Bedsides, make it work well enough so we can use it and make it *affordable*, you will attract the sighted market. I mean, look at Aple, like you said. Imagine someone sitting there and *listneing* to their emails while waiting for a train or whatever. No need to worry about anyone looking over their shoulder. Se, make it affordable for one group---affordable, not the cost of a BrailleNote, but a regular PDA--and you will have a better chance of selling a heck of a lot more of them and getting sighted people to like them, too. Jane On Mar 30, 2006, at 10:06 AM, Lorenzo Taylor wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > 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 > - -- > Keep American Idol great! Vote for Mandisa! > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (GNU/Linux) > > iD8DBQFELAH8G9IpekrhBfIRAq4jAKCRcls5cS3+xmTBiN/VieV/DmBgGgCfa86e > SspMMU5V2JnTeNLQ4z+9DXk= > =pzu1 > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
