Web Site Lets Disabled 'See' Internet

Equipment, listings tailored to special needs

From: San Francisco Chronicle - December 3, 1999 - page A8
By: Anick Jesdanum, Associated Press

New York - The publisher of magazine for the disabled premiered a new Web
site and tool yesterday to make the Internet more accessible to the blind and
other disabled users. 

To take advantage of some features, users of We Media Inc.'s site would need
to buy such special equipment as a vibrating mouse that lets the blind "feel"
boxes and images on the computer screen. The tools will enable the disabled
to do such things as take online college courses and participate in
discussion groups, he said.  

The announcement comes a month after the National Federation of the Blind
sued America Online, calling its software incompatible with programs that
convert text to audio or Braille. 

According to the Census Bureau, 1 in 10 Americans has a severe disability
such as blindness. 

The for-profit site at http://www.wemedia.com, affiliated with the publisher
of We magazine, will go into operation today, though some of the services and
tools won't be available for weeks or months. 

The site will offer shopping and access to online college courses, chat
rooms, lists of jobs at accessible workplaces and real estate brokers who
specialize in accessible homes. 

Several other sites cater to the disabled. Some of the access tools are also
available already. 

The mouse will sell for several hundred dollars, though We Media is seeking
arrangements with non-profit partners to buy the tools in bulk and offer them
for free or at a subsidized price. 

Laurence Bergman, We Media's product manager, likened the one-time purchase
to that of a wheelchair.  

So far, We Media is the only Web site to use coding compatible with the
vibrating mouse. But the maker of the mouse, Haptic Technologies, hopes other
sites will adopt the coding as well. 

Richard Ring, a blind Web user who runs the International Braille and
Technology Center for the Blind, said a vibrating mouse would be useful,
particularly if it worked throughout the Internet. 'I wouldn't want to be
limited to using a special Web site any more than you would," he said.

National Federation of the Blind
http://www.nfb.org/

International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind
http://nfb.org/ibtc.htm