New Linux PDA For Blind People

[John Heim]

Maybe you should start your own company then.

You could probably by a few thousand mainstream devices at a discount and 
put your own version of the software packages you want on them and then 
resell them at, what did you say?, $25 over the normal retail price.

Good luck. Let me know when you have something because I'd like a PDA but 
have found the accessible ones out of my price range.

At 10:06 AM 3/30/2006, Lorenzo Taylor wrote:
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>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
>- --
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