Europeans, worried about the increase in people with hearing loss due to loud MP3 players, are proposing legislation to limit the volume. The proposed legislation would hold it down to 85 decibels maximum. The European Commission is acting because of reports that as many as ten million Europeans could develop permanent hearing loss as a result of listening to too-loud music.

Buried within the article "E-book access not so equal" from the University of Illinois was this paragraph of interest:

Students with hearing disabilities also need to use technology differently. Robert Radtke, junior in LAS, ran into problems in a few classes where the instructors did not add captions to class videos, despite the Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act that requires video captioning.

An Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act? This I had to research. According to the Illinois Department of Human Services this Act is like a section 508 for Illinois agencies AND public universities. Under Standards, video and multimedia products, I found this:

c. All video and multimedia that contain essential auditory information shall be open or closed captioned when provided to the public and/or required to be viewed by employees.
d. All video and multimedia productions that contain essential visual information shall be audio described when provided to the public and/or required to be viewed by employees.

I wonder what other states have similar legislation to mandate accessibility of video in public university classrooms? Oklahoma has a similar law, HB 2197. Oklahoma's law specifically refers to Web-based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications as well as Video and Multimedia Products.

GuinessPump has a question on the forum about an ear infection that may have been caused by syringing. The infection is resisting antibiotics, and the ear is bleeding too. He wants to know if something is going around? Is this symptomatic of MRSA in the ear?

AsiaOne News has a story about a deaf child slave in Bangladesh. The article calls him a "labourer," but also uses the word "master," making it clear it is slavery. The boy is only seven years old and is referred to as deaf and dumb (obviously no education). Illustrated with pictures of the boy being hit on the face by his "master."