Mobile phones Re: more CSS and tables

On Sat, 5 Jan 2002, Joe Clark wrote (among lots of other stuff):

  Mobile phones are not in the same category; they are not adaptive
  technology.

well, I am not so sure about this. They are clearly designed to adapt to a
situation that is in no way unique to people with disabilities, and they are
in fact used as an adaptive technology in Victoria, where I live, because
they provide the possibility of text messaging to other mobile phones. (Most
Australian men, women and children have a mobile phone, and they are almost
all GSM - compatible across networks. This is the case in Europe, but not the
US). The group that makes use of this feature expressly as an adaptive
technology is the signing Deaf, who cannot make much use of a normal public
telephone.

This is just a more or less random factoid - I am not sure where it leads, if
anywhere. (probably to somewhere like the argument about whether people
really use speaking browsers or the more generally useful screen readers...)

cheers

Charles McCN

Received on Saturday, 5 January 2002 20:54:32 UTC