Bonum Certa Men Certa

InteLeaks – Part XV: Intel is Blind to Blind and Colour-Blind People

Video download link (see this series' index for more)



Summary: Intel does not seem to grasp very basic concepts associated with accessibility; nevertheless, Intel shamelessly tries painting itself as "woke" and a "justice warrior" (policing speech while overlooking much-needed practical work)

MANY people are not familiar with colour blindness; some never met any colour-blind people (or don't know that they did). Some of us are fortunate to have worked both with blind people and colour-blind people. It shapes one's views (no pun intended) on the subject. Does Intel have a vision? Other than In(tel)Vision™? Seems not.

"Intel, with its arrogance and its sheer (notoriously so) Hubris, is actually a lot more blind than people whom we call "blind", who are compassionate and caring."The above video, which took 5 hours to upload (our broadband issues are unfortunately back), deals with concerns about Intel's lack of understanding of blind people. This complete lack of understanding, which relates to Intel's inability to recruit suitable people, is causing harm to the company's reputation. It's widely known that accessibility aspects are exceedingly important; while Intel viciously lobbies to eliminate supposedly 'racist' words (many aren't, unless viewed from a racist's eye or mind) it has a serious oversight and insiders have been kind enough to point this out politely (only to be reprimanded and severely punished for it). We have plenty of high-profile examples of Intel doing this inside Linux, especially the kernel (these examples were covered here in past years).

"And it's not like Intel lacks money to actually give a damn about accessibility, it's just that it doesn't care."As someone who spent many years donating to blind people's charities every month, this aspect of Intel's incompetence actually annoy me vastly more than all those supposedly 'offensive' words that Intel employees work to remove (as if that will practically accomplish much, if anything at all) while mostly ignoring people like my blind colleagues and friends (since school days). Intel, with its arrogance and its sheer (notoriously so) Hubris, is actually a lot more blind than people whom we call "blind", who are compassionate and caring. In the face of great hardships and ordeals, too. Intel is attacking charities (for profit). And it's not like Intel lacks money to actually give a damn about accessibility, it's just that it doesn't care.

As a former Intel employee put it to us (earlier today), "what I do think is harmful is to put more importance into sticking with certain proprietary tools over accommodating your actual employees and customers [...] I worked at several companies that were so tied into the Wintel paradigm that they just couldn't see a better way of doing things if it hit them in the face and dealing with these proprietary tools as a free software person can and does take its toll on you..."

GNU/Linux command line tools are actually renowned for accessibility aspects (very standardised and text-based, good for screen readers). That's what the GNU/Linux folks at Intel had put in place before people from above decided to tear everything apart.

Recent Techrights' Posts

People's Understanding of the History of GNU/Linux is Changing
RMS is not a radical, he's just clever enough to see and foresee what's going on
Microsofters Were Scheming to Take Over This Entire Web Site (in Their Own Words!)
Money gets spent censoring/deplatforming people who speak about real issues; no money gets spent actually tackling those underlying issues
Bicycles for the Minds and the Story Harrison Bergeron
"The goal of having people in charge of the tools they use and that the tools should amplify ability" has long been abandoned
[Video] Cory Doctorow Explains DMCA: DRM in the Browser (or Webapp) Will "Make It a Felony to Protect Your Privacy While You Use It."
Pycon US Keynote Speaker Cory Doctorow
 
Links 29/05/2025: US Health Deficit and Malware Disguised as Slop Generator
Links for the day
Links 29/05/2025: Turtle Roadkill, Modern 'Tech' as a Sting
Links for the day
Thanks for All the Fish, Linux Format
people who once wrote for it (or for other magazines) comment on the importance of this news
Links 29/05/2025: YouTube Problem and Giant Privacy Hole in Microsoft OneDrive
Links for the day
United States Courts With Sworn Testimonies Are on Our Side, We'll Present the Same Here
Chronicling what happened is a moral imperative
Serial Sloppers Ruin and Lessen the Incentive to Cover "Linux"
The Serial Sloppers (SSs) ought to be named and shamed, but almost nobody does this
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 28, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Links 28/05/2025: 'Emulation Layers' (Measurements and Linguistics), Libraries, and Discomfort
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: More Arrests for Bitcoin-Connected Torture and Prosecutions for Dieselgate-Linked Executives
Links for the day
Even Microsoft (MSN) Covers Richard Stallman's Public Talk in Milan 2 Days Ago
He spoke in Spanish earlier this month (Alicante)
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Techo-authoritarianism With Slop Plagiarism and "No Online June" (Going Offline)
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: GitHub MCP Exploited and MathWorks Discovers Huge Windows TCO
Links for the day
Very High Attendance Level at Richard Stallman's Talk Shows People Can Relate to His Message
Smear campaigns have their limits
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Celsius-Fahrenheit, Endless Scrolling/Infinite Scrolling, and Trapping LLM Slop Bots
Links for the day
Prison gate backdrop to baptism by Fr Sean O'Connell, St Paul's, Coburg
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
More Photos From This Week's Milan Talk by Richard Stallman
The posts are in Italian, not English
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 27, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Links 27/05/2025: Science Defunded, India Arrests an Academic
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/05/2025: From Celsius to Fahrenheit and Deleting Social Control Media
Links for the day
Microsofters Have, in Effect, Attempted Extrajudicial Action Against Us
Courts and Judges (or Masters) don't exist to facilitate this kind of "bro" culture
UK High Court Masters Are Not Your Jesters, Microsoft
Judges aren't there for "funny" spectacles, they're there to act as arbiters in critical cases, not SLAPPs
Links 27/05/2025: Mass Layoffs at Volvo and More Evidence of 'AI' (Slop) Being a Passing Fad
Links for the day
The Code of Conduct (CoC) Gaslighting Phenomenon
There are still many people and projects foolish enough to outsource their labour to Microsoft via GitHub
They're Very Jealous of Richard Stallman and His Freedom (or Simple Lifestyle)
Jealousy is toxic because it can cause rational people to act irrationally and even severely harm themselves
Akira Urushibata on GNU coreutils
new message
Anouk Rozestraten (Deputy Director) Appears to Have Left the Free Software Foundation
Let's hope Rozestraten is still using and promoting Free software
There's Nothing Funny About Lawbreaking
There's plenty of room in society for humour, but "hacking" the state by breaking laws isn't cool or hip
More Mass Layoffs Coming Soon to Microsoft, Just a Question of When and How Many
Numbers from Washington were close to 5% and judging by prior rumours, it would be 5% + 5% (total 10%) at a later month
Links 27/05/2025: Bikes, Ideal Computers, and BYO
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 26, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 26, 2025
Richard Stallman's Milan Talk (Public Presentation) Was Packed, Video Available Soon
Looks like they even ran out of seats