[access-uk] Re: Open letter to John Godbur (was: RE: Accessible Set top box
- From: william lomas <lomaswilliam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 11:33:52 +0100
yeah i agree can't RNIB make a small box to plug in to a sky or virgin boxx as
wel to read for them?
On Jul 1, 2010, at 9:35 AM, Damon Rose wrote:
> hi John. I think I probably speak for others here when I say that this kind
> of info is heartening and helps us understand what RNIB are doing amid this
> acceleration of digital products and services. Thank you for communicating to
> us and I hope to see more from you in the coming months. Government are
> pushing the digital industry buttons quite heavily and recognise what it
> could bring to end users. Blind people are twelve years behind on this basic
> EPG access stuff and it seems the community are getting a bit restless as
> video on demand and other services start popping up.
>
> Can you tell us a bit more about this chipset?
>
> I'd be particularly interested to know what it does? Is it simply a speech
> synthesizer? Or does it have more on board? How versatile is it? And is it
> environmentally friendly?
>
> I'm assuming RNIB doesn't give the chipset away for free to manufacturers, so
> who distributes it, who sells it and how much would it cost a manufacturer to
> a) purchase it and b) intergrate it into their technology and physically weld
> it to their motherboards? Or maybe RNIB does give it away for free? In which
> case it'd be interesting to hear about the challenges of getting it included
> in boxes on that interesting basis.
>
> I'd like to hear a bit moore about why you chose to make and market a chipset
> towrds manufacturers rather than an add-on aimed at blind consumers. This
> will mean that manufacturers have to include the accessible talking elements
> into every single box and hence dramatically increase their costs. Will
> manufacturers be persuaded to do that? And off the back of that, why did RNIB
> choose not to create a universal speech box that could plug into the back of
> any hardware that has the right software API? The latter would make end users
> foot the bill for the accessibility and would avoid having to persuade
> manufacturers to spend thousands on including the hardware in their boxes -
> which I imagine is an incredibly hard task for which RNIB may not have the
> resources to achieve.
>
> If the answer to this is "we believe everyone should have equal access" then
> I assume you must be some way down the line to getting government to accept
> that legislation has to be the answer ... so that manufacturers are forced to
> include your chipset or develop something cost effective for themselves.
>
> I believe that the Pure Sonus radio, a fantastic product, was discontinued
> because they didn't sell as many as they hoped. If this experience has
> coloured the general feeling in the consumer electronics industry, then they
> wil have to be forced rather than persuaded. And as digital technology takes
> off, with faster broadband promised soon, we can only assume that we are
> going to lose out heavily if legislation isn't passed sooner rather than
> later. So it'd be good to have an update on campaigning and discussions
> around this.
>
> Project Canvas boxes will be released next year and will have an API that
> supports some kind of speech output by then (it's due to be included in the
> next software rollout I believe). Do you have a partner ready to roll out
> Canvas enabled boxes so that people who can't see the screen at all are able
> to access iPlayer, 4OD and the other digital and on demand services that will
> come as default on those boxes?
>
> The really interesting thing about set-top boxes is that they play far better
> to RNIB's core customer base - older people who aren't quite so au fait with
> computers. An incredibly easy interfface can be achieved with a set-top box
> in comparison to a computer, with services and digital entertainment
> available. And it looks like RNIB understands this as you are talking about
> having magazines delivered via set-top box. I'd suggest that things like
> video phones built into the set-top box could be far more empowering to all
> visually impaired people attempting to live as independently as possible
> (video appointments with doctors, asking family to look over clothing to see
> if it's clean, looking at instruction on food or drugs from afar)
>
> It'd be great to hear responses to this. From my discussions with sources in
> the industry, I feel there are far more barriers than we, the blind
> community, appreciate. It feels unnecessarily complicated. And I should just
> add that if I can lend my support to a campaign towards access legislation,
> I'd be more than willing to put in some time and effort. I suspect a number
> of people here would be happy to do that too.
>
> How about if RNIB were to give a 10 minute presentation on their work towards
> a digital future and post it up on YouTube or as a podcast on the popular
> Blind Cooll Tech blog? Or if there already is an RNIB blog about this kind of
> thing, or someone else close to these projects, can you point us at it?
>
> I appreciate that people like us on these tech lists are pushing the envelope
> and are more likely to be early adopters than older users. But it is we who
> are using and testing things today that all blind consumers could be using
> tomorrow ... we can see the benefits already.
>
> And finally John, how high are your confidence levels on getting good
> comprehensive access to set-top boxes and digital services in the living
> room? Do you expect products to be on our TV sets within a year? Two years?
> I'm remembering back to how audio description was being broadcast for many
> years without anyone being able to pick it up. 12 years later, there are a
> number of products out there ... I for one never expected it to take so long
> or appear to be such a slog to achieve.
>
> Appreciated.
>
> ...Damon
>
>
>
>
> From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> JOHN
> Sent: 30 June 2010 18:49
> To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 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
>
>
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk
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