GRAPHICAL INTERFACES POSE OBSTACLE TO THE BLIND
Dan Wakefield, a government computer specialist who is blind, says that
things have never been worse for blind computer users, because the Internet,
which started out as a "life-saver" for blind persons, has become
predominantly graphics-oriented and mouse-driven rather than keyboard-driven.
But some recent developments offer promise of improving this situation:
Microsoft has released an Active Accessibility applications development kit
and has provided a text-only option in its new version of Explorer;
Netscape's version of the Navigator browser for IBM's OS/2 Warp 4 will offer
speech-recognition capabilities;  PWWebSpeak 1.2 from Productivity Works in
Princeton, NJ provides a Web browser that understands HTML;  and Nynex
Information Resources has a text-based version of its Web directory
<www.bigyellow.com>.  (Computerworld 30 Sep 96 p16)