[nfbwatlk] FW: [gps-talkusers] what do you think about this

[Jacob Struiksma]

-----Original Message-----
From: gps-talkusers-bounce at freelists.org
[mailto:gps-talkusers-bounce at freelists.org] On Behalf Of Cheree Heppe
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 12:01 AM
To: gps-talkusers at freelists.org
Subject: [gps-talkusers] what do you think about this


(Begin forwarded message)
 Subject: [leadership] Serotek declares war on the traditional 
> adaptivetechnology industry and their blind ghetto products
> 
> 
> This is no warm fuzzy of a read, but something well worth the read and 
> in my opinion long over due.  Kudos to SeroTek.
> 
> Richard
> ***
> Cited from http://blog.serotek.com/
> The Serotek Ultimatum
> Serotek declares war on the traditional adaptive technology industry 
> and their blind ghetto products. With this announcement we are sending 
> out a call to arms to every blind person and every advocate for the 
> blind to rise up and throw off the tyranny that has shaped our lives 
> for the past two decades. It is a tyranny of good intentions - or at 
> least what began as good intentions. But as the proverb says, "the 
> road to hell is paved with good intentions." And for the past two 
> decades the technologies originally conceived to give us freedom have 
> been our shackles. They have kept us tied down to underperforming, 
> obscenely expensive approaches that only a small percentage of blind 
> people can afford or master. They have shackled us to government 
> largess and the charity of strangers to pay for what few among us 
> could afford on our own. And we have been sheep, lead down the path, 
> bleating from time to time, but without the vision or the resources to
stand up and demand our due.
> That time is past.
> We stand today on the very edge of universal accessibility. Mainstream 
> products like the iPod, iPhone, and newly announced iPad are fully 
> accessible out of the box. And they bring with them a wealth of highly 
> desirable accessibility applications. The cost to blind people is 
> exactly the same as the cost to sighted people. It's the same 
> equipment, the same software, the same functionality, and fully
accessible.
> What Apple has done, others are doing as well. The adaptive technology 
> vendor who creates hardware and software that is intended only for 
> blind folks, and then only if they are subsidized by the government, 
> is a dinosaur. The asteroid has hit the earth, the dust cloud is 
> ubiquitous, the dinosaur's days are numbered.
> But dinosaurs are huge, and their extinction does not happen overnight.. 
> Even as they die, they spawn others like them (take the Intel Reader 
> for example). Thank you, no. Any blind person can have full 
> accessibility to any type of information without the high-cost, 
> blind-ghetto gear. They can get it in the same products their sighted 
> friends are buying. But let's face it; if we keep buying that crap and 
> keep besieging our visual resource center to buy that crap for us, the 
> dinosaurs of the industry are going to keep making it. Their profit 
> margins are very good indeed. And many have invested exactly none of 
> that profit in creating the next generation of access technology, 
> choosing instead to perpetuate the status quo. For instance, 
> refreshable braille technology, arguably the most expensive 
> blindness-specific(and to many very necessary) product has not changed 
> significantly in 30 years. Yet, the cost remains out of reach for most 
> blind people. Where's the innovation there? Why have companies not 
> invested in cheaper, faster, smaller, and more efficient ways to make 
> refreshable braille? Surely the piezoelectric braille cell is not the 
> only way? And what about PC-based OCR software? It's still around a 
> thousand dollars per license, yet core functionality hasn't changed 
> much; sure, we get all sorts of features not at all related to 
> reading, along with incremental accuracy improvements, but why are 
> these prices not dropping either, especially when you consider that 
> comparable off-the-shelf solutions like Abby Finereader can be had for 
> as low as $79? ? And let's not forget the screen reader itself, the 
> core technology that all of us need to access our computers in the 
> first place. Do we see improvements, or just an attempt to mimic 
> innovation with the addition of features which have nothing to do with the
actual reading of the screen, while maintaining the same ridiculous price
point.
> 
> This maintaining of the status quo will, inevitably, face an enormous 
> crash, worse than the transition from DOS to Windows based 
> accessibility. You can expect a technology crash that will put users 
> of the most expensive accessibility gear out of business.
> Why? I won't bore you with all the technical details, but the basic 
> story is that some of these products have been kept current with 
> patches and fixes and partial rewrites and other tricks we IT types 
> use when we haven't got the budget to do it right, but we need to make 
> the product work with the latest operating system. That process of 
> patching and fixing creates an enormous legacy barrier that makes it 
> impossible to rewrite without abandoning all who came before. But you 
> can only keep a kluge working for so long before it will crumble under 
> its own weight. That, my friends, is exactly where some of the leading 
> adaptive technology vendors find themselves today.
> There are exceptions. Serotek is an exception because we have 
> completely recreated our product base every three years. GW Micro is 
> an exception because they built their product in a highly modular 
> fashion and can update modules without destroying the whole. KNFB is 
> an exception because they take advantage of off-the-shelf 
> technologies, which translate ultimately into price drops and increased
functionality.
> 
> But even we who have done it right are on a path to obsolescence. The 
> fundamental need for accessibility software is rapidly beginning to
vanish.
> The universal accessibility principles we see Apple, Microsoft, 
> Olympus, and others putting in place are going to eliminate the need 
> for these specialty products in a matter of just a very few years.
> Stop and think. Why do you need accessibility tools? To read text? 
> E-book devices are eliminating that need. None of them are perfect 
> yet, but we are really only in the first generation. By Gen2 they will 
> all be fully accessible. To find your way? GPS on your iPhone or your 
> Android based phone will do that for you. To take notes? Easy on any
laptop, netbook, or iPad.
> Heck, you can record it live and play it back at your convenience. 
> Just what isn't accessible? You can play your music, catch a described 
> video, scan a spreadsheet, take in a PowerPoint presentation - all 
> using conventional, off-the-shelf systems and/or software that is free of
charge.
> There are still some legacy situations where you need to create an 
> accessibility path. Some corporations still have internal applications 
> that do not lend themselves to modern devices. There will certainly be 
> situations where a specialized product will better solve an 
> accessibility problem than a mainstream one, especially in the short 
> term. We don't advocate throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but 
> we do advocate that we begin to hasten the inevitable change by using 
> accessible mainstream solutions wherever possible. Even now, the 
> leading edge companies are reinventing their internal systems with 
> accessibility as a design criteria, so the situations that require 
> specialized products will certainly become fewer as time goes on.
> If our current Assistive technology guard's reign is coming to an end, 
> why the war? Why not just let it die its own, natural, inevitable 
> death? Because nothing dies more slowly than an obsolete technology. 
> Punch cards hung on for twenty or thirty years after they were 
> completely obsolete. The same is true for magnetic tape. Old stuff 
> represents a comparatively large investment, and people hate to throw 
> away something they paid a lot of money for even if it's currently 
> worthless. But that legacy stuff obscures the capabilities of the 
> present. It gets used in situations where other solutions are cheaper 
> and more practical. The legacy stuff clogs the vocational rehab 
> channel, eating up the lion's share of the resources but serving a 
> tiny portion of the need. It gets grandfathered into contracts. It 
> gets specified when there is no earthly reason why the application
requires it. The legacy stuff slows down the dawning of a fully accessible
world.
> It hurts you and it hurts me.
> To be sure, I make my living creating and selling products that make 
> our world accessible. But first and foremost, I am a blind person. I 
> am one of you. And every day I face the same accessibility challenges 
> you face. I have dedicated my life and my company to making the world 
> more accessible for all of us, but I can't do it alone. This is a 
> challenge that every blind person needs to take up. We need to shout from
the rooftops: "Enough!"
> We need to commit ourselves in each and every situation to finding and 
> using the most accessible off the shelf tool and/or the least-cost, 
> highest function accessibility tool available. With our dollars and 
> our commitment to making known that our needs and the needs of sighted 
> people are 99% the same, we can reshape this marketplace. We can drive 
> the dinosaurs into the tar pits and nurture those cute fuzzy little 
> varmints that are ancestors to the next generation. We can be part of 
> the solution rather than part of the problem.
> And all it takes is getting the best possible solution for your 
> specific need. Once you have found the solution to fill that need, let 
> the company know you appreciate their work towards better 
> accessibility. Let your friends (sighted and blind) know about these 
> accessibility features; they probably don't know that such features exist.
> Make your needs known to the vocational rehab people you are working 
> with, and don't allow them to make recommendations for a specific 
> technology for no other reason than that it's been in the contract for 
> years. Make sure your schools and your workplace understand the need 
> to push technology in to the accessible space. Show them the low-cost 
> alternatives. In this economy some, the intelligent ones, will get it and
the tide will begin to turn.
> And then in short order the tsunami of good sense will wash away the 
> old, and give us the space to build a more accessible world for all of 
> us. Let the demand ring out loud and clear and the market will follow.
> If this message rings true to you, don't just shake your fist in 
> agreement and leave it at that. let your voice be heard! Arm yourself 
> with the vision of a future where there are no social, conceptual, or 
> economic barriers to accessibility, and let your words and your 
> actions demonstrate that you will not rest until that vision is 
> realized. Take out your wallet and let your consumer power shine! You 
> do mater as a market people! You have kept this company alive with 
> your money for 8 years this month! I believe that if we all get 
> together and do our part, we will finally say "NO more!" same old same
old! Join the revolution! Together we can change the world!
> Posted by Mike Calvo at 2:15 PM 3 comments  facebook Add to 
> del.icio.us
> Labels: Accessibility Is A Right, Apple, Blind Ghetto, community, 
> disruptive technology, GW Micro, Intel, Mike Calvo, rant, Serotek, 
> System Access, Unive
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