[nfb-talk] FYI Comcast's talking Program Guide/Article fromPhiladelphia Inquirer

[d m gina]

Now if the cable companies take this on, wich I like very much, will we 
lose news line?

Original message:
> This is great and very interesting! I will be a comcast subscriber for sure
> if this comes out.

> Sherri
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Hingson" <info at michaelhingson.com>
> To: "'NFB Talk Mailing List'" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>; "'Research and
> Development Committee (appointed)'" <nfb-rdcomm at nfbcal.org>;
> <nfbc-info at nfbnet.org>; <nfbnet-members-list at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 3:55 PM
> Subject: [nfb-talk] FYI Comcast's talking Program Guide/Article
> fromPhiladelphia Inquirer


> Blind Comcast exec developing a talking TV channel guide

> Comcast Corp. has hired a sight-challenged executive, Tom Wlodskowski, Vice
> President/Accessibility, to develop a "talking TV interface" for the blind
> and other accessible products for the disabled. The talking TV guide could
> be out in 2014 as part of X2 channel guide and available for everyone.  (
> CHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer )

> Bob Fernandez, Inquirer Staff Writer

> POSTED: Wednesday, August 28, 2013, 1:08 AM

> www.inquirer.com

> How does a blind person find what to "watch" on a TV with 200 channels and
> 46,000 video-on-demand choices of movies, shows, and clips? Tom Wlodkowski,
> a blind executive at Comcast Corp., thinks he has the answer: a talking TV
> channel guide.

> No joke.

> "The television is not strictly as visual a medium as you might think," said
> David Goldfield, a computer technology instructor at the Associated Services
> for the Blind and Visually Impaired. "Radio drama in the U.S. is more or
> less dead. If you are blind and you want a good story, you're still going to
> get it on television."

> Comcast expects the talking guide to come with its next-generation X2
> platform in 2014. The cable giant demonstrated the talking guide this year
> at a California technology conference and at the cable-TV-industry trade
> show in Washington.

> Comcast also market-tested the guide with 20 average-Joe-type sight-impaired
> individuals in Philadelphia, arranged by the Associated Services for the
> Blind and Visually Impaired.

> The interactive, cloud-based guide - the current voice is a woman, but users
> eventually could choose the voice, as they can with a ring tone - responds
> to buttons the person pushes.

> This is part of a year-old project at Comcast to make the company's products
> more accessible to customers with disabilities. Wlodkowski has an
> "accessibility" team and will soon have a lab in the Comcast Center.

> Comcast isn't doing this just to reach out to the nation's 1.3 million blind
> individuals who fear being left behind as popular culture and media go
> digital on the Internet and TV.

> The Twenty-First Century Communications and Accessibility Act of 2010,
> passed on the 20-year anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, is
> forcing technology companies to integrate accessibility functions into
> products. It's believed that, in three years, talking interfaces will have
> to come with TV products.

> Wlodkowski thinks he also can drive business. People with disabilities
> account for $200 billion in discretionary spending power, and catering to
> their needs, he believes, can boost brand loyalty.

> "We will meet the requirements of the law, but we also believe there can be
> innovation," he said.

> Wlodkowski is looking to develop products that could help older Americans
> "age in place" through the Xfinity home products, which now include home
> security.

> Generally, technology companies - with the exception of Apple Inc. - have
> received poor marks in the selling of blind-friendly products.

> "We see it as a civil right, and we see manufacturers embracing
> accessibility way too slowly," Lauren McLarney, government affairs
> specialist at the National Federation of the Blind, said of consumer
> electronics and technology companies. Comcast's talking guide sounds
> "worthwhile," but she hasn't seen it.

> The association offers a channel guide by zip code called "newsline" that
> last year was accessed 600,000 times.

> Before the talking guide, Wlodkowski said, he would have to recognize Matt
> Lauer's voice at NBC or Anderson Cooper on CNN. He also memorized channel
> numbers. But most times, he had no idea what was on the channel.

> "The only way I could navigate TV before," Wlodkowski said, "was to go up
> and down the channels and listen until I found something that I liked."

> Recently, he was fiddling with a talking TV guide and stumbled on Brady
> Bunch reruns. "They still syndicate that? Wow," he said.

> Formerly with AOL Inc., Wlodkowski is the vice president of accessibility
> and said his team at Comcast had four goals:

> To seek information from disabled customers about what they need and how
> they interact with Comcast's products.

> To integrate functionality into products so they can be more easily used by
> disabled subscribers.

> To introduce specific products, such as the talking guide.

> To enhance customer service for disabled subscribers.

> Wlodkowski, who was born blind, was raised in Southington, Conn., with three
> older brothers. His parents insisted on a regular childhood. He rode a bike
> in the neighborhood, skied with a guide, and marched in the marching band
> (he beat the snare drum).

> His most popular sitcom was Cheers because, he said, "it was relatively easy
> to follow. When Norm walked in, everybody said, 'Hi, Norm.' "

> He attended Boston College, majoring in communications. His first media job
> was with WGBH, the public broadcasting station in Boston. While there,
> Wlodkowski developed, with a federal grant from the Department of Education,
> a prototype of a talking TV interface. It was never commercialized.

> Wlodkowski said he was happy to be back in a city with mass transit and
> lives in an apartment at 17th and Arch Streets. His wife, Michele, and
> 15-year-old son, Colin, will relocate from Virginia, and he intends to buy a
> suburban home near a rail line.

> One challenging experience in Philadelphia has been mastering the elevators
> at the sky-high Comcast Center. There are more than 30 elevators, and some
> go only to certain floors.

> "Catching the elevator in this place," Wlodkowski said, "is an art that I
> don't think I have figured out."



> Contact Bob Fernandez at 215-854-5897 or bob.fernandez at phillynews.com, or
> follow on Twitter @bobfernandez1.

> Bob Fernandez

> Inquirer Staff Writer



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