Hi Carol
I think RNIB send what they call a Technology Update out
by Email, and you can call their helpline to request you
be subscribed to it. As the title suggests, it's all
things technology.
Kind Regards,
Jackie Cairns
J&M Work-Ability
jandm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.work-ability.co.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carol
Pearson
Sent: 01 July 2010 09:46
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [access-uk] Re: Accessible Set top box
Hi John,
I welcome your post and thank you for passing on all this
information which is really good to know.
It brings me to a question concerning your passing on
information, such as this and, for example, the
developments of Penfriend since it began. (I haven't
heard much about the latter, apart from your endeavours
to find laundry labels.)
I am wondering how we might best receive this
information, about various items, as you choose to make
it available. Perhaps you could advise if there is an
information only mailing list available and/or other
methods you suggest for keeping updated without too much
searching around.
Thank you so much for your ongoing support.
--
Carol
carol.pearson29@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Twitter: http://twitter.com/songbird49a
---- Original Message ----
From: JOHN
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 6:48 PM
Subject: [access-uk] Accessible Set top box
hello,
I do hope people will welcome the new settop box and
some of you will come and see it at Sight Village along
with several other innovative new products from RNIB. It
doesn't all stop with the Penfriend you know!
I thought it might be helpful to give you now as much of
the background to the development of the settop box as I
can. So I apologise for the length of this post.
There are three elements to our work on accessible TV.
First, RNIB has developed a chipset which can be used in
any TV, settop box, entertainment centre, DAB radio etc
to make it speak. This chipset is now available in the
electronics industry and those of you who have picked up
the promotion from Ocean Blue can see an early example
of companies taking up our technology. Our intention,
quite simply, is to take away any barriers, actual or
perceived, which put manufacturers off designing speech
output into new devices. By using our chipset they can,
if they choose, make all new TVs and boxes talk. Like
all commercial companies they will do this if either
government legislation makes them do it or if they
believe there is a commercial opportunity.
The second element was for us to get our own box
designed and built and made available right now. Making
the chipset available to manufacturers doesn't actually
guarantee that anybody will make a box. So we've done it
ourselves with Goodmans. The box will be available in
the high street as well as from RNIB. We provide
accessible instructions of course and we suspect that
many high street stores won't want the administrative
hassle of dealing with VAT exemption forms. But it's
just up to you
where you want to buy it! It's your choice.
We hope that it will also feature in the government
Help scheme for the digital switchover. And, of course,
if manufacturers do start to pick up on accessibility in
the mainstream there will be new products at lower
prices and with better functionality round the corner
so, just like everybody else, it will be almost
impossible to know when will be the right time to buy a
box because the day after you take the plunge somebody
will advertise one twice as
good for half the price. but that's just life!
The third element was to make technology which
manufacturers and broadcast distributors (like Sky and
Virgin) could use to make an add-on box to make their
existing set top boxes talk without having to roll out
whole new boxes. . Again it is up to those companies to
decide just how they implement their own solutions. What
we have done is make it possible for them and other
manufacturers to offer accessible products at very low
additional cost.
So we will continue to work with and apply pressure to
companies to bring out more accessible products as soon
as possible. However nothing works better than
individual blind people contacting companies and saying
clearly why
accessibility is so important.
We will also be developing a PVR with recording
capabilities ourselves which we intend will also be able
to recieve our magazines, newspapers and books for
download too. But I can't right now give you an accurate
date for that to be ready.
As you may imagine it is difficult to get it right when
it comes to sharing information about things in
development. It is so easy to raise expectations only to
disappoint customers because something has slipped in
the schedule or problems that weren't anticipated have
come up.
So I am being as open about what we are doing and why as
I think makes most sense now. I won't put a blow by blow
account on this list to monitor progress over the next
few months. I just hope that based on the information
above and on you seeing developments like the Penfriend
that you will trust the folks here in RNIB Products are
definitely on your side and working as hard as we can to
remove barriers and make life that bit more accessible
for us all. We're just as mad as the rest of you that
sometimes things which seem so straightforward and
obvious take so long to become real.
With good wishes,
John Godber
Head of Products and Publications
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