An Internet for everyone

Disability advocates are demanding that government do more to increase the accessibility of the Internet and broadband devices, especially mobile phones. And their pleas haven't fallen on deaf ears. Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-MA), former chairman of the House's Internet subcommittee, introduced a bill in Congress last year that would require providers of Internet services and devices -- from desktop computers to smart phones -- to make user interfaces accessible to people with disabilities. The bill, still in committee, has more than two dozen sponsors. But for all the hand-wringing about a "digital divide" separating the disabled from the able-bodied, a new era of empowerment is already dawning -- the result not of more regulation from Washington but of Silicon Valley's technological dynamism.