fantastic. Having a CSS set up that adds inflections as it hits punctuation, headlines etc would help tremendously as well.

1:15:59 AM