Blind group seeks change at Target.com: “Jacobson, 55, has been blind since birth. With special software that reads Web pages and his keystrokes aloud to him, Jacobson is able to shop on the Internet with Best Buy, Wal-Mart and many other retailers. But not with Target.

Disability advocates say the Target case could set a precedent requiring all U.S. retailers to make their websites accessible to the blind and others with disabilities.

‘This is the first case in the country where a court ruled that the ADA applied to a website,’ said Mazen Mohammed Basrawi, a Berkeley, Calif., lawyer who’s handling the case for the National Federation of the Blind. ‘We think thousands of businesses will take note of accessibility issues.”

Tech design flaws hit Mercedes, BMW, and Audi in J. D. Power’s 2006 study - German carmakers. Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi–widely respected as titans of engineering and pioneers in car tech–all suffered a considerable drop in the nameplate rankings, with BMW slipping from 3rd to 28th and Mercedes falling by a similar margin, from 6th to 26th. Audi skidded from 8th place last year to 19th in 2006.
So what was behind this sudden slump? It turns out that this year’s IQS factored in a whole new set of data on design flaws, which included the usability of each car’s cabin technology.

(Via CNET)