Open Letter Initiative

From Blind Wiki

Mobile technology could be a revolutionary chance for the many blind and visually impaired people around the world but it must be accessible and affordable.

This open letter is addressed to companies from the mobile technology sector, developers, research scientists, organisations, politicians and all kinds of disseminators as well. The open letter informs about the perfect mobile device for blind persons, screen reader software for mobile platforms, mobile internet access and commonalities of web accessibility and the mobile web, satellite navigation for blind pedestrians, mobile access to specific map data, accuracy of GPS receivers, self-help 2.0, commonalities of blindness and dyslexia/illiteracy, corporate responsibility, proposals for Google's and Nokias public relations and the importance of free software and affordable cell phones for the many blind people from developing or newly industrializing countries.

Unfortunately, the complexity of the whole issue and the, for most readers unknown, factor "blindness" is a huge problem. It's difficult to make non-disabled professionals interested. What about you? You could make a difference.

This is a wiki. Please feel free to correct or improve the content.

1 Mobile technology is a revolutionary chance for blind people
2 Android Accessibility
- 2.1 First interesting Android applications for blind users
- 2.2 Perhaps no longer up to date
3 Loadstone-GPS
4 What Nokia could do for their blind customers?
5 About the author
6 NEWS 2009
- 6.1 News 2008
7 some additional links
- 7.1 See also at Wikipedia

[edit] Mobile technology is a revolutionary chance for blind people

The following could be interesting for the Corporate Responsibility programs and the Public Relations of mobile technology vendors, especially for members of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) or other open mobile initiatives with goodwill and power of imagination. Please excuse my English, it's not my mother tongue.

Currently a lot of blind persons around the world are using Nokia devices because for a few years there have been two professional - albeit expensive - screen reader software products for the S60 Symbian platform: Talks from Nuance Communications and Mobile Speak from Code Factory, which make these cell phones accessible by output of synthetic speech and also allow the use of third party software such as Loadstone-GPS, Wayfinder Access, web browser, audio player or DAISY book reader. Today, both screen reader products are available for the Windows Mobile platform too (although Talks only runs on one Motorola device at the moment).

For a blind person an ICT device without a screen reader is like a device without display for a seeing person.

It would be desirable to have a screen reader software for Google's open Android platform too; the best solution would be an open source or non-profit development such that blind people from the developing and newly industrializing regions of our world will have access to it as well.

"Through Android, developers, wireless operators and handset manufacturers will be better positioned to bring to market innovative new products faster and at a much lower cost. The end result will be an unprecedented mobile platform that will enable wireless operators and manufacturers to give their customers better, more personal and more flexible mobile experiences." Source: Open Handset Alliance site

Google's chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt: "Our vision is that the powerful platform we're unveiling will power thousands of different phone models."

In the future, there once should be an affordable, accessible and for the needs of blind users optimized mobile hardware with components from mass market. This device would need to have good tactile keys and a high-quality loudspeaker and should be protected against moisture and dust. A display and especially a touch screen would not really be necessary but there should be a connection port for a screen. A receiver of satellite signals for optimal pedestrian use (accuracy), an electronic compass and perhaps an accelerometer, pedometer or a gyroscope could be offered in a wearable Bluetooth box. Additional hardware like a PC keyboard, a headset, a small remote control, a portable Braille display, loudspeaker or a large display for people with low vision could also be connected via cable or Bluetooth. A built in camera would enable light detection, color recognition, optical character recognition (OCR) and is useful in situations when seeing help from distance is needed.^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]}

Though a camera might be too expensive for the basic device it could be offered as an accessory. Built-in RFID technology for several purposes is imaginable as well, but it's important to minimize the production costs of the main units to keep them affordable.

Google, Nokia and other companies from the mobile tech sector could help to quicken the evolution of accessible satellite navigation and mobile internet access for the at least 37 million blind and 124 million visually impaired people around the world, especially for the 1.4 million blind children.

"Speaking" mobile technology is a great chance for them to obtain access to:

Navigation tools and map data
Communication (phone calls, sms, e-mail)
Information and M-learning
All kinds of helpful and accessible applications (device/web based)
Mobile Banking and Mobile Payments
Mobile Enterprise and Mobile Commerce
Health Services
Services for Safety and Disease Prevention
E-Government services
Location based services

This will open new opportunities for the job market and for participation in social networks and in society, especially for those from countries, where access to fixed phones or landline internet is rarely available but cellular radio networks are common.^[6] Talking technology could be helpful for persons with dyslexia/illiteracy limitations and for car drivers as well. ^{[7] [8]}

The intentions of the OLPC project (one laptop per child) could perhaps be a kind of model for this idea and Android could open the door for the blind & visually impaired people worldwide. Then they would also become more independent of assestive technology (AT) trading policies and the mostly expensive selling prices for these AT products (which are e.g. for Europeans often twice as much as for US-citizens).^[9] Some members of the Open Handset Alliance should have the knowledge (and hopefully goodwill) to program a free Android Screen Reader or providing support/resources for that. Google's $10 Million Android Developer Challenge could also be an incentive for other developing teams.

[edit] Android Accessibility

The Google research scientist T.V. Raman is working on a free screen reader for Android. He is developing new input and output (I/O) methods for touch screen devices (but hopefully there will be an Android-powered device with good tactile keys and no expensive touch screen in the future as well). His colleague, Charles Chen, is working on a Text-to-speech (tts) Library that can be used with an Android port of the open source eSpeak tts engine. Find out more at the Eyes-free project page.
T.V. and Charles, thank you!

Hopefully more developers will collaborate with them and contribute to the Eyes-Free project. Hopefully OHA members and sponsors will provide needed resources.

[edit] First interesting Android applications for blind users

List of speech enabled applications for Android
Peter Meijer is developing vOICe for Android camera phones. "Once started, The vOICe for Android will continuously grab and sound snapshots from the camera. There are no connection costs while using it, because The vOICe for Android runs off-line. Each camera snapshot is sounded via a polyphonic left-to-right scan through the snapshot while associating height with pitch and brightness with loudness. For example, a bright rising line on a dark background sounds as a rising pitch sweep, and a small bright spot sounds as a short beep." Additionally, this application contains a talking color identifier and a talking compass. Peter Meijer is providing valuable information about other potentially helpful Android tools for blind users on his web page as well.
Talking Points is a collaborative project whose aim is to develop a prototype urban orientation and contextual information system.
ZXing (pronounced "zebra crossing") is an open-source, multi-format 1D/2D barcode image processing library. The focus is on using the built-in camera on mobile phones to photograph and decode barcodes on the device, without communicating with a server.

[edit] Perhaps no longer up to date

It would be fantastic if some professionals would start an initiative for a non-profit screen reader development, so that volunteers and sponsors could join them for collaboration. Good solutions could be submitted to challenges such as the R&D Award from ONCE or could be proposed for awards such as the Mellon Award for Technology Collaboration.
Android should have a free speech engine (tts). Nuance as a member of the OHA could donate and port a simple multilingual speech synthesizer such as ETI-Eloquence to the Android platform if possible; keeping their high-quality voices for sale. For a long time The ETI-Eloquence was and still is a very popular speech synthesis solution in the blind community. there were a few attempts to make the Java-based FreeTTS (text-to-speech) available for Android:
- Android-text2speech by L1GHTM4N
- FreeTTS-Android Interfacing by Alvaro Rivas
Clayton Lewis from Boulder/Colorado (USA) is supervising a project course on cognitive assistive technology on the Android platform, in which students are creating a variety of applications that take advantage of the resources of that platform to increase the independence of users. They have a Inclusive Android mailing list and you can apply for group membership.
The open source project OpenIntents (OI) had shortly found interest in developing a screen reader for the Android platform. OpenIntents is a common effort to define and implement standard interfaces such that Android applications can work more closely together. Please ask Peli.

[edit] Loadstone-GPS

The programmers of the Loadstone project are blind and developers of a free and open source navigation software for blind pedestrians. At present, this program runs on Nokia S60 Symbian devices and is a great solution for increasing the mobility of blind persons, thereby making their lives easier and more independent. Since for large rural regions of our world nearly no exactly map data is available in common map databases, the Loadstone software provides users with the option to create, store, and share their own navigation waypoints with others. Although satellite navigation can not replace orientation & mobility training, a white cane or a guide dog, it complement perfectly.

There is a growing Loadstone community of users, testers and coders. This kind of self-help 2.0 and collaboration on a global scale is a very new and unique approach - especially given the fact that the software is free and open source.

You can learn more about this fantastic project at the Loadstone page on this Wiki where you will find information how you could support this open source community and where you can read more about map data and accuracy of GPS receivers as well.

[edit] What Nokia could do for their blind customers?

Nokia could support the Loadstone project.
Nokia could improve the accessibility of their service software such as PC Suite or Software Updater.
Nokia could offer their manuals in several languages in alternative formats like HTML (with HTML headings) instead of only PDF.
Nokia could build an accessible version of Nokia Maps (almost free), add some features for blind users and offer it almost for free as well. At least, they could try to make the standard Nokia maps application more accessible for screen reader users.
The Swedish company Wayfinder Systems, soon bought by Vodafone, did the same with their product Navigator and created Wayfinder Access (400 Euro in Europe). Satellite navigation and access to map data is a very important aid for blind customers and should not depend on their financial situation.
For a blind person a Nokia without screen reader software is like a Nokia without display for a seeing person. Nokia could develop a screen reader and offer it for free or they could try to buy a solution such as Talks from Nuance.
Nokia could purchase other helpful solutions such as knfbReader ($1000) and offer it for less money.^[11]
The knfbReader OCR software could be very useful for seeing dyslexics and illiterates as well. ^{[12] [13]}
Nokia could collect used S60 cell phones and donate them to blind pupils in developing countries, e.g. in Kenya or Tibet/India. This cell phones can have broken or scratched displays. Then Nuance and Code Factory could donate licenses for their screen reader products. Blind children are also disseminators and could turn into customers of tomorrow.
Nokia could start a research project to improve the accessibility and usability of S60 applications and of a few hardware components; thereby they could collect interesting knowledge about the special needs of some groups of disabled customers for future developments.
Nokia could join the AIA (Accessibility Interoperability Alliance) for collaboration as well. Please see also:

As it seems, the Nokia Accessibility department in Dallas (USA) is not interested in the above mentioned topics as yet. Please have a look at the official Accessibility site. You won't find anything about satellite navigation solutions such as Loadstone-GPS or Wayfinder Access and of course nothing about accessibility problems of their service software, their S60 applications and the Nokia.com site. Maybe this department just exists because of legal constraints by US law.

Nokia's President and Chief Executive Officer Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo: "We regard universal access as much more than an industry goal – for us it is a responsibility."^[14]

Common brands with lots of customers are vulnerable for sudden image problems. Future mobile devices and applications will provide companies such as Nokia or mobile network operators with masses of data about location, behaviour, interests and social networks of their customers. This will make the user privacy transparent for these companies and could be perceived as a risk for potential abuse. Microsoft and Google already have similar problems. The motto "Don't be evil, Don't be passive, be good" should be an imaginable part of Nokia's strategy for further PR-work.

Don't be evil, be accessible! ;-)

[edit] About the author

My name is Per Busch, I am 40 years old. I live in Germany and for about 16 years I am blind. Read more about me.

If you are able to understand german you can find more info & links about sat nav solutions and accessible cell phones for blind persons on my user page at Wikipedia. In July 2008 I have written an article (PDF) for the German computer technology magazine C'T which reports about the German Nav4blind initiative, the European Haptimap project and a little bit about existing solutions such as Loadstone and accuracy of GPS-receivers. You can alternatively read a shorter version at Heise Online. In March 2009 I have written another small article for the same news ticker which reports about new offers to blind customers by the mobile technology branch, selling prices for the software Wayfinder Access and some research&development plans:

Mobilfunk-Branche entdeckt blinde Menschen als Kunden

The Open Letter Initiative is my private attempt of consumer-to-business-PR. I started it on November, 05, 2007. The reason for this initiative was Google's announcement of the new and open mobile Android platform. You can comment or discuss this letter on the Talk page or send me an e-mail.

[edit] NEWS 2009

On March 30, Michel Pepin from Humanware and Greg Fields from Research In Motion (RIM) have demonstrated Orator, a blind access solution for the Blackberry, at the 3d European e-Accessibility Forum in Paris. Motto of the forum was: "Mobile communications helping people with disabilities at work".
On March 12, collaborating with Nuance, Verizon Wireless (USA) announced a new offer: TALKS for Verizon Wireless offers mobile accessibility to blind and visually impaired customers
On January 03, the New York Times published an article about T.V. Raman from Google and his development of an Android screen reader.

[edit] News 2008

On December 22, Vodafone Spain launches Vodafone Speak powered by Code Factory
On December 13, the Indian Times published the article: Nokia plans to design handsets for disabled. Hopefully they really do.
On September 01, the European research project HAPTIMAP started its work. "The HAPTIMAP project will deeply embed accessibility into digital mainstream maps and mobile location based services." Navteq, bought by Nokia, is one of the participants. The project is funded with 6.7 million euro under the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union. Read more at IST World.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) launched the Mobile Web for Social Development interest group. "This group is chartered to explore the potential of mobile technology to help bridge the digital divide. The MW4D Interest Group will study the issues that rural communities and underprivileged populations face in accessing information and communication technology. The MW4D IG provides an multidisciplinary forum for discussing these issues, and in doing so, contributes to the W3C mission of making the Web available to all." See also this blog entry.
On May, 14 Peter Korn from Sun Microsystems released the article Ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
"Article 9 of the Convention speaks to Accessibility, and I read several aspects of this as applying directly to technology accessibility work." Peter Korn is an active member of the OLPC accessibility project. Read also Peter's article about high prices of assestive technology for blind persons and the following article.
In May 2008 many qualified Nokia employees in Bochum (Germany) lost their jobs. Because of nonsensitive communication, Nokia currently have a kind of image problem in Germany. This facts could be a reason for an accessibility research project. Some employees could get new jobs and Nokia would be able to show responsibility for society and goodwill to their many blind or otherwise handicapped customers. Bochum could become the worldwide first location with a research center for mobile accessibility.
On April, 30 Henny Swan (UK) mentioned this open letter at Iheni blog. One day later, Lisa Herrod (Australia) added some interesting thoughts about commonalities of the open letter topics and mobile web usability at Sitepoint blog. This was the first public feedback by professionals. Thank you.
On April, 21 Clayton Lewis from Boulder (USA) was a speaker at the ITU/G3ict Forum in Geneva. Together with a group of students he is working on first applications for Android. Yoshinobu Nakamura from NTT DoCoMo (OHA member) was another speaker.

You can find biographies, abstracts and downloadable presentations on the ITU site. The ITU/G3ict Forum explored the likely impact of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on the evolution of ICT standards with the active participation of industry, Standards Development Organizations (SDOs), NGOs, and other interested parties.

On April, 21 the blind Google research scientist and open source developer T.V. Raman was a keynote speaker at the W4A conference in Beijing. As it seems, he hasn't announced first details about Google's accessibility plan for the Android platform. W4A is an international cross-disciplinary conference on web accessibility.
On March, 05 a visually impaired Nokia customer from Iran started an online petition and everyone can sign it. Nokia has launched a beta service which is called Open Signed Online but unfortunately it's inaccessible for a few groups of users.
The study "Accessibility and Business Value", sponsored by The Customer Respect Group, finds that companies strategically invested in removing barriers to customer interaction are deriving significant hard and soft benefits from accessibility initiatives.
On February, 11 Spice Corp Ltd, an Indian telecoms Corporation, launched the Braille Phone ^[15] for the revolutionary price of $20. The Braille Phone has basic phone call functionality, alphanumeric keys with Braille labels, speech feedback after every key stroke and no screen. Reduce to the max! Hopefully this device will be offered to poor blind people in developing countries by charitable or micro finance organisations.
On February, 11 the Nokia Beta Labs released a first version of Maps 2.0 Beta with the new walk feature for pedestrians.
On February, 6 the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released their annual study Information Economy Report 2007-2008 (PDF). Reuters: UNCTAD said mobile phone subscribers have almost tripled in developing countries over the last five years, and now make up some 58 percent of mobile subscribers worldwide. The report said mobile phones were the main communication tool for small businesses in developing countries, reducing costs and increasing the speed of transactions. "In Africa, where the increase in terms of the number of mobile phone subscribers and penetration has been greatest, this technology can improve the economic life of the population as a whole." The revolution in information and communication technology was spreading to the developing world - this should be a chance for the many disabled citizens in Asia, Africa and Latin America as well.
On January, 15 Forum Nokia released the first part of the Loadstone story (PDF). Forum Nokia is one of the largest mobile developer communities in the world. The term Forum Nokia collectively refers to both the support organization within Nokia Corporation and the individuals and companies supported by the organization.

[edit] some additional links

The World Health Organisation (WHO) about the magnitude and causes of blindness and visual impairment.
Raising the Floor (RtF) "is an international coalition of individuals and organizations working to ensure that the Internet is accessible to people experiencing accessibility or literacy problems, even if they have very limited or no financial resources."
G3ict, the global initiative for inclusive ICTs is a flagship partnership initiative of GAID, the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development.
Vision Free is an initiative by Stevie Wonder, Sendero Group and the National Federation of the Blind, sponsored by Intel Health.
Mobile Space is a blog from Amir, an Iranian user of Nokia devices and screen reader software.
www.vipnews.org.uk "is a project bringing blindness and visual impairment in the news within easier online reach."
IHENI is a blog with thoughts on making the web truly world wide: global, accessible and mobile.
We can do is a blog which provides many resources for anyone who wants to end poverty and oppression for poor disabled people in developing countries.
textually.org is focusing on text messaging and cell phone usage around the world, tracking the latest news and social impact of these new technologies. It has an extensive blogroll.
Other related sources: Accessibility links and Blind links