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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body bgcolor=white lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Blind Comcast exec developing a talking TV channel guide<o:p></o:p></span></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>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 ) <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Bob Fernandez, Inquirer Staff Writer<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>POSTED: Wednesday, August 28, 2013, 1:08 AM <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'><a href="wlmailhtml:www.inquirer.com">www.inquirer.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>No joke.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>"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."<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>"We will meet the requirements of the law, but we also believe there can be innovation," he said.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Wlodkowski is looking to develop products that could help older Americans "age in place" through the Xfinity home products, which now include home security.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Generally, technology companies - with the exception of Apple Inc. - have received poor marks in the selling of blind-friendly products.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>"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.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>The association offers a channel guide by zip code called "newsline" that last year was accessed 600,000 times.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>"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."<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Recently, he was fiddling with a talking TV guide and stumbled on Brady Bunch reruns. "They still syndicate that? Wow," he said.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Formerly with AOL Inc., Wlodkowski is the vice president of accessibility and said his team at Comcast had four goals:<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>To seek information from disabled customers about what they need and how they interact with Comcast's products.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>To integrate functionality into products so they can be more easily used by disabled subscribers.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>To introduce specific products, such as the talking guide.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>To enhance customer service for disabled subscribers.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>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).<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>His most popular sitcom was Cheers because, he said, "it was relatively easy to follow. When Norm walked in, everybody said, 'Hi, Norm.' "<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>"Catching the elevator in this place," Wlodkowski said, "is an art that I don't think I have figured out."<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'> <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Contact Bob Fernandez at 215-854-5897 or <a href="mailto:bob.fernandez@phillynews.com">bob.fernandez@phillynews.com</a>, or follow on Twitter @bobfernandez1.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Bob Fernandez<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Inquirer Staff Writer<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'> <o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></body></html>