Recently, Beaconfire staff held a volunteer event for the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project.

The HCPP operates a play and recreatational program for children at Washington, DC’s largest emergency homeless shelter. Each week, volunteers arrive at the shelter with toys, sports equipment and snacks for the children.

At our event, we raised over $600 and created nearly 50 playkits for the volunteers to deliver to the children. Our kids contained toys, art supplies, snacks and bottled water.

We were spurred to action after reading this column by Courtland Milloy and talking with organization co-founder Jamila Larson.

Photos of the event.

On Tuesday, the National Federation of the Blind filed suit against Target, claiming that its site is not accessible to blind users.  This certainly would be a case to watch since, to date, we’ve thought accessibility requirements as having legal weight only with government sites.  Whether or not the NFB wins the suit, it will likely bring increased focus to the subject.  And the fact that they also mention that the Target site is "powered by Amazon.com" would seem to suggest that this isn’t the last we’ll hear about this.

"Targetâ??s website â?? which according to its home page is ‘powered by
Amazon.com’ â?? contains significant access barriers that prevent blind
customers from browsing and purchasing products online, as well as from
finding important corporate information such as employment
opportunities, investor news, and company policies.

The plaintiffs charge that Target.com fails to meet the minimum
standard of web accessibility. It lacks compliant alt-text, an
invisible code embedded beneath graphic images that allows screen
readers to detect and vocalize a description of the image to a blind
computer user. It also contains inaccessible image maps, preventing
blind users from jumping to different destinations within the website.
And because the website requires the use of a mouse to complete a
transaction, blind Target customers are unable to make purchases on
Target.com independently.

‘We tried to convince Target that it should make its website accessible
through negotiations,’ says Dr. Maurer [NFB Pres.]. ‘Itâ??s unfortunate that Target
was unwilling to commit to equal access for all its online customers.
That gave us no choice but to seek the protection of the court. The
website is no more accessible today than it was in May of last year,
when we first complained to Target."

More information available from the Disability Rights Advocates Web site including a Fact Sheet and the complete complaint.

Microsoft released a preview version of Internet Explorer 7 to developers earlier this week, and there are already widespread reports of bugs.

Microsoft has an IE Blog that describes their progress. This posting showcases IE 7’s new user interface. You can see IE’s new tabbed browsing, RSS integration, integrated search box, zoom menu and a number of other clever features that have been available in other browsers for years. IE 7 is due later this year.