Hi All,

I wonder if anyone else has caught a new commercial running on network
television from Microsoft.  The commercial starts out with Peter Wong, who
I believe is a programmer who's blind, asking, "Do people who are blind see
things differently?"

Peter then says something about the point and click interface being a
challenge.  He then says a couple things about Microsoft doing this or that
to make the computer easier for people who are blind.  I didn't catch the
exact text of the first thing he said but the commercial ends with him
saying, "then we made it talk," as a speech synthesizer starts chattering
in the background.

I only caught the commercial once this evening and I suppose that
technically this commercial is true in that Microsoft has created some text
to speech technology.  But the underlying implication is that Microsoft
made the point and click interface accessible to people who are blind and
that's well beyond even a stretch of the truth in my opinion.

I'll have to hear the commercial again to confirm some of this but the only
way I knew it was Peter Wong was because a sighted friend telephoned me
asking if I had caught the commercial.  I asked my friend if there was
anything written on the screen and was told that Peter's name appeared.  I
don't believe he introduced himself.  So why not have the written text
verbalized.

Fine and good that talking technology was mentioned but companies like GW
Micro, Microtalk Henter-Joyce, Syntha-Voice, Dulphin Access and the rest
should be given credit where credit is due.

As I said I only caught this commercial once so can't recall all the text
perfectly.  Still it seemed deceptive to me as it implied Microsoft was the
savior for the blind.

My apologies if Peter's name is incorrectly spelled or if he doesn't work
for Microsoft.  I'm making somewhat of a guess on both counts but believe
I'm accurate.

Kelly



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