A Touch Screen Phone for Those Who Can’t See the Screen

During the weekend of January 10th and 11th, a number of blindness advocates, including Stevie Wonder, flocked to Las Vegas. Their destination: the Consumer Electronics Show, the largest show for electronics in the world. Their purpose: to convince reluctant vendors to implement technology that would allow the blind to utilize the recent influx of touch screen technology.

There are already fears that, by making devices with touch screen instead of a standard keypad with buttons, companies like Apple are alienating an entire generation of people with disabilities from this type of technology. There are a number of reasons why companies like Apple are reluctant to act on the rising calls for accessible technology, but there is one that tops the others. Technology moves with shocking rapidity; what was the newest fad a year ago is now considered practically obsolete. The vendors/companies are afraid that by trying to implement measures which would make these phones accessible to the blind, they would slow their ability to produce competitive technology. Apparently, the customers gained simply wouldn’t offset possible customer losses.

Now, however, there is cause for hope. T. V. Raman, an engineer at Google, is slowly but surely working on some key innovations which will make these types of phones accessible. Mr. Raman, a native of India, was one of the few blind people to attend a university, and because of this, he had to be a cut above the rest. During his university days, he invented a number of technologies to aid him in his studies. When he left the university, he went to Adobe. With his help, Adobe made pdf files accessible. Now, Mr. Raman is working with Google and its model of the touch screen phone, the TG1, to make what some might call “the first accessible touch screen phone.”

One thing that puzzled me was why Google was willing to invest time and money in the project when companies like Apple, though tentatively willing, were leery. And then I looked more closely at Mr. Raman’s philosophy.  These phones are not being produced for the blind; they are being produced for anyone who cannot see the screen. A philosophical quibble some would say, or simply substituting one word for another. I fundamentally disagree.  When you take in to account all the people who cannot see the screen at one time or another, you realize that this phone has a much wider market than one would first suppose. Drivers, for example, could utilize this phone without ever having to look away from the road.  

When a product is marketed solely for the blind, it is not usually brought to the attention of the sighted world.  If it is, people’s first reaction is: “I don’t need something marketed for the blind; I’m not blind.” What Mr. Raman has done is to make this a mainstream product. This product will come to the attention of sighted people, and will be utilized by anyone who goes for long periods of time without being able to take their eyes from a task long enough to view this screen.

So, how does this phone work?  Currently, many of the details are being kept quiet.  However, we do know that Mr. Raman has invented something called a dialer to use with his TG1 mobile. This device determines what he is trying to access relative to its position on the screen. For instance, the first place Mr. Raman touches on the screen is considered to be a five by the dialer. The dialer then calculates what number Mr. Raman is dialing relative to the five. For instance, if he goes up and slightly to the left, he is dialing a 1, while if he goes down and to the right, he is dialing a nine. If he makes a mistake, he can simply run the dialer lightly back over where he just pressed to erase the digit. Along with the dialer, Mr. Raman and the Google engineers are examining other methods for making the screen accessible which were not disclosed in detail.

Mr. Raman sees mobile phones as an endless possibility.  According to him, in a few years, there will be a microchip powerful enough to locate a street sign nearest you, have the camera take a picture of it and read it back.  Already, there is some technology which can read printed words based on a picture taken by a camera. Unfortunately, most people who cannot see the screen do not know at what angle to point the camera, but according to Mr. Raman, the chip, when it becomes powerful enough, will orient the camera. I hope he’s right; it would make traveling much easier.  For now though, I am simply marveling that someday soon, I too will be “in the groove” as the colloquialism goes, with a usable touch screen phone.