If you're not satisfied with the driving directions you get on Google Maps, a few smart guys at MIT have created an elaborate new toy called CarTel just for you. They've equipped a fleet of Boston-area cars with computers that automatically connect to any 802.11 access points detected in transit, then send home data recorded by their on board diagnostic systems, all in just a few hundred milliseconds.

The result: a website that gives you directions based on information gathered in real-time so you can avoid high-traffic areas or say, if it's raining, roads which have historically been congested in adverse weather conditions - no GPS required. The project also keeps a record of all access points detected, so think of it as wardriving for the good of humanity - and you (probably) wouldn't even get arrested for participating!

On some days I feel tremendously optimistic about the general state of accessibility as it relates to people with vision impairment.  Other times, I step back and take a broader view of the problem and feel that those of us who work to increase accessibility make up a very small group of people who, in the proverbial sense, team up to attempt to eat an entire elephant using only 7-Eleven issue plastic sporks. From month to month and year to year many of us benefit from the incremental progress made to improve accessibility but, at some instances, it feels like we will never make it to the promised land of a fully equitable world for people with disabilities.

On the other hand, when I watch my wife perform tasks similar to those that I do on a daily basis, when I realize just how much faster and with a much higher degree of certainty she can do things, I find myself looking at the entire elephant and only see that we've finished eating a few toes and a little bit of the tail.

The elephant includes but is not restricted to technology and the accessibility.  The entire problem certainly includes technology and that is the milieu in which I contribute but we need also include transportation, access to print materials, travel, dining, non-technical aspects of our homes and workplaces, general conveniences and many, many more subgroups where the notion of accessibility plays a role. In today's essay, I will discuss some areas where I feel tremendously optimistic, others where I feel encouraged by progress and still others that represent the enormous part of the elephant we haven't even started cooking let alone eating.

Some people might say that women have been an influence on their husbands in office, but there's a difference between being an adviser, confidant, and proxy at public functions and ceremonies, and taking on the power of the office. No spouse of an elected official, be they male or female, should ever have such power. They are not the ones voted to office.

It's going to be an unseasonably glorious weekend here in the Frozen North, and in mid-October every proper Frozen Northian knows there won't be too many more of those. So I decreed a rental-car weekend, took the day off (just as well; still coughing, though definitely better than I have been), and have been running errands.

First off was dropping my husband at work, which is nice for him because it cuts his commute time in half. Next, popping by the bird-paraphernalia store for forty pounds of sunflower seeds for the delectation of our local chickadees and finches, and the considerable amusement of one small gray cat on the other side of the window from the suction-cup window feeder.

After that I stopped at a coffeeshop for a chai latte and a peaceful hour of grading. Scheduling a quiz on the same day their position-description assignment was due was not the brightest thing I have ever done, but I shall make shift to manage. The quizzes are graded and recorded, and I'm chugging through the job descriptions. I'm amused by the number of them who have added two and two and set their fictional libraries in Middle-Earth ("Helm's Deep Library is an equal-opportunity employer. Orcs welcome!").

Then it was the traditional stock-up trip to Woodman's, which I do partly because some of what I buy I can get there for about half what it costs elsewhere, some of it I can't find other places (what is the deal with dill weed in Madison? it's out of stock almost everywhere I go!), and some of it is so hefty I'm much happier buying it when I have a car to haul it in. All told, I probably toted about a hundred seventy pounds of stuff in from the car when I got home: forty pounds of seed, two forty-pound boxes of cat litter, and fifty pounds (give or take) of other stuff.

I admit that I have a stockpile impulse, particularly when the outside world seems scarier and more uncertain than usual. Objectively, I know that I'm in amazingly good financial shape compared to most, that there's a good bit of elbow-room in our finances (we don't actually spend any of what my husband earns; we don't even spend all of what I earn), and that I'm fairly frugal by nature. Subjectively... I stockpile. There's no real harm in it, as reactions to uncertainty go.

It is hard enough getting a job if you live here and are able-bodied. Joseph is partially blind, but doing well, running his own business selling wool and making intricate trinkets, necklaces, and lamp shades. But he is the exception in a country which is more likely to shun the visually-impaired than to offer any help. After shipping more than 120,000 refurbished PCs to the developing world, Computer Aid now wants its kit to be usable by all - so, working alongside local experts, it is testing out adaptive technologies.

Tens of thousands of customers have spent four days cut off from, or with little access to, their e-mail accounts after a suspected spam attack. The problem affected a company which processes messages delivered through that platform. All legitimate e-mails were held back when the "large" attack began on Tuesday evening so the spam could be removed. E-mails were gradually being delivered now the fault was cleared, he added. He said these messages should now have been available but access via webmail may have been taking longer to restore.

People boast about designer jeans and designer shirts. Well, Esperanto speakers have a designer language... and are proud of it, because it gives them friends and contacts all over the world. But wait a moment. I bet you believe that... no-one speaks this language... it died the death, along with coal fires, black-and-white TV and soggy railway sandwiches... etc etc. Wrong. Type that word into any computer search-engine and see how many sites come up. I got over two and a half million when I tried - not bad for a language supposedly no-one uses.

English seems to be the de facto "global" language of the late 20th and first few years of the 21st century. It has followed on from French which was the lingua franca of the 19th and early 20th Century. Having your own language as the one which everybody else has to learn gives you a real advantage. One of the sad things in any country or even internationally about using the language of one nation or region is that the other languages and dialects suffer. We've seen this happen in Britain. Scottish Gaelic is in decline, Manx and Cornish have disappeared, Irish Gaelic in spite of strong support from the Government is not popular, the Scots and Yorkshire dialects are slowly being diluted, only Welsh is still strong and that needed many years of campaigning from its supporters.

Masha Bell, a member of the society and author of Understanding English Spelling, believes that reform of the spelling of the English language could help children learn to read and make life easier for some adults too. Prof Vivian Cook, a linguist, expert in second language learning and author of Accomodating Brocolli in the Cemetary, believes changing spellings would be unnecessary, expensive and could harm children's ability to read. We pitched the two, spelling reformer and spelling traditionalist, into a battle to persuade the other. Here they debate the merits of spelling systems, in the form of short e-mails.

Communications Officer Catherine Clarke was really pleased with the turn out and said it was their biggest ever Sleep Out event: "This years Sleep Out has been our best attended yet! As the weather forecast predicted we had winds and heavy rain, but that didn't turn people away, they've still turned up in their droves. Last year we raised £30,000 and this year we are set to raise £40,000 to help us continue to do our fantastic work. The atmosphere has been great. Next year we're hoping the event will be even bigger."

The calculator entry area is divided into three sections - monthly and annual spending, and housing costs. Each section has a range of fields - such as food, council tax and property value or rent - for which a figure should be entered using numbers, not words. It is not necessary to include a £ sign at any point. More details on what should be included and excluded from the figures entered for the different fields is available on the calculator by hitting the + button next to where it says "How to fill in this section". After entering all figures possible, hit the calculate button, and you will be shown your personal annual inflation estimate. The annual RPI figure will be shown for comparison.

A free service that provides automatic Braille conversion is proving popular despite still being in test phase. Anyone wanting to use the service, which is partly funded by the EU, can send plain text, rich text, html or Word documents by e-mail. Within a few minutes they receive their document either as an MP3 audio file or as electronic Braille. Electronic Braille can be read by a tactile display - a device connected to the computer with a series of pins that are raised or lowered to represent the Braille characters - or sent to a Braille printer.

Braille was invented in 1821 by Frenchman Louis Braille, and works by replacing the letters most people look at and read with patterns of raised dots they can feel with their fingers. Each letter in the alphabet has its own pattern made up of between one and five dots. Some words have their own patterns too. The Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) wants the government to make it much easier for kids to get their hands on large print text books.

