The Art Institute of Chicago (U.S.) offered the blind and vision-impaired people the opportunity to ‘see’ by touching replicas of a few of its most popular works.

The museum re-created a handful of its art on tactiles. The technology involves making replicas of artwork on portable, machine-etched plastic that enable visually impaired people touch and feel them.

The Islamabad Cricket Association of the Blind had a five wicket win over team Punjab(India) on 24th April. This is the home team’s second consecutive win in the series.
Zeeshan Abbasi (102) and Anees Javed (86) starred for Islamabad as they overhauled Punjab's score of 320 in the 21st over. The visitors made 320 for seven in the stipulated 35 overs. Garpreet Singh and Maninder Singh scored 96 and 90 runs, respectively.
Now the hosts lead the series 2-0. In the first match, they defeated Punjab(India) by eight wickets.

For more than 50 years, both visually impaired and sighted people have found friendship and a helping hand in the ‘Friendly Circle for the Blind’. But the group’s monthly gatherings could soon become thing of the past as it has only 10 members now.

Based in the U.S., the group was found in 1953 to offer blind people an outlet to get out of the house and meet people. It had nearly 100 members then.

British Computer Society charity Ability Net and the Royal National Institute of the Blind, have launched a scheme that accredits websites accessible to people with disabilities.

The See it Right with UseAbility scheme will involve human testers with a variety of disabilities rather than just automated testing. Organisations that act on all the recommendations from the assessment can display an accessibility logo.

B.N.P. Paribas, France's largest bank is to make its A.T.M. services accessible for visually impaired people. Financial technology provider, Diebold has supplied 265 voice-enabled Opteva cash machines to the bank and these will be installed in its branches through the second quarter of 2006. The service will be available in six languages.

Diebold, a global leader in the financial self-service industry, has provided text-to-speech technology through its partnership with Nuance Communications, a global leader in speech and imaging solutions.

The Canadian National Institute for the Blind (C.N.I.B.) has released a study, which indicates that many blind, visually impaired educated people live in poverty because they can not find work. Many of the barriers they faced 30 years ago still exist.

A report by the United Kingdom (U.K.) Cabinet Office’s e-Government Unit found that disabled people could not browse 97 per cent of official government sites in Europe, mainly because they ignored several known techniques for making the websites accessible.

Statistics released by the Ghana Eye Foundation (G.E.F.) at its launch in late 2005 indicate that out of the total population of 18.8 million (2000 census) in the country, 200,000 people are completely blind while 600,000 people are visually impaired.

Seventy-five per cent of the cases of blindness and visual impairment were due to avoidable and preventable reasons.

Cataract, glaucoma, trachoma, childhood blindness, refractive errors and low visions as well as diabetes and sickle cell retinopathy were cited major causes of visual impairment and blindness among Ghanaians.

Dr. Eli Peli, lead investigator of the study at S.E.R.I. had found that by increasing the contrast of details of certain sizes television watching could be made more enjoyable for people with low vision.

The information from the study will aid in the development of an electronic device that will help millions with low vision due to macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and other eye diseases.