HOMELatest News
Current DAISY News items are posted below. A list of Archived News items is also available.
The AFB September issue of AccessWorld is a product evaluation of digital audio players and new access technology. A number of DAISY players have been tested by a group of AFB TECH testers. The report and links to a quick comparison of each player's features are provided in AFB AccessWorld September 2008, Vol.9 Issue 5.
Sun Microsystems granted $1 Million to the Open Source Community Innovation Awards recipients as a part of its commitment to freely available open source technologies.These winners received recognition for outstanding contributions to the worldwide Open Solaris, OpenJDK, NetBeans, GlassFish, OpenOffice.org and OpenSPARC communities.
The September issue of the DAISY Planet is now available on the DAISY Web site: September DAISY Planet. Please share the Planet with your associates and friends.
"The IDA CRPD Forum has been set up by the International Disability Alliance (IDA) to continue the work of the International Disability Caucus. The IDA CRPD Forum upholds the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as the universal standard for the human rights of all persons with disabilities...The aim of the IDA CRPD Forum is to develop a strong unified voice from civil society led by disabled people's organisations, DPOs, in matters concerning the CRPD." Visit the IDA CRPD Forum Web site.
Hiroshi Kawamura, President of the DAISY Consortium has stated that this is one of the most
important submissions from the disability community on the United Nations CRPD. Pages 35 to 38 will
be of particular interest. Portions of relevant articles from the CRPD Treaty are quoted, including
Article 2:
"'Communication' includes languages, display of text, Braille, tactile communication, large print,
accessible multimedia as well as written, audio, plain-language, human-reader and augmentative and
alternative modes, means and formats of communication, including accessible information and
communication technology;"
and Article 9 (f) and (g):
"(f) Promote other appropriate forms of assistance and support to persons with disabilities to ensure
their access to information;"
"(g) Promote access for persons with disabilities to new information and communications technologies
and systems, including the Internet;"
The IDA CRPD Forum Submission to the United Nations Office High Commission on Human Rights (OHCHR) is available on the DAISY Web site.
The DAISY Consortium is nominated for the 2008 Katherine M. Swanson Equality Award for developing AMIS software, which implements synthetic speech to make text and multi-media information available to people who have print disabilities such as visual impairments, cognitive or learning disabilities such as dyslexia, and people who are unable to hold a keyboard or printed publication. Details are provided in the DAISY Press Release.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has announced a call for papers for a Special Issue of ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS). This special issue will focus on aging and information technologies and will "explore specific opportunities and challenges and solutions for older adults and the increasing deployment of complex IT systems." Full details including paper topics and submission deadlines are provided on the ACM Web site.
This is an advance notice that the Call for Papers for the 2009 CSUN (California State University, Northridge) Conference will be announced shortly. The Call for Papers will open August 25 and will close October 17. Please check the CSUN Web site for the announcement and further details.
Mr. Hiroshi Kawamura, President of the DAISY Consortium, received the Dr. Dayton M. Forman Memorial Award from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB). The award recognizes Mr. Kawamura's work to ensure equitable information services for people with print disabilities throughout the world. Details are provided in the DAISY Press Release.
Kerscher accepted the award by teleconference to Linz, Austria during the ICCHP Conference on the evening of July 10. This is the third prestigious award presented to the DAISY Consortium in less than two months. All are in recognition of the Consortium's work in the development and promotion of international standards and technologies which enable equal access to information and knowledge by all people with print disabilities and which also benefit the wider community. Details are provided in the DAISY Press Release.
Kerscher, DAISY Consortium Secretary General, has been named among the first recipients for the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award which recognizes individuals and organizations working in the field of blindness that have made outstanding contributions toward achieving the full and equitable integration of individuals who are blind into society. Full details are provided in the DAISY Consortium press release.
The Adaptive Content Processing Conference (ACP 08) is being jointly hosted by the EUAIN Network, the ProAccess Project and the Federation of Dutch Publishers and will be held as part of the Amsterdam World Book Capital celebrations.
This conference, which will be an excellent platform for network building and knowledge sharing, will be held November 6 and 7, 2008, in Amsterdam. Registration is now open. The draft program, registration details and detailed information about the conference are available on the ACP 08 Web site.
With a diverse focus, the conference will be for publishers and content holders, technicians and policy makers. Demonstrations and discussions regarding the structuring and reuse of content in support of new products and services are planned. This is of course also a central issue for many accessibility organisations and will be of great interest to DAISY Members and Friends.
DAISY Members and Friends are invited to submit and present a thematic session (1 hour) or give a presentation or demonstration. The provisional programme is available on the programme page of the ACP 08 Web site. A conference flyer is available: ACP 08 Flyer in Word and ACP 08 Flyer in PDF.
Please read the ACP 08 Invitation and Call for Papers for further information.
The important dates for this event are:
- 30 July 2008: Deadline for proposals for thematic sessions
- 15 August 2008: Deadline for papers and presentation submissions
- 30 August 2008: Notification of acceptance for papers and presentations
- 01 November: Final date for registration and payment
- 06-07 November ACP08 Conference
The venue will be the Beurs van Berlage which is in the centre of Amsterdam.
The DAISY Consortium Annual Report for 2007 is now available and can be read online or downloaded as a zip file.
Details are available on the ATIA Web site.
Duxbury Systems, Inc. and Design Science, Inc. have announced "the availability of Duxbury Braille Translator™ (DBT) version 10.7 with support for direct import of Microsoft Word documents containing mathematical equations created with MathType™. This improvement will allow users to author math with MathType in MS Word and then translate those materials to braille via DBT for Windows." Additional information is available in the Design Science Press Release dated June 23, 2008.
The Universidad Miguel Hernández in Elche (Alicante) has published the first Spanish printed book that includes a CD-ROM with the audio version in DAISY format.
Accessible Digital Books: from Word to DAISY Seminar, June 23, 2008, from 9:30 - 12:30.
This seminar is organised by the Association BrailleNet with the objective to illustrate the potential of the "Save As DAISY" function in MS Word, using examples and demonstrations. It will be held at Cité des sciences et de l'Industrie - 30, avenue Corentin-Cariou - 75019 Paris, France. The seminar will present how documents designed according to accessibility recommendations can be save in DAISY XML format (DAISY/NISO Z39.86) and how these files can be transformed into other accessible formats such as DAISY DTBs, HTML, PDF, making them readable on a variety of platforms. The language of this seminar is French. Information about the Seminar is available in French and in English.
The call for papers for ATIA 2009 Orlando, closes June 23, 2008 (this has been extended to June 30). ATIA's 10th anniversary will be celebrated by two ATIA conferences in 2009, the first in Orlando Florida, USA, January 28 - 31, 2009. Details are available on the ATIA Web site.
The 2008 revision of the DAISY 3 Structure Guidelines is now available online and for download.
The DAISY Structure Guidelines, first published in 1999, are a resource for the creation of the textual content of DAISY publications and also provide information on the overall structural relationships that apply to any type of DAISY publication.
Sample DAISY books with MathML content are posted in the MathML-in-DAISY Project area, thanks to collaborative efforts of members of the MathML working group.
ICT Results Feature Article: Profits for publishers in making books accessible to all
"...What the EUAIN team has done is to bring all the accessibility organisations in the different countries (Europe) together to pool their knowledge. The team then put them together with the pan-European publishing industry to explore mutually-beneficial ways to work together..."
On the EUAIN portal: Online demonstrator for accessible content processing
"The XML Digital Talking Book (DTBook) format (NISO Z39.86) (also known as the DAISY format) was chosen as a pivotal format on which converters are applied on the fly to produce the output documents in different possible formats (HTML, PDF). Moreover, in order to make the process accessible to a wider audience and to demonstrate that well-structured documents can be produced easily with standard word processors, i.e. by non-specialists, input files can also be provided in an Open Document Format (.odt files). The Open Office word processor can be used for that. The use of Open Document Format is also important as this format is being increasingly recognised as pivotal for public sector information provision."
Mr. Kawamura's acceptance of the ITU World Telecommunication and Information Society Award is available on YouTube. On behalf of, and as President of the DAISY Consortium, Mr. Kawamura was presented with this prestigious award by ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun Touré during the Ceremony of the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day 2008. The award was in the category of Science and Technology.
Announcement on Microsoft Presspass Site (5/21): Microsoft Microsoft Expands List of Formats Supported in Microsoft Office.
"There is essentially no computer in the world, desk-top, hand-held, or back-room, that doesn't process XML sometimes," said Tim Bray of Sun Microsystems.
Many useful informative links are listed and the community is invited to send an "XML greeting" or share a testimonial.
Hiroshi Kawamura took part in the 2007 Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Brazil last November. The Pew Internet and American Life Project has just posted a series of 'Imagining the Internet' interviews. View Hiroshi Kawamura discussing the emergence of the DAISY Standard.
Hiroshi Kawamura, President of the DAISY Consortium, was honoured to accept the World Telecommunication and Information Society Award on behalf of the DAISY Consortium today in Cairo Egypt.
Publishing 'Sneak Peeks' Online
Note: This is an NPR (National Public Radio) Flash-enabled audio, with links to related stories.
Report any accessibility problems
An older related story from another source: Random House Audio abandons audiobook DRM
Accessibility format gets boost from maker of world's biggest text-authoring tool
Excerpt: Good structural metadata lets a blind user nimbly navigate, browse and search a document. Word and PDF weren't built from the ground up to support that. DAISY was.
DAISY users talk about the personal benefits of the “Save as DAISY XML” add-in for Microsoft Office Word.
- Watch the video in English (.wmv, 4 min 10 sec)
- Watch the video in Chinese (Mandarin) (.wmv, 4 min 10 sec)
- Watch the video in Dutch (.wmv, 4 min 10 sec)
- Watch the video in French (.wmv, 4 min 10 sec)
- Watch the video in Spanish (.wmv, 4 min 10 sec)
Today at 12:01 PDT the first official release of Microsoft's "Save As DAISY XML" translator for Microsoft Office Word and the simultaneous release of the newest version of the DAISY Pipeline were announced. Both are open source developments which support the creation of accessible content for people worldwide with print disabilities.
Full details and links to downloads, press release and related information, and support documentation for the Microsoft "Save As DAISY XML" add-in are available in the "Save As DAISY" area of the DAISY Web site. "We know that much of the information in documents today is created with Microsoft Word; this new add-in provides an unprecedented leap forward in the worldwide effort to make information available to all." (George Kerscher, Secretary General of the DAISY Consortium).
Information, links to the press release, and downloads for the Pipeline are on the DAISY Pipeline project page. This suite of migration tools supports the transformation of files from one format into other required formats. The release announced today offers compatibility with Microsoft Office Word. "This is a huge step toward achieving the DAISY Consortium's vision of a world where everyone has equal access to information and knowledge." (Markus Gylling, Technical Development Director for the DAISY Consortium).
Press documentation for Microsoft's "Save As DAISY XML" translator is also provided in DAISY 2.02 format. This DAISY DTB with synthetic speech was created using the "Save As DAISY XML" translator and the DAISY Pipeline. It is available for download from the Microsoft "Save As DAISY" project page.
The first official release of Microsoft's "Save As DAISY XML" translator for Microsoft Office Word was announced today. This is an open source collaborative project.
The DAISY Consortium announces a new release of the DAISY Pipeline, a free, downloadable transformation suite that transforms documents into accessible multimedia formats.
Award-winner Swedish Library of Talking Books and Braille shares the spotlight with the DAISY Consortium supporting the fundamental human right for access to printed materials.
NISO, the National Information Standards Organization, a non-profit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), identifies, develops, maintains, and publishes technical standards to manage information in today's changing and ever-more digital environment.
NISO recognizes that standards must reflect global needs and is designated by ANSI to represent U.S. interests as the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to the International Organization for Standardization's (ISO) Technical Committee 46 on Information and Documentation.
Read the NISO Press Release announcing this DAISY Consortium/Microsoft collaboration: "NISO Standard at the Heart of Microsoft Translator for Open XML to DAISY XML".
In a new collaborative initiative, Microsoft and the DAISY Consortium will work together to develop an Open XML to DAISY XML Converter: "Save As DAISY XML". DTBook, the DAISY XML file which will be generated from the free downloadable plug-in for Microsoft Word, is the foundation of the DAISY/NISO Standard for reading and publishing navigable, multimedia content.
Geneva, 2 July 2007 - For Immediate Release
Visually Impaired Persons and Publishers Join IPA in Geneva for Dialogue on International Access
The International Publishers Association invited VIP (Visually Impaired Persons) experts and publishing industry stakeholders to discuss the issues of access of visually impaired persons across borders to works in accessible formats.
IPA invited experts to informal talks in Geneva. The invitees came from the World Blind Union, the DAISY Consortium, and IFLA/Libraries for the Blind Section to join publishing industry specialists from the Federation of European Publishers (FEP), the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations (IFRRO), the Publishers Licensing Society (PLS) and the Dorina Nowill Foundation (Brazil). All were invited in their personal capacity, not as spokespersons of their respective organisations.
For Immediate Release
Mathematics Now Added to the DAISY Standard
The DAISY Consortium approves MathML - the first modular extension to DAISY
ZURICH, Switzerland - March 22, 2007 - The DAISY Consortium announced today the formal adoption of the specification for the DAISY/NISO Standard Modular Extension for Mathematics. The publication of the Mathematics Modular Extension is crucial to integrating accessible mathematics into DAISY and NIMAS-compliant books. The path to accessible mathematics is now clear.
