[nabs-l] The craze for touch-screen gadgets is raising worries that a whole generation of consumer electronics will be out of the reach of the blind

[Beth]

Wow.  I won't be surprised if I see a car I can drive.
Beth

On 1/9/09, Chris Foster <cfoster at nfbco.org> wrote:
>
> NEW YORK (Reuters) - The craze for touch-screen gadgets, sparked by
> Apple Inc's popular iPhone, is raising worries that a whole
> generation of consumer electronics will be out of the reach of the blind.
>
> Motown icon Stevie Wonder and other advocates came to the world's
> biggest gadget fest, the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las
> Vegas this week, to convince vendors to consider the needs of the blind.
>
> Wonder told a CES event that his wishlist included a car he could
> drive -- which he acknowledged was probably "a ways away" -- and a
> Sirius XM satellite radio he could operate.
>
> "If you can take those few steps further, you can give us the
> excitement, the pleasure and the freedom of being a part of it," said
> the famed musician.
>
> Wonder said some companies had managed to make their products more
> accessible to the blind, sometimes without even meaning to. He cited
> an iPod music player and Research in Motion's BlackBerry as gadgets
> he likes to use.
>
> Advocates argue that if product designers take into account blind
> needs, they would make electronics that are easier to use for the
> sighted as well.
>
> The good news is that manufacturers do not need to put large sums of
> money into making products accessible, nor would they have to forsake
> innovation, said Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the National
> Federation For The Blind.
>
> "We don't want to hold up technological progress," he said. "What
> we're saying is, think about the interface and set it up in such a
> way that it's simple .... The simpler you make the user interface of
> a product, it's going to reach more people sighted or blind."
>
> TOUCH SCREENS
>
> With the popularity of touch screens, once simple products such as
> televisions and stereos have become difficult for blind people to use
> as they often require navigation of multiple menus that need to be
> seen to be used effectively.
>
> "That's an increasing problem with new digital devices. It's easy to
> add feature after feature that's buried under menu after submenu,"
> said Mike Starling, chief technology officer of National Public
> Radio, which is working on accessible options.
>
> Manufacturers have been putting touch screens in everything from
> calculators and watches to computers and music players.
>
> Sendero Group President Mike May, who is blind, joked, "Can I ski 60
> miles an hour downhill? Yes. Use a flat panel microwave? No." Sendero
> makes GPS navigational devices that have an audio output for the blind.
>
> There are also screen readers that give an audio reading of a phone's
> menu. But Anne Taylor, director of access technologies at the
> National Federation for the Blind, says they do not yet help her to
> use a touch-screen phone.
>
> She said the ability to use a device without needing to look at it
> could help sighted people who are driving or older people whose
> eyesight is starting to deteriorate.
>
> While blind users can buy screen-reading software for $300 upward, it
> tends to only work on certain phones, often the most expensive
> smartphones. Sendero said accessible technology is often expensive,
> and about 70 percent of the U.S. blind population is unemployed.
>
> Taylor is using CES as a forum to present vendors a set of
> suggestions for product design that she sees benefiting both sighted
> and blind consumers.
>
> For example, manufacturers could include an easy-to-use start-over
> button, different sounds for different menus, and controls with good
> tactile feedback.
>
> PROGRESS
>
> Ahead of the show, there were some signs that vendors, while unlikely
> to give up on the touch-screen trend, may be more ready to consider
> consumers with disabilities.
>
> Developers at Google Inc are working on ways to make touch-screen
> phones, including those based on its own Android mobile software,
> usable for blind people.
>
> National Public Radio announced a special radio receiver technology
> and software that would connect a digital radio to a dynamic Braille
> generating device. It has also created special digital radio channels
> for readings of the day's newspapers.
>
> Dice Electronics has made a prototype radio that incorporates the NPR
> technology, and NPR's Starling hopes this will become a commercial
> product in 2009.
>
> Starling has also set up meetings at CES with other manufacturers in
> the hope they will include NPR's technology. He said responses to
> requests for information, which often go unheeded, are much more
> active this year.
>
> Some manufacturers could use their production facilities to make such
> devices, as demand weakens for more mainstream products in the
> economic downturn, he said.
>
> "I think in general there may be a view that accessibility may be
> becoming the new green," said Starling.
>
> (For more news from the Consumer Electronics Show, please click on
> <http://www.reuters.com/news/topics/CES>http://www.reuters.com/news/topics/CES
> and visit the Reuters MediaFile blog at
> <http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile>http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile)
>
> (Reporting by Sinead Carew; editing by Richard Chang)
>
>
>
>
>
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