New Linux PDA For Blind People

[Scott Howell]

I only have one question to your statement, why. Wher eis the answer  
to the question a vendor will ask. Why should we spend the money on  
research and development for such a small group as compared to the  
whole. Hey I am not disagreeing with you, but trying to again point  
out the very question the manufacturer/vendor will ask. Just because  
its the right thing isn't going to be an answer to the shareholders  
and those with a financial interest and only are interested in  
profits. Isn't that what its all about? Features in any product are a  
result of what the masses want, but you can bet that a lot of time  
and money went into choosing those features before the product ever  
ended up in production. What would be interesting is if a company  
would do a survey of sorts or somehow determine if the sighted masses  
would enjoy having their e-mail read to them or whatever and see what  
kind of feedback they would receive. I think if there was a real  
interest, then you can bet products would be made accessable out of  
the gate. I think a talking cellphone is a perfect example where  
everyone would benefit. Maybe people would spend more time dialing or  
selecting a number from the phone book by listening and pay more  
attention to watching the road.


Scott



On Mar 30, 2006, at 3:14 PM, Lorenzo Taylor wrote:

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> The voice in a blind-friendly mainstream product should be no  
> problem for a
> sighted person.  If they don't like it, they don't have to turn it  
> on.  It's
> that simple.  The concept I'm going with here is that a blind- 
> friendly product
> won't make a company much money.  This is the excuse given by all  
> the companies
> out there who are making tons of money off the government agencies  
> and blind
> people themselves who can make the sacrifice it takes to buy such a  
> product.  So
> why not make the mainstream product blind friendly at no cost to  
> the consumer?
> The voice could be turned off by a sighted person if he/she doesn't  
> like it, or
> better yet, it could be very easilly turned on by a blind person if  
> he/she needs
> it.  Voice synthesis is extremely cheap to implement now, so it  
> wouldn't cost
> the manufacturer any additional money to make it work, and it  
> wouldn't reduce
> the functionality of the device.
>
> As for the open source mandate in MA, I think it's a good idea.   
> It's the
> proprietary nature of screen readers for the unfortunately most  
> popular OS that
> makes it difficult to work with for some blind people.  The screen  
> readers for
> Windows are based on proprietary technology and for the most part  
> only work with
> proprietary technology.  This is changing slightly, but not  
> enough.  This is what
> makes blind people think the state of MA is doing a bad thing by  
> trying to cut
> costs by switching to a superior open source technology.  Just  
> think what the
> state was doing when they forced everyone to use Microsoft formats,  
> or Microsoft
> forced the state to use their formats, whichever you like.
>
> Lorenzo
> - --
> Keep American Idol great! Vote for Mandisa!
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