DAISY Planet Newsletter - December 2022

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photo of 3 books between headphones representing audiobooks

Access to Educational Resources in Low-Resource Regions

As part of the DAISY Low-Cost Assistive Technology Project which is supported by the Microsoft AI for Accessibility program we have instigated a pilot initiative with partner organizations in India and Sri Lanka to provide accessible low cost audio devices to individuals to support their education. An article on the DAISY website linked above provides further details, and we look forward to sharing the findings.

Further details about the Low-Cost Assistive Technology Project are available on our website.

photo of Scott LaBarre delivering a presentation

Remembering Scott LaBarre

We are sorry to share the passing of Scott LaBarre, DAISY board member representing the National Federation of the Blind, USA, who passed away surrounded by his family on Saturday, December 10th 2022.

We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Scott for his significant contribution to fulfilling DAISY’s mission to make information accessible to people with disabilities, wherever they live in the world.

Read the NFB Statement about Scott LaBarre.

Photo of the ABC International Excellence Winner Award

ABC International Excellence Award 2022

Many congratulations to all the winners and finalists of the Accessible Books Consortium International Excellence Awards for Accessible Publishing, announced at The Guadalajara Book Fair.
Prizes this year went to Kogan Page and Mr. Ashoka Bandula Weerawardhana. Read the ABC Awards Announcement Article for full details.

DAISY Webinars

The recordings and all associated resources from our recent webinars are now freely available:

As we plan our webinar series for 2023 as always we are keen to hear your suggestions for webinar topics we should cover.

photo of a Google Home Mini smart speaker

Google Update Could Stop Reading Solutions

In a recent announcement Google released plans to sunset of Conversational Actions which are used in some smart speaker solutions which use Google Assistant. Following concerns raised by DAISY Members about the potential risk to their services, the DAISY Consortium has formally written to Google and the relevant team is now aware of the issue and we have been promised a response soon.

Quick Links

DAISY news, articles and updates:

New DAISY Learning site offers free training resources
Summary of the November DAISY Board Meeting in Milan
A Practical Guide for Using EPUB in K-12 Teaching and Learning
Obi 4.8 brings a range of updates, including the requested feature of support for higher quality audio
Thorium Reader Update brings new accessibility features including support for MathML
Bookworm accessible document reader offers new way to access content

Upcoming Events

January 16-18 Digital Book World, New York, USA
January 31- February 4 Assistive Technology Industry Association Conference, virtual + Florida, USA
March 13-17 CSUN Assistive Technology Conference, California, USA

April 9 DAISY AGM, Washington DC, USA

Further events are listed on the DAISY Calendar

Your Views and News...

We would love to hear your suggestions and feedback to help shape what we do, and we're always keen to share your news, events and developments with the global DAISY community.
Just send the details to: news@daisy.org

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You may also be interested in our Inclusive Publishing newsletter which focuses on global publishing industry accessibility developments.

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