17 September 2007
IBM have announced that they are to launch a multimedia browser that will make audio and visual content accessible to those that have visual impairments. It is to b e launched later this year, and at present IBM hope that it will be free.
The new multimedia browser named Accessibility Browser, already nicknamed A-Browser, was created by an IBM employee in Japan, who is blind herself.
The new browser will give those with visual impairments the same access to multimedia content as those that are sighted and use a mouse.
Dr Asakawa, the creator explained that the reason for her creating the A-Browser was due to her own frustrations increasing due to more and more online content becoming inaccessible to her.
Frances West, Director of IBM’s Human Ability and Accessibility Centre comments:
We're beginning to look at accessibility as a very important business area, this is not just from a social responsibility standpoint, but with ageing baby-boomers we think that such technology could really benefit the population in general because all of us will be on this ageing journey.
IBM is yet to decide whether to do a worldwide launch or a country by country process. Once available, IBM estimate that more than 160 million blind and partially-sighted people could benefit from the development.
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