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CES was full of celebrities (I hear Randy Couture was around), but they all had a little something to say about the products coming out, including Stevie Wonder, who was pleading for more blind-friendly gadgets.
“If you can take those few steps further, you can give us the excitement, the pleasure and the freedom of being a part of it,” said the famed musician.
Traditional keyed handsets have made a few advancements in accessibility, such as spoken menu trees, and more recent accessories such as tactile skins even help touchscreen devices, but there’s still a ways to go before most cell phones are fully practical for the blind, and that will require greater consciousness from manufacturers. A big chunk of CES was dedicated to eco friendliness, but this article suggests that accessibility will be the next big movement to sweep the mobile world. For the sake of the frustrated visually impaired and the manufacturers who stand to gain from tapping into a neglected market, I hope so.
[via Reuters]
About The Author
Simon Sage
Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.
