2 - Summary:
In March 2013, the Federal Government announced the creation of a new management system for secure access to online public services and eGovernment applications.
Britain's public service broadcasting corporation BBC is making available as open source the code for building HTML-based TV software solutions, called TAL. "Sharing the TV Application Layer should make building applications on TV easier for others, helping to drive the uptake of this nascent technology", the organisation explains.
read more
A smartphone designed for elderly people has been developed by global technology company Fujitsu.
When setting up the Stylistic S01 phone the user inputs their age, which customises some aspects to work differently. For example, the audio frequency range will be optimised for older people so they can clearly hear the voice of the person they are speaking to, and the phone can also slow down the speech of a caller without losing audio quality, again making it easier to understand.
Up to 200 blind and visually impaired people are to be trained to use a package of smartphone apps that can help with communication and everyday tasks, with £14,000 of funding allocated by the UK government.
An updated version of a free web content accessibility checker, originally developed because its creator was frustrated at the limitations of similar products, has been launched in JavaScript to allow wider usage.
QUAIL ( http://quailjs.org/ ) is a piece of software that uses more than 200 tests to assess if web content conforms to the widely used Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.
By Tristan Parker
After being diagnosed with dyslexia as a child, Neil Cottrell used various forms of assistive technology to help him study. He went on to develop his own autocorrective software, Global AutoCorrect, forming the company LexAble to develop and market it. Global AutoCorrect has now sold about 10,000 copies. E-Access Bulletin spoke to Cottrell about how his own innovations helped him achieve a first-class degree at university and start his own business.
E-Access Bulletin: How did it all begin?
2 - Summary:
As announced on 25 March 2013, the Agency for Administrative Modernisation (Agência para a Modernização Administrativa – AMA, in Portuguese) and the Technical Engineers Association (Ordem dos Engenheiros Técnicos – OET, in Portuguese) signed an agreement for the creation of a digital signature for technical engin
The State of Voralberg is sponsoring improvements to Quantum GIS, an open source solution for managing geographic information. Earlier this week Voralberg became the project's first silver sponsor of this year. The state is donating 5000 euro, paying for specific improvements.
read more
2 - Summary:
On 28 February 2013, the Estonian Health Insurance Fund (Eesti Haigekassa, in Estonian) and the Estonian E-Health Foundation (Eesti E-tervise Sihtasutus, in Estonian) signed a memorandum of cooperation for the development of eServices and data standards in the health sector.
A Spanish version of the consolidated edition of the International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) is now available.
Download
/files/assets/cataloguing/isbd/isbd-translations-es.pdf
The department of Culture, Media and Sport in the UK today published the Sieghart review on E-lending in English public libraries. This government commissioned review states that E-lending should be free as well as a service that should be offered remotely to library users.
2 - Summary:
The seventh edition of the eHealth Week will take place on 13-15 May at the Convention Centre in Dublin under the title ‘Innovative Healthcare & Well-being’. It will present the views and ideas of the world’s health IT experts and showcase cutting-edge health ICT.
2 - Summary:
The European Commission's Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT) and the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) have agreed on a roadmap to strengthen transatlantic cooperation in eHealth and health information technologies (IT), it was announced on
The Ubuntu Linux distribution is to become the basis of a reference architecture, Canonical, the company developing the distro, announced last week. Kylin, the country's own customised version of the Ubuntu distribution will be released next month, first for desktop PCs and later for servers and other computing platforms. The goal is to provide a flexible, open, widely-used and standardised operating system.
At the Latvian Geospatial Information Agency in Riga, all parts of the organisations use open source. Linux, to begin with, provides a stable operating system for its databases, both proprietary and the open source alternative Postgresql. Naturally the agency uses all kinds of open source solutions for its Geographic Information Systems, including Postgis and Quantum Gis.
Postgis and Postgresql are actually central to the agency's services, to offer, for example, the Eurogeographics reference data via web services.
2 - Summary:
Since the beginning of March 2013, Kela – the national Social Insurance Institution – allows people throughout the country to book their appointments with the institution online.
General information for IFLA Members
Ballot papers, including supporting information, have been dispatched to all voting Members of IFLA on 20 March 2013.
Only those Members who have paid their membership fees in full and who are not in arrears, are eligible to vote in these elections.