Mulled Marc

There’s not a lot to say about this, except that it’s been released. Full details about what it includes is available on Michael Swanson’s Blog.

A Federal Court judge has ruled that an online website may be sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act if their website is not accessible by the blind. The ruling stems from a suit against Target by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB). The class action lawsuit charged that Target’s online site was missing features that would allow a blind person to use the site and that a purchase could not be made online without the help of a sighted person. The NFB has stated that they previously contacted Target to resolve the issues with their website, but that negotiations broke down, leading to the suit.

Coupled with Microsoft SQL Server Express, the Visual Studio Express editions provide a tool that meets the needs of a wide range of software enthusiasts, including beginning Windows® developers, hobbyist Web developers, amateur game developers and even hardware developers. All the editions of Visual Studio Express will be offered as free downloads: Visual Web Developer™ Express, Visual Basic® Express, Visual C#® Express, Visual C++® Express and Visual J#® Express.

Microsoft announcement
via Bruce’s Banter

“…But what standards is he talking about, and are those the standards that consumers care about? The availability of an open source .NET implementation based on ECMA standards certainly makes Java look more proprietary.”

From Ars Technica