1. The European Accessibility Act – Has It Slipped Under Your Radar?

Many businesses may not have heard of the European Accessibility Act (“EAA”). If it has slipped under your radar, now is the time to take note because this legislation has a broad reach across many sectors, significant implications for product and service design (as well as documentation), and a looming compliance deadline.

2. Disability Groups Applaud the SC Ruling Declaring Accessibility a Fundamental Right

Disability rights advocates and groups have described the Supreme Court judgment recognizing accessibility as a fundamental right for persons with disabilities as historic and hugely transformational. The ruling is set to transform public life across India, compelling both state and central governments to prioritize the rights of individuals with disability, said the National Disability Network, an umbrella body representing 40 members from across India.

3. Apple’s Head of Accessibility Highlights the Importance of AI in Helping People with Disabilities

As reported last week, Apple’s global head of accessibility Sarah Herrlinger spoke this Tuesday at the Web Summit Lisbon 2024. At the event, Herrlinger talked about everything Apple has been doing to make its devices easy to use for anyone and also highlighted the use of AI to help people with disabilities.

4. Two New Artificial Intelligence Laws and Their Effects on Accessibility

For a while now, disability inclusion and accessibility professionals have expressed concerns about artificial intelligence bias against people with disabilities. Of course, this is on top of many people’s concerns about AI’s making up information and data collection privacy.

5. How to Provide Quality Flight Experiences to People with Disabilities

Aviation is a tool to connect people across different cultures and abilities worldwide, and every company in air travel must work to expand the accessibility of passenger air service so more people can experience the miracle of flight comfortably.

6. What Accessibility Statements Are Really For

Yes, it was me… I was one of the people who originally came up with the idea of Accessibility Statements. Back in 2009 and 2010, when I was leading the creation of BS 88878, my team at BSI and I came up with some of the initial guidance for these Statements, to help organizations communicate what accessibility they had and hadn’t been able to achieve in websites to their users who have disabilities.

7. MSP Airport Debuts Enhanced Accessibility Programs for Travelers Who are Deaf, Hard of Hearing

MSP is launching Aira’s pilot American Sign Language (ASL) interpreting service, Aira ASL. A separate program being rolled out is called talk-to-text, which uses technology to convert live airline announcements into text that is displayed for passengers at the gate.

8. Sustainability Profession Scrambles to Fill ‘Extreme Gap’ in Digital Skills to Harness Power of AI

Barely a day goes by without news of innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) that will help solve the climate and biodiversity crises. From crunching data obtained by satellite observation to calculating the most fuel-efficient route for a vehicle, humans are finding ever-more ingenious ways to employ AI in sustainability work.

9. Agencies Still Struggling to Meet Digital Accessibility Standards

A year after the General Services Administration’s landmark assessment of Section 508 conformance, many agencies are still struggling to meet digital accessibility requirements for their online assets. GSA is expected to publish the results of its 2024 assessment later this month, but accessibility officials shared some preliminary findings during an annual interagency accessibility forum last month.

10. Comment: Business Leaders Risk Sleepwalking Towards AI Misuse

In 2014, Amazon created a machine learning tool to review job applications and rank their prospective candidates on a scale of one to five. The automation of the search for top talent at the corporation had the potential to save their human resources department hundreds of hours a year. There was just one problem. The tool did not want to hire women.

11. Tokyo, Out to Make Art and Culture Accessible for All

On November 5, Tokyo outlined its commitment to making art and cultural experiences more accessible to all. This initiative comes in preparation for two significant upcoming events in 2025: the World Athletics Championships and the Deaflympics.

12. Equity for Whom? An Introduction to Private Equity’s Impacts on the Disability Community

Private equity refers to highly leveraged investments to buy stakes in private companies or to acquire public companies to take them private. Private equity firms aim to extract as much of a company’s assets as possible and improve efficiencies through active management and cost-cutting measures, with the goal of eventually reselling the company for a profit.