FCC Chairman Wheeler Honors Innovators in Accessibility Communications Technology With Annual Awards

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler announced winners of the fourth annual Awards for Advancement in Accessibility (Chairman's AAA). These awards recognize and honor innovative achievements in communications technology that benefits people with disabilities. The Chairman's AAA, a project of the FCC's Accessibility and Innovation Initiative, recognizes outstanding private and public sector ventures in communications technology accessibility and innovation. Winners include:

Augmented Reality: Blind Square, an iOS app that helps blind travelers navigate routes, discover points of interest in the environment and network with friends around venues of mutual interest.

CAPTCHA Alternatives: Google's no CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA, which provides a technological advance to CAPTCHA security protocols by eliminating the need for users to type the characters or audio clips into a login box.

Internet of Things: Convo Lights, a VRS application that leverages recent advancements in off-the-shelf lighting technology to enable users to customize visual incoming call notifications to trigger multiple colors, locations and types of lighting in users' homes and workspaces.

Real-Time Text: Beam Messenger, an app that allows people to communicate seamless via text messages on mobile devices.

Teleconferencing: AT&T Video Meetings with BlueJeans: Mobile optimized and cross-platform interoperable video conferencing solution extends video collaboration to smartphone, tablet and laptop users.

Video Description: Comcast's Talking Guide: voice guidance on the X1 Entertainment Operating System "speaks" what's on the television screen to allow viewers who are blind or visually impaired to navigate user interfaces and video program information from cable set top boxes' on-screen menus.

Miscellaneous: OpenAIR, by Knowbility, Accessibile Internet Rally (AIR) is a competition, organized by Knowbility, that encourages developers to learn about web accessibility and apply that knowledge by building a prototype website for a nonprofit organization.