A voice on the Web

Posted on Fri, Apr. 05, 2002

A voice on the Web
New service aimed at blind
By MARTIN J. MOYLAN
Knight Ridder News Service

Mike Calvo has a vision for the Internet that's best appreciated by people
who have never seen it -- and never will. He is developing a Web service
that, with an hour or so of training, might allow blind people to buy
groceries,
pay bills, browse thousands of newspapers and magazines and do many other
things they can't now do on the Internet. Not unless they invest thousands of
dollars in specialized equipment and training and overcome whatever fears
they have about computers.

Calvo's Freedom Box Network lets the blind navigate the Web by voice
commands while text-to-speech software reads pages to them. They don't point
and click.  They speak and listen.

The service, which costs $21.95 a month, including dial-up Internet access,
is not for sophisticated, blind computer jocks like Calvo. It is for most
blind people, just as AOL and MSN are for most sighted surfers.

''This is for the person who is either technophobic or not interested in
becoming a computer guru,'' Calvo said. ``And it can change people's lives
by giving them access to things they never had before.''

Blind since birth, Calvo is very adept with computers. They've been a great
equalizer in the workplace for the Miami resident and led to his career as a
consultant, advising companies and individuals how to use computers to add
to abilities of the disabled.

Calvo's efforts with the Freedom Box bring to mind the information services
being deployed by Sprint PCS, Qwest, AT&T and other wireless providers. They
use technology from Tellme, BeVocal and other firms to provide news, sports,
weather and other information in response to voice commands.

Calvo, though, wants to provide a much broader range of information to the
blind within the Freedom Box portal and give them access to the broader
Internet, too.

About 10 million Americans are either legally blind or have vision problems
so severe that they cannot be corrected with ordinary glasses, according to
estimates the American Foundation for the Blind.

But fewer than 100,000 of them are online, Calvo said. He hopes to sign up
175,000 Freedom Box subscribers within five years.

Content deals and site development are still ongoing. But the Freedom Box
network will include a members area where users can send and receive e-mail,
shop, get news, weather, sports and stock information, and even participate in
chat and game rooms, Calvo said.

Members will have access to versions of Amazon.com, USA Today, The New York
Times and The Wall Street Journal that are formatted for easy navigation by
voice command and reading by text-to-speech software.

Software will automatically strip out images and other extraneous content,
Calvo said. Freedom Box subscribers may also link to the Web. But the
accessibility of sites varies greatly, depending on how committed an online
publisher is
to making a site open to the blind.

Many sites with many links, ads and graphics, aren't easily deciphered by
screen-reading software. But more publishers are coding pages to provide
better navigational guidance and textual descriptions of visual and other page
elements. Text can be converted to synthetic speech by software.

Right now, Calvo is busy talking up the Freedom Box service among the blind
community. Freedom Box should be a hit with casual users, said Dennis
Bartlett, owner of Minneapolis-based Speech and Braille Unlimited.

''Some screen-reading packages take 100 hours or more to learn,'' he said.
``In an hour, you can learn what you need to know about Freedom Box.''

The Web can be a tremendous resource for the blind, said Roger Petersen,
chairman of the American Council of the Blinds' information access
committee. The key is finding a way to make it accessible to the those
among the blind who are not so technically astute. And he said he expects
Freedom Box may succeed at that.

Calvo formed Serotek Corp. to develop and market the Freedom Box Network.
The firm is partnering with Bloomington, Minn.-based Matrix Associates, a
consulting firm. Matrix has invested several hundred thousand dollars in
Serotek.
Matrix executive Michael Fox is convinced Serotek can do well by doing good,
establishing an online marketplace that brings the blind and other folks with
disabilities together with companies that can provide them with the goods
and services they want.

''These people need everything from groceries to books and magazines,''
Calvo said.

``We can bring all those things and more to people who are not able to get
in their cars and go get them.''   More about Freedom Box

Information about Freedom Box is available online at
www.freedombox.info
. Call 877-661-3785 for information packets in Braille and demonstration
tapes.

Serotek is selling $999 Freedom Boxes, machines that will help subscribers
get on the Web. They're computers designed to facilitate voice navigation of
the Web. They come with keyboards for users who prefer to at least
occasionally type in commands. Monitors are optional.

For those who already have PCs, the company provides the required software,
on CDs or via Web downloads.

On the Web, the Trace Center at the University of Wisconsin at Madison is
working on ways to make the Internet and other communications systems more
accessible and usable by people with disabilities. Go to:
trace.wisc.edu/world/web/

© 2001 miami and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.m
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