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The Sun Microsystems Accessibility Team has announced key rollouts designed to enhance its Java Access Bridge. The team also has been giving presentations on accessibility for the Java platform, and demonstrated cutting-edge assistive technologies using Java software, at the Conference on Technology and Persons with Disabilities, held near Los Angeles. Designing Accessibility From the Get-Go Too often, experts say, issues of accessibility are an afterthought in the development cycle of new technology. Adding accessibility later in the process can be expensive and impractical. The Java platform has broken that cycle and been an important tool for the development of accessible applications. The Java 2 platform specifically made enabling technology -- the Java Accessibility API -- a core component, giving developers the freedom to design accessibility into new products from the very beginning. The API enables assistive technologies, such as screen readers or speech recognition technology, to provide ways for people with special needs to interact with those applications. The Java Accessibility API is implemented in the user interface components of the Java platform known as the Java Foundation Classes (J.F.C./Swing) API. This allows assistive technologies to extract and interact with the information that users need to access. As a result, the millions of developers using the J.F.C./Swing APIs to build the user interfaces for their applications are automatically gaining enabling technology in their development environment. Because of the accessibility support built into the J.F.C./Swing API user interface components, even developers with no expertise in special needs or assistive technologies can easily build highly accessible applications. Java Technology Drives Access The Java Access Bridge for the Microsoft Windows operating system allows assistive technologies to provide access to both Microsoft Windows and Java applications, expanding the user's options at virtually no cost. For example, a blind user's screen reader can provide access not only to the Microsoft Windows applications on the desktop, but also to applications written in the Java programming language; the user need not purchase and learn to use a second product. For the user, the Java application is just another accessible desktop application, requiring no special commands or interfaces. The Java Access Bridge is a technology that contains "native methods." Included in the code for the class is a dynamically linked library (DLL) on the Microsoft Windows system. The assistive technology running on the host platform (for example, a screen reader running in Microsoft Windows) communicates with the Microsoft Windows native DLL portion of the bridge class. In turn, the native code of the Bridge Class communicates through the Java virtual machine with the Java Accessibility utility support and the Java Accessibility API on the individual user interface objects of the Java technology-based application. The latest release of the Java Access Bridge for the Microsoft Windows operating system, version 1.0.1, introduces another round of enhancements. They are part of an ongoing process to make assistive technology more valuable to the user. Tech Companies Tout Java Access Bridge The Java Access Bridge is a key contributor to the work of Henter-Joyce, a division of Freedom Scientific which produces software to help blind or visually impaired people browse the Web, use email, work on spreadsheets, and access database information. The firm's screen readers and magnifiers are used by employees at Honeywell, Pizza Hut, Federal Express, AT&T-Bell Labs, McDonnell Douglas, Hughes Aircraft, and other companies. Its flagship product, JAWS for Windows (Jobs Access With Speech), has more than 55,000 users worldwide and is currently translated into 12 languages. Version 3.7 of JAWS for Windows supports the Java Accessibility API via the Java Access Bridge. "The Java Access Bridge provides the means to Adaptive Technology vendors like us to quickly develop a solution by which a blind computer user can interact with a Java application or applet in the same way they would with a [Microsoft] Windows-based application, using a screen reader software," said Eric Damery, vice president of business development for software products at Henter-Joyce. "The Java Access Bridge upgrade solved some compatibility issues with [Java SDK] 1.3. This was a big request from many of our users who needed to upgrade to [Java SDK] 1.3." American Management Systems (AMS), one of the world's largest international business and information technology consulting firms, has been using the Java Access Bridge since its release in 1999. "We used it when we started to make one of our products, Momentum, accessible," said AMS software engineer Rekha Kengeri. Developers at AMS wrote the front end for Momentum, a web-enabled system used to manage financial and administrative operations for federal agencies, in the Java programming language. "The Java Access Bridge is essential for any Java applications to work with third-party screen readers," Kengeri said. "Without it, we could not have made Momentum screen-reader ready." She credited the Sun Accessibility Team with providing valuable support. Oracle develops and sells a complete set of Java technology-enabled software infrastructure products, including its database, application server, and development tools, as well as a comprehensive suite of Java technology-based business applications. Oracle is using the Java Access Bridge to make these products accessible through third-party assistive technology tools. Oracle plans to ship the Java Access Bridge with the new Oracle9i generation of its software. "The Java Access Bridge eliminates the need for vendors like Oracle to write custom code in order to integrate Java [technology] and [Microsoft] Windows assistive technology," said John Magee, senior director of Oracle9i product marketing. "There are several features of the Accessibility API that Oracle is intending to take advantage of, including AccessibleTables and AccessibleAction. These features will make the Java Access Bridge even more powerful."