I only have one question to your statement, why. Wher eis the answer to the question a vendor will ask. Why should we spend the money on research and development for such a small group as compared to the whole. Hey I am not disagreeing with you, but trying to again point out the very question the manufacturer/vendor will ask. Just because its the right thing isn't going to be an answer to the shareholders and those with a financial interest and only are interested in profits. Isn't that what its all about? Features in any product are a result of what the masses want, but you can bet that a lot of time and money went into choosing those features before the product ever ended up in production. What would be interesting is if a company would do a survey of sorts or somehow determine if the sighted masses would enjoy having their e-mail read to them or whatever and see what kind of feedback they would receive. I think if there was a real interest, then you can bet products would be made accessable out of the gate. I think a talking cellphone is a perfect example where everyone would benefit. Maybe people would spend more time dialing or selecting a number from the phone book by listening and pay more attention to watching the road. Scott On Mar 30, 2006, at 3:14 PM, Lorenzo Taylor wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > The voice in a blind-friendly mainstream product should be no > problem for a > sighted person. If they don't like it, they don't have to turn it > on. It's > that simple. The concept I'm going with here is that a blind- > friendly product > won't make a company much money. This is the excuse given by all > the companies > out there who are making tons of money off the government agencies > and blind > people themselves who can make the sacrifice it takes to buy such a > product. So > why not make the mainstream product blind friendly at no cost to > the consumer? > The voice could be turned off by a sighted person if he/she doesn't > like it, or > better yet, it could be very easilly turned on by a blind person if > he/she needs > it. Voice synthesis is extremely cheap to implement now, so it > wouldn't cost > the manufacturer any additional money to make it work, and it > wouldn't reduce > the functionality of the device. > > As for the open source mandate in MA, I think it's a good idea. > It's the > proprietary nature of screen readers for the unfortunately most > popular OS that > makes it difficult to work with for some blind people. The screen > readers for > Windows are based on proprietary technology and for the most part > only work with > proprietary technology. This is changing slightly, but not > enough. This is what > makes blind people think the state of MA is doing a bad thing by > trying to cut > costs by switching to a superior open source technology. Just > think what the > state was doing when they forced everyone to use Microsoft formats, > or Microsoft > forced the state to use their formats, whichever you like. > > Lorenzo > - -- > Keep American Idol great! Vote for Mandisa! > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (GNU/Linux) > > iD8DBQFELDwiG9IpekrhBfIRAurTAJ9Px4P1N9DM9586a6B0V85BIb7yjQCgh+Fr > dC/+Z2UTJJ7gXnx6334kNUA= > =dq8D > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
