[Yr11 Information Technology] Free talk at Melb Uni on Tue 5 August

[Roland Gesthuizen]

Two interesting speakers at this free meeting on Tuesday evening by LUV. 
Details below.

    at Buzzard Lecture Theatre. Evan Burge Building, Trinity College, 
Melbourne University Parkville.
    on Tuesday Aug 5 2008 from 19:00 to 21:30 with a followup dinner at 
a local restaurant afterwards.

RSVP and more information at http://www.luv.asn.au/2008/08

I'll admit to a vested interest, having authored some of the activities 
on the CSIRAC website for David and an association with Jason White that 
stretches back to my FidoNET days. :-)

Regards Roland

    * *Computer cabinets of curiosity* by David Demant

      The fourth computer in the world, CSIRAC
      <http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/csirac/> (pronounced 'sigh-rack')
      was designed and built in Australia. It made its first successful
      test run in November 1949. CSIRAC is derived from Commonwealth
      Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Automatic
      Computer. An international icon of the digital age, CSIRAC is the
      only intact first-generation computer surviving anywhere in the
      world. The presentation tells the story of CSIRAC, its restoration
      and its achievements.

      David Demant - Senior Curator, Information and Communication
      Museum Victoria

      David Demant is a science and technology communicator. He is
      interested in the interpretation and activation of museum
      artefacts as a means of conveying the principles of science and
      technology to audiences with non-technical backgrounds.

    * *Accessing the Web the Linux Way via Speech and Braille* by Jason
      White

      The free software community is at the forefront of efforts to make
      the World Wide Web more accessible to people with disabilities. In
      this presentation I shall discuss, and demonstrate, the use of
      Firefox 3 with the Orca assistive technology in making Web sites
      and Web applications available through braille and speech-based
      interaction.

      The underlying theme of the presentation is the concept of an
      accessibility API. After a brief historical introduction, I shall
      outline the implementation of this concept in the Orca assistive
      technology, a standard component of the Gnome environment, and
      explain how Orca and Firefox together enable non-visual access to
      the Web.

      Web sites and interactive applications that rely on client-side
      scripts to construct user interface components have traditionally
      posed insuperable obstacles to users of speech and braille output.
      I shall demonstrate how the emerging Aria (Accessible Rich
      Internet Applications) specification brings the concept of an
      accessibility API into the Web domain, while laying the groundwork
      for innovative technologies, such as Google Axsjax, designed to
      enhance the accessibility of Web content on the client side.

      Jason White has been involved in standard-setting activities
      related to the accessibility of electronic documents and the World
      Wide Web to people with disabilities, for more than a decade. He
      has participated in a number of working groups organized by the
      World Wide Web Consortium. From 2000--2004 he served as co-Chair,
      with Gregg Vanderheiden, of the Web Content Accessibility
      Guidelines working group.

      Jason's enthusiasm for the Unix environment began in 1993, when,
      as a first-year university student, he gained access to an account
      on a Unix machine so as to address issues of accessibility related
      to his studies, and to participate in accessibility-related
      mailing lists. Through Linux, he was eventually able to realize
      his dream of running a Unix environment on his own hardware, and
      he now uses it exclusively.

      Jason's undergraduate degrees are in Arts (with Honours in
      philosophy), and in law (where he developed particular interests
      in public international law, human rights and Constitutional
      interpretation). He is currently completing his Ph.D. thesis at
      the University of Melbourne, in contemporary analytic semantics
      and philosophy of language.



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