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]