Access For All

RNIB announced Techshare Mobile 2010 – Technology on the Move, sponsored by RIM. This one day conference will take place on 15 June 2010 at the ICC in Birmingham and will run alongside the UK Vision conference.
This special event will feature invited key speakers, including keynotes from RIM and Nokia and other workshop leaders from the world of mobile technology. The day will showcase innovations in digital technology for blind and partially sighted people and others with disabilities. There will be a strong focus on hardware and software in this field including mobile phones, netbooks, tablets and portable reading devices. Of course, mobile web will also be a key element.
Places will be limited so please book early. For regular updates including booking opening announcements and speaker announcements, sign up to Techshare News at: techshare@rnib.org.uk, go to www.rnib.org.uk/techshare or follow us on twitter at @TechshareEvents.

The 4th European eAccessibility Forum – eAccessibility of Public Services in Europe will take place on 12 April 2010 in Paris, France. It will provide a unique opportunity to discuss the complementary aspects involved in making an accessible Information Society a reality in Europe. It will provide an opportunity to hear at first-hand about experiences from users with disabilities, public organizations and industry. The speakers are specialists involved in organizations representing users and consumers with disabilities, research organizations and companies operating at a European level or worldwide. The conference will also consider the harmonization of good practices over Europe.
More information at the event website.

The Project ImPaCT in Europe – Improving Person Centred Technology in Europe, a networking project in the field of ICT co-financed by the European Commission’s Executive Agency for Education, Audiovisual and Culture in the framework of the Lifelong Learning Programme, is conducting a survey to assess the use of Person Centred Technology across Europe. The data gathered will be used by the partnership to map the current situation and to to evaluate and promote the benefits of PCT for people with disabilities. The survey is brief and user friendly and is available in English, Portuguese, Finnish, French and Dutch. People with disabilities, service providers, policy makers at all levels, researchers and manufacturers of PCT who are interested in the work carried out by the partnership are invited to contribute.

Most sat nav systems are designed for and used by a broad cross-section of the population, but the BBNav is unique in that it is the first standalone sat nav system to have been created by the Blue Badge association (hence the BB name). That means that it is purposely designed to be used by disabled people and their carers. The BB functionality starts with the inclusion of detailed information relating to locations of disabled parking spaces on streets and roads around the UK. It also has points of interest for disabled users, including details of businesses and services offering accessibility or those catering exclusively to disabled users. The BBNav also has the locations of car parks for disabled drivers stored in its memory, although for the majority of the time it will perform in exactly the same way as every other sat nav on the market. That means it can navigate quickly and easily to any destination, but has further advantages including colour-coded roads to make following instructions easier and a large touch sensitive interface to make using the menus and navigation system simpler for everyone.
Buy via US, UK or Germany.

Falls are the main cause of injuries among elderly people, but new technology offers a solution. The EU-funded SensAction-AAL project has developed a solution that involves using a wearable, wireless-enabled device equipped with motion sensors to monitor people susceptible to falls. The information can then be used to help patients perform rehabilitation exercises to improve their balance and mobility, evaluate the progression of a disorder or, crucially, alert emergency services, doctors or relatives in the event of a fall. The consortium is interested in finding investment partners to help conduct more extensive clinical trials and develop a commercial version of the full system.
More information at ICT results website.