Europe is more likely to be agonising about its future, but now it is the past that is proving contentious. Yesterday it emerged that Germany was hoping to exploit its EU presidency to promote a new school history book for the European Union. At a meeting in Heidelberg next week of EU education ministers, Berlin is to push for the publication of the book on the history of the EU to be used as a standard text in all 27 member countries.
Following is an excerpt from the Introduction of the Accessible Digital Media guidelines produced by WGBH. These guidelines, providing step-by-step solutions for making a variety of electronic media accessible to users with sensory disabilities and are available free of charge.
Properly designed e-books, software, Web sites and learning management systems can and must be accessible to all users with disabilities. Technology is prevalent everywhere, and learners of all ages and in all fields require equal access to content to keep pace with their colleagues and classmates. Whether they are high school students, IT professionals or research chemists, inaccessible materials prevent people with disabilities from using the same materials at the same time as their peers, and can limit their educational and career opportunities.
Electronic publishing is replacing print, changing reading as well as society.
Cavemen used charcoal to write on walls. Ancient Egyptians scrawled hieroglyphics on papyrus scrolls. Medieval monks penned illuminated manuscripts on parchment. Then Johannes Gutenberg changed the world with movable type, making writing available to all.
Now a revolution is under way that is rapidly making ink on paper obsolete. Books as we know them are dead, many experts say.
But questions go unanswered as technology advances. How can we preserve the world’s knowledge in rapidly evolving electronic formats? How can copyrights be protected when books can be duplicated in the blink of an eye?
It would appear that Sony has reached some kind of unpublicized settlement with the FTC? concerning their “RootKit” malware the corporation used in its music CDs last year, that was basically a virus that then left their victims open to more viruses.
Sony agreed to pay a fine of $4.5 million and up to $150 to any person who could prove damages, but I’ll bet that will be quite like the MCI rebates I signed up for and never got. I did know someone who actually went through all the hassle for the price- fixing rebates among the majority of major CD makers, but there the actual payout for ALL the CDs in question was somewhere not outside the $10-$20 range, only worth it if you framed a check, and put it on the wall next to the CD case.