> >Computer aids for the blind
> >--------------------
> >
> >Access: Devices to be unveiled today will help narrow the technology gap
> between blind and sighted workers.
> >
> >By Stacey Hirsh
> >Sun Staff
> >
> >October 24, 2002
> >
> >Jim Dickson is a smart man. He graduated from Brown University, has a
> job as a vice president for a national organization and considers himself
> a quick study.
> >
> >But when a report arrived recently that his computer could not translate
> into voice, Dickson, who is blind, had to rely on others to do his work
> for him. He phoned eight of his colleagues before finally finding one who
> had time to read the lengthy report to him over the phone.
> >
> >"That's annoying, it's humiliating, it's inefficient," said Dickson, a
> vice president at the American Association of People with Disabilities in
> Washington.
> >
> >While technology has helped the blind read e-mail and computer
> documents, it is still riddled with problems. Many technologies are
> difficult or impossible for the blind to access, and the result is a
> giant gap between those who are blind and those who are not.
> >
> >The problem affects hundreds of thousands of blind people. The
> consequences can make it difficult for the blind to peruse Web sites, and
> they can be as devastating as costing blind workers their jobs. Several
> experts say anecdotal evidence indicates that the problem is widespread.
> >
> >"If the technologies that we use fit in with the technologies that
> everybody else uses, we can accomplish great things," said Curtis Chong,
> director of technology for the Baltimore-based National Federation of the
> Blind. "But if the technologies don't mix, we either find other ways to
> do it that cost a lot of money or we don't work."
> >
> >Today, two products will be introduced that could help narrow the gap
> between the blind and the sighted. Microsoft Corp. and St. Petersburg,
> Fla.-based Freedom Scientific Inc. will launch the PAC Mate, a hand-held
> personal computer for the blind. Also, the Department of Commerce's
> National Institute of Standards and Technology will unveil technology
> that it is developing to enable the blind to feel graphics through a
> device that connects to their computer.
> >
> >Still, the problems that the blind face with technology are growing,
> Chong said. Even if a blind person is looking for a job that has nothing
> to do with technology, that person must make sure the company runs
> software on its computers that is compatible with technology for the
> blind, he said.
> >
> >About 30 percent of the 669,000 people between the ages of 21 and 64
> with severe difficulty seeing were employed in 1997, according to the
> most recent survey by the U.S. Census Bureau.
> >
> >For those who are employed, technology can create overwhelming roadblocks.
> >
> >Gary Wunder, 47, is blind and has been a computer programmer at
> University Hospital in Columbia, Mo., for more than two decades. Several
> years ago he was promoted to the job of project manager, but Wunder said
> that in 1995 he was demoted back to senior programmer because the
> computer programs he used had so many graphics.
> >
> >"So we take a couple of steps forward and get some things to work, and
> then we take a couple of steps back," Wunder said.
> >
> >Dickson has given up on using the Internet. On the job, he has one of
> his employees do Internet research and then e-mail it to him - a task
> that Dickson estimates costs his organization a day's work for one staff
> member each week.
> >
> >"The way we accommodate access to the Web is I drive my staff crazy,"
> Dickson said.
> >
> >Some say moves to diminish the "digital divide" for the blind are under
> way. Glen Gordon, chief technical officer for Freedom Scientific, which
> makes technologies for people with visual and learning disabilities, said
> that when Windows 3.1 was released in 1993, it was years before a device
> that turned printed text into the spoken word was available. When Windows
> XP came out in 2001, he said, devices were ready in hours.
> >
> >With the technology being introduced today by the National Institute of
> Standards and Technology, blind students will be able to feel maps or
> pictures of animals that appear on their computers.
> >
> >With the PAC Mate, the blind will be able to send e-mail from the road
> and load messages from the device onto their desktop computers, the way
> sighted people have long been able to with their pocket PCs. Still, the
> PAC Mate costs $2,595, compared with the iPAQ pocket PC, which can cost
> as little as $500, according to Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Web site.
> >
> >Madelyn Bryant McIntire, director of the accessible technology group at
> Microsoft, said the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant began putting
> features for the blind into the operating system in 1988. She believes
> that what technology can do for people with disabilities will be well
> known by the end of the decade, and that the technology will be much
> further along by then as well.
> >
> >"We really think that this is going to be a decade of incredible change,
> and change for the better," she said.
> >
> >A survey of the blind by the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center
> on Blindness and Low Vision at Mississippi State University found that
> more than half of the 166 respondents felt not being able to read printed
> materials was the greatest barrier to employment. Technology, however,
> has helped the blind read e-mail and computer documents.
> >
> >"Technology has been wonderful. Technology has come a long way," said J.
> Elton Moore, director of the center. "But by the same token, there are
> still significant problems."
> >
> >To solve those problems, advocates said, companies must consider the
> blind as they design new technologies - not after the fact.
> >
> >Susie Stanzel, a technology specialist with the U.S. Department of
> Agriculture in Kansas City, Kan., said technology is developing fast, and
> the tools to make it accessible for the blind simply can't keep pace.
> >
> >For Stanzel, who is blind, the problem will come when her office
> upgrades to a computer system that is more graphical. The new system, she
> said, will not be as accessible.
> >
> >"I will be at some disadvantages," she said. "It is a fact that I'm just
> not able to do all the things that everybody else does because of
technology."
> >
> >
> >
> >Copyright (c) 2002, The Baltimore Sun


VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html