[blindkid] Looking forward

[Sally Thomas]

I received the following email from the TABS list.  I hope this isn't 
redundant for you.  I'm really excited by Serotek's plan.

Subject: [leadership] Serotek declares war on the traditional adaptive
technology 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 SeroTekCited 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