New Linux PDA For Blind People

[Jane Jordan (gmail)]

Bedsides, make it work well enough so we can use it and make it  
*affordable*, you will attract the sighted market.  I mean, look at  
Aple, like you said.  Imagine someone sitting there and *listneing*  
to their emails while waiting for a train or whatever.  No need to  
worry about anyone looking over their shoulder.  Se, make it  
affordable for one group---affordable, not the cost of a BrailleNote,  
but a regular PDA--and you will have a better chance of selling a  
heck of a lot more of them and getting sighted people to like them, too.

Jane


On Mar 30, 2006, at 10:06 AM, Lorenzo Taylor wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Competitive pricing with mainstream devices is in fact possible.   
> Last I
> read, only about a week ago, there are around 35 million blind and
> visually impaired people just in the United States.  And there are  
> much
> more around the world.  The reason that only tens of thousands of
> assistive devices are sold is because the price is too high for
> 34,950,000 people to be able to afford to buy them.  Secondly, it is
> totally unnecessary to design the hardware from the ground up in most
> cases just to accomodate a relatively small group of people.  The
> hardware is not the problem most of the time.  It's the software.  And
> with all the free and open source software out there now, it is very
> easy to reprogram a mainstream device to be more than suitable, and in
> fact fun for a blind or visually impaired person to use at very little
> if any cost increase over the comparable mainstream device.
>
> And if it is such a challenge to make an assistive device for a  
> disabled
> person in mass production even though mainstream hardware could be  
> used
> for this purpose, then it is time for the mainstream device
> manufacturers to dive into the assistive technology pool and make
> software that works on the mainstream hardware that they use so that
> there is little if any increase in cost of production.  Apple did it,
> and now every Mac has a screen reader built right in, so that a  
> visually
> impaired person pays not a penny more than a sighted person does  
> for the
> same computer.  Yes, Microsoft should include JAWS with Windows, and
> Nokia phones should include Talx at no cost to the consumer.  It  
> can be
> and in fact has been done with similar products, and should be done  
> with
> all products.  As for things like braille displays, instead of  
> about 20
> companies competing to produse 10,000 each and charging as much as a
> small car for their products, 1 or 2 companies should be producing  
> 50 to
> 100,000 units and selling them for an affordable price that a  
> person on
> a disibility check or who works at a workshop could afford to pay and
> still buy food and pay the bills.  It may be speculation, but I think
> they would find that if the price of their device was affordable for
> everyone, many, many more people would buy it and they could mass
> produce a lot more devices at a lower cost.  Basically, the relatively
> low demand for assistive technology doesn't drive up the price.   
> Rather,
> the prohibitive price drives down the demand.
>
> Lorenzo
> - --
> Keep American Idol great! Vote for Mandisa!
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (GNU/Linux)
>
> iD8DBQFELAH8G9IpekrhBfIRAq4jAKCRcls5cS3+xmTBiN/VieV/DmBgGgCfa86e
> SspMMU5V2JnTeNLQ4z+9DXk=
> =pzu1
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup