The National Communications Commission yesterday invited visually impaired people to review so-called “barrier-free” Web pages created by government agencies.
The commission also passed an amendment to the Guidelines Governing Review and Certification of Accessibility Web Development by All Levels of Schools and Government Agencies (各級政府機關與學校網站無障礙化檢測及認證標章核發辦法), requiring people with impaired sight to certify that Web pages offered by government agencies are accessible.
Visually impaired people use special tools to access the Internet and they interact with sites differently from people with normal eyesight, the commission said.
A team to review the accessibility of the Web pages was formed by people with normal vision, who might not be able to identify potential problems experienced by visually impaired users, it added.
It said that the amendment authorized the commission or a proxy to notify authorities in charge of a government agency if a Web site does not meet the commission’s guidelines.
In related news, the commission is still investigating whether the developer of messaging software Juiker offers services as a tier 2 telecoms provider.
The software was created by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and was reported to have outsourced operations to a private company, Taipei-based Loft Technology Co (源思科技), which does not have a license as a tier 2 telecoms provider.
Liang Wen-hsing (梁溫馨), deputy director of the commission’s Telecommunications Administration Department, said Loft Technology has “green” and “gold” members.
“Green” members use the software to send text messages, which is similar to how they use messaging app Line, he said, adding that the commission is trying to ascertain whether the company offers tier 2 services to “gold” members.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the