The British Standards Institute (BSI) has released information on a new standard - for disability access for websites.

Known as “Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 78 – Guide to Good Practice in Commissioning Accessible Websites”, it was developed with the Disability Rights Commission, after a study claimed that 81% of websites were not properly accessible to people with disabilities.

According to the BSI, applying PAS 78 will provide:

• compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA),
• the creation of accessible websites,
• wider audience reach,
• improvement of search engine listings due to accessible content,
• the easy transfer of this content to other media such as interactive TV or mobile phones

It remains to be seen how much impact PAS 78 will have in the world of web development, where similar standards have supposed to have been in place since the year 2000, via W3C.

However, the coming launch of Internet Explorer 7, which is believed to adhere more properly to web standards, could provide the necessary push to seeing common adoption of PAS 78.

Plans by Google to offer complete online storage facilities for home users were accidently released to the internet, according to the BBC.

The so-called “GDrive” would allows users to upload their harddrive contents online, and use it to store and retrieve documents as easily as using their home computer.

However, the plans have caused a storm of protests over privacy concerns, and the Scotsman reports that it’s led to vociferous condemnation by privacy groups in the USA.

The suggestion of a GDrive isn’t news - confirmation that it may be in development by Google is.

There’s been plenty of chatter since Google went out of their way to purchase dark fibre in January 2005 - and I mentioned the possibility of Google storing user data online months ago.

We’ve even seen a taster in the form of Google Desktop, which sought to store home user files for 30 days - a prospect that caused privacy concerns in itself.

The problem Google has is that it’s increasingly seen to be too interested in acquiring - and storing, and datamining - private user data, whether behavioural, or of actual documents themselves.

A move towards a GDrive will likely see some support - but more likely, it’ll be one more move towards the Tipping Point that sees Google perceived more as a threat to user privacy, than a help.

The fact that Google can accidently release not only it’s own corporate secrets on GDrive, but also a confidential earnings report, are not going to re-assure users that their data can be safely protected by Google.

Added to that, the recent demand by the US Goverment to have access to Google data means that assurances of privacy protection can only be limited indeed.

RIM, maker of the popular Blackberry PDA, has finally settled with NTP over patent violations for $650.

The move comes after the judge presiding on the case pushed for a settlement, to avoid being forced to shut down the Blackberry service - which could have adversely impacted many US governmental employees.

The case has been something of a drama in the technology world, and dragged on after an earlier settlement for $450 million fell apart.

We can only hope now that white collar workers around the world can now access their email with peace of peace, without having to worry about their service being terminated without notice.

Google is tipped to rebuild its huge server farm with AMD Opteron machines.

The news can only come as a double blow to Intel: not only does Intel CEO Paul Otellini sit on the board at Google, but Otellini has also seen Intel’s profits fall in three straight quarters.

Key to Google’s decision is AMD’s performance per watt advantage with its chipsets, which can offer very real savings in power consumption bills.

As Google’s server farm is believed to run into 200,000 machines, it represents a very serious market coup for AMD.

It will also likely send an important signal to both markets and consumers - that AMD machines are simply better than Intel machines by comparison.

As someone who once enjoyed using a AMD PC, but inadvertently replaced it with a hugely noisy Intel PC, I can only feel some degree of pity for Apple users - who are all being forced to move to Intel chipsets.

In the meantime, continue to enjoy Platinax - hosted on a dedicated AMD Dual Opteron server. :)