     THE BRAILLE MONITOR
Vol. 43, No. 1     January, 2000

     Barbara Pierce, Editor


     Published in inkprint, in Braille, and on cassette by

     THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND


     MARC MAURER, PRESIDENT


     National Office
     1800 Johnson Street
     Baltimore, Maryland  21230
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     THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION
     SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND--IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES





ISSN 0006-8829
Vol. 43, No.1      January, 2000
     Contents
Introduction     
by Marc Maurer

Remarks     
     by Euclid J. Herie

Brave New World: Technology for the Blind
in the 21st Century     
     by Raymond Kurzweil

     NonVisual Access to Information

The Current State of Technology for the Blind
And the Challenge of the 21st Century     
     by Curtis Chong

The State of the Law on Technology for the Blind: What It
Is and What It Ought to Be     
     by James Gashel

Rehabilitation Requirements and the Need for Universal
Access to Information: The Accelerating Pace
Of Technology, A Challenge for Vocational Rehabilitation     
     by Fredric K. Schroeder

America Online: Stonewalling Responsibility
and Ignoring Access for the Blind     
     by Richard Ring

Accessible Automated Teller Machines     
     by Len Fowler

Access to Electronic and Information Technology: Evolving
Federal Standards for Nonvisual Use     
     by Pat Cannon

Refreshable Braille Now and in the Years Ahead     
     by Deane Blazie

Frontiers in Tactile Perception     
     by T. V. Cranmer

Braille Translation in the Era of the Digitized Book     
     by Joe Sullivan

Web-Braille: A New Distribution System for Braille Books     
     by Judy Dixon

     Opportunities and Challenges
     In the Era of Digital Information

Implications of the Digital Talking Book and Beyond     
     by George Kerscher

Publishing Tools: Converting Obstacles to Opportunities     
     by Michael Gosse

A View from the Publishers     
     by Carol Risher

Access to Information: The Next Step Forward     
     by Gilles P`epin

New Regulations Under the Telecommunications Act: New 
Opportunities for the Blind     
     by Dale Hatfield

Accessibility for the Blind: The Necessity for Coordination
and Joint Action     
     by Marc Maurer

Consumers and Vendors of Technology for the Blind:
An Underserved Multi-Million-Dollar Market     
     by David Andrews

Nonvisual Access to Electronic Print Displays     
     by Paul Mitten

Final Discussion Summary     

     Copyright c 2000 National Federation of the Blind
     October 27 and 28, 1999,the National Federation of the Blind
     and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind
     hosted the Fourth U.S./Canada
     Conference on Technology for the Blind
     at the National Center for the Blind in Baltimore.
[PHOTO DESCRIPTION: Four photographs appear on this page. They show different 
sections of the large conference room at the National Center for the Blind. 
The U-shaped set of tables that usually fills the center of the room was 
augmented by three more sets, making a total of five lines of tables 
perpendicular to the head table. The podium from which all presenters spoke 
was located directly opposite the center of the head table. The pictures 
demonstrate just how many people attended the Fourth U.S./Canada Conference on 
Technology for the Blind. The bottom right picture shows participants all 
laughing delightedly at something said.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: The center and east end of the north side of the Conference 
meeting room]
[PHOTO CAPTION: The east end of the meeting room's south side]
[PHOTO CAPTION: The center of the room and the west end of the south side]
[PHOTO CAPTION: The laughter of Conference participants proves that not every 
moment of the meeting was serious.]
[PHOTO DESCRIPTION: This picture shows much of the conference head table. 
Against the back wall three flags are grouped toward the left side. They are 
the flags of the United States, Canada, and Spain--the countries of conference 
participants. Standing alone on the right side is the NFB flag.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Seated at the head table (left to right) are Deane Blazie, 
Euclid Herie, Marc Maurer, and Raymond Kurzweil.]
     Introduction
     by Marc Maurer
     
     Perhaps one of the most perpetually compelling issues in the 
field of blindness is technology and its power to enhance or 
frustrate the lives of blind people. When technology for the 
blind becomes the topic of conversation, there are many experts--
often self-proclaimed--and an almost unlimited number of 
opinions. Technology for the blind is a field of endeavor which 
is relatively young and fairly diverse. Problems for the blind 
user of technology abound, and there is no lack of emotion--hope, 
despair, eagerness, frustration, annoyance, outrage, anger, 
delight.
     The range of emotion exists because the promises made in the 
name of technology are sometimes astonishingly great, and the 
disappointments felt by the blind user when it doesn't work are 
of equal proportion. All too often, just when one vexing problem 
seems to be on the brink of solution, the technology changes and 
the target shifts. A completely new set of daunting technological 
conundrums is presented to the unsuspecting blind public. During 
the time it takes to solve the new riddles, the blind have 
diminished access to the information easily used by the sighted.
     This is the set of circumstances that serves as the backdrop 
for the Fourth U.S./Canada Conference on Technology for the 
Blind, which took place on October 27 and 28, 1999. The fourth 
conference followed the pattern set by the first three. All major 
organizations of and for the blind in the United States and 
Canada were invited to participate along with the major 
manufacturers of technology for the blind and the governmental 
entities that are likely to have an impact on the development or 
distribution of access devices or systems. Because of the 
historic significance of this conference, we are devoting an 
entire issue of the Braille Monitor to reprinting the 
proceedings.
     The concepts discussed at the meeting are far-reaching, but 
the Fourth U.S./Canada Conference could not have achieved the 
significance it did without the first three. The first of these 
conferences took place at the National Center for the Blind in 
1991. It was unique in the field of blindness because no such 
gathering had ever before occurred, and some wondered whether 
relations and political differences among entities dealing with 
blindness would permit any collaboration. However, the 
conference, hosted by the National Federation of the Blind and 
the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, brought a measure 
of harmony and cooperation to organizations of and for the blind 
that had never before existed.
     The second of these conferences was convened in 1993, and it 
was even more harmonious than the first. Many of the producers of 
technology for the blind welcomed suggestions from the users of 
that technology. A widespread recognition emerged that joint 
effort among manufacturers, public and private agencies for the 
blind, and blind consumers would assist the producers of 
technology to provide products that would best serve the market 
and give increased prosperity to all. 
     In 1996 the Third U.S./Canada Conference on Technology for 
the Blind was convened. For the third time Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, 
the long-time leader of the National Federation of the Blind and 
its President Emeritus, planned the gathering with the advice and 
assistance of Dr. Euclid Herie, President and Chief Executive 
Officer of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and the 
President of the World Blind Union. Although efforts were still 
directed toward increasing cooperation at this conference, the 
desirability of joint action had already become readily apparent 
from the experiences of the first two conferences. The third 
conference concentrated on the topics of most immediate concern 
to blind users of technology.
     In each of the first three conferences several people 
speculated about the shape of the future. These futurists were 
concerned about technology for the blind, but they also discussed 
technology for everybody. Some of this speculative dreaming 
suggested that the gap between technology for the blind and 
technology for the sighted would narrow. However, immediate 
frustrations made other participants doubt. In some cases the 
advances in technology for the blind would, some participants 
speculated, give a new perspective to the development of 
technology designed for the sighted. The Third U.S./Canada 
Conference focused sharply on technology itself. 
     The Fourth U.S./Canada Conference on Technology for the 
Blind gathered with the spirit, energy, and enthusiasm that had 
been developed during the first three. Advances in technology for 
the blind have continued to be made; however, technology in 
general has also proceeded, and with it new problems in gaining 
access to information have been created. Consequently, even with 
advances in technology for the blind, problems for blind users 
continue to exist. For example, at one time many stated with 
confidence that no system could ever be manufactured that would 
permit blind people to gain access to information presented 
through the graphical user interface. However, determined effort 
has, to a substantial extent, made this information available in 
voice and tactile forms.
     The fourth conference discussed more than technology. It 
explored the rights and responsibilities of manufacturers of 
technology--both producers working exclusively with the blind and 
those in the broader market. What laws should be adopted to 
assure access to information for the blind? How can entities 
dealing with blindness take joint action to bring maximum 
advantage to blind people? How can governmental agencies be 
persuaded to assist with access solutions before products are 
released so that the long and painful process of retrofitting is 
unnecessary? What role should publishers play in providing 
fundamental information to the blind as well as to others? These 
and other similar questions were considered by the conference.
     The harmony and perceived need for joint action continued to 
be as great as they have ever been. In 1991, when Dr. Jernigan 
and Dr. Herie planned the first of these conferences, they 
undoubtedly anticipated that the gatherings themselves would 
assist the participants to comprehend the community of interest 
that all organizations dealing with blindness have. The 
consolidation of action within the blindness field may be the 
greatest accomplishment of the series of conferences on 
technology for the blind.
     They have, of course, had other salutary effects. The need 
for the blind to have access to information stimulated the 
development of the NEWSLINEr for the Blind Network and the 
America's Jobliner system that bring job listings and newspapers 
to blind people throughout North America by touch-tone telephone. 
These two systems, pioneered by the National Federation of the 
Blind and conceived by the imagination of Dr. Jernigan, have 
resulted at least in part from the stimulus of these conferences 
on technology. And other developments, too, have been inspired by 
the cooperative efforts of these conferences. Some of them are 
laid out in the presentations made to the Fourth Conference. 
Here, beginning with an alphabetical list of conference 
attendees, are the proceedings as they occurred:
     
David Andrews, Minnesota State Services for the Blind 
Susan Benbow, Rehabilitation Services Administration
David Best, Canadian National Institute for the Blind
Deane Blazie, Blazie Engineering
John Brabyn, Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Foundation
Michelle Brul`e, Canadian National Institute for the Blind
Brian Buhrow, University of California
Geoffrey Bull, Braille International, Inc.
Pat Cannon, United States Architectural and Transportation 
Barriers Compliance Board
Chris Chamberlain, Frontier Computing
Curtis Chong, National Federation of the Blind
Charles Cook, Roudley Associates
John Cookson, National Library Service for the Blind and 
Physically Handicapped
T. V. Cranmer, International Braille Research Center
Frank Kurt Cylke, National Library Service for the Blind and 
Physically Handicapped 
Judy Dixon, National Library Service for the Blind and Physically 
Handicapped
Oscar Fern`andez, O.N.C.E.
Len Fowler, T-Base Communications
James R. Fruchterman, Arkenstone, Inc.
James Gashel, National Federation of the Blind
Michael Gosse, National Federation of the Blind
Jim Halliday, Humanware, Inc.
Dale Hatfield, Federal Communications Commission
Euclid Herie, Canadian National Institute for the Blind
Janice Hertz, Microsoft Corporation
Mary Ellen Jernigan, National Federation of the Blind
George Kerscher, DAISY Consortium
Chuck King, IBM Special Needs Systems
Raymond Kurzweil, Kurzweil Applied Intelligence, Inc.
Luanne LaLonde, Microsoft Corporation
Mary Frances Laughton, Industry Canada
Jos`e Luis Lorente, O.N.C.E.
Marc Maurer, National Federation of the Blind
Peter Merrill, Betacom
Paul Mitten, Compusult Limited
Betty Nobel, Canadian National Institute for the Blind
Gilles P`epin, VisuAide 2000, Inc.
David Pillischer, Sighted Electronics, Inc.
William M. Raeder, National Braille Press
Lloyd Rasmussen, National Library Service for the Blind and 
Physically Handicapped     
Richard Ring, National Federation of the Blind
Carol Risher, Association of American Publishers, Inc.
Mohymen Saddeek, TFI Engineering and Myna Corporation
James Sanders, Canadian National Institute for the Blind
Tony Schenk, Enabling Technologies Company
Fredric Schroeder, Rehabilitation Services Administration
Paul Schroeder, American Foundation for the Blind
Dick Scribner, Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic
Dave Skrivanek, Repro-Tronics
     Larry Skutchan, American Printing House for the Blind
Susan Spungin, American Foundation for the Blind
Graham Stoodley, Canadian National Institute for the Blind
Linda Studholme, Canadian National Institute for the Blind
Joseph Sullivan, Duxbury Systems, Inc.
Tuck Tinsley, American Printing House for the Blind
Dennis Tottenham, Project Online, Canada
Jutta Treviranus, University of Toronto
Robert Wynn, Hadley School for the Blind
     
     
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Euclid Herie]
     Remarks
     by Euclid J. Herie
     
     From the Editor: Euclid Herie is President and Chief 
Executive Officer of the Canadian National Institute for the 
Blind (CNIB) and President of the World Blind Union (WBU).
     
     The advantage of wearing two hats at once is that one can 
cover a little more ground. I will indulge your patience for a 
moment with a few comments. First of all, as President of the 
World Blind Union, I bring you greetings from the blind of the 
world and from the officers, including Dr. Maurer, who, as you 
know, is the President of this region. Also, as President of the 
CNIB, I bring you greetings from our National Chairman and our 
Canadian delegation including Mr. Graham Stoodley, who is a 
member of the CNIB National Board of Directors and Chair of the 
National Client Services Committee, and Mr. James W. Sanders, 
Vice President, Client Services and Technology.
     I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge Dr. 
Maurer and the National Federation of the Blind for hosting this 
event. Hosting such an event takes a great deal of planning and 
organizing. The NFB are gracious hosts; their generosity of 
spirit and effort I know will make this event a huge success.
     The history that Dr. Maurer referred to is important because 
there are always new players and stakeholders at the table. 
Kenneth Jernigan and I talked about the importance of this kind 
of conference some ten years ago. I have no idea whether he 
suggested it or we both did. However, I think it is a tribute to 
his vision that technology would play a major role in creating 
the opportunity, economic security, and freedom needed by blind 
people. So I am particularly mindful that Dr. Jernigan would be 
pleased to know that for the fourth time in this decade we have 
brought together truly the best and the brightest in North 
America and around the world. When we met last April, Dr. Maurer 
suggested that we have a fourth conference, so again, Sir, I 
appreciate that in your role as President of the NFB you have 
assumed the mantle of moving this very important agenda forward.
     The World Blind Union through its Committee on Technology 
raises the specter of problems ahead in obtaining accessible and 
affordable technology because 80 percent of blind people do live 
in parts of the world where access to technology, electricity, or 
telephone lines is still a dream of the future. So either our 
talk of accessibility and affordability can remain as an 
oxymoron, or we can forge a blueprint that will make it a 
reality. I urge all of you to take on this challenge at this 
conference. 
     Research is critical. I am proud to say that we in Canada, 
through the CNIB Winston Gordon Award, have recognized excellence 
in technology. Three winners are present in body or spirit today: 
Deane Blazie, the first winner; Raymond Kurzweil, the second; and 
two years ago Kenneth Jernigan was honored at the Canadian 
Embassy in Washington. We also sponsor a $10,000 research grant, 
the Ben E. and Mary Hochhausen Award available to anyone in the 
world.
     When Kenneth and I talked ten years ago, Web sites and cell 
phones were really not a part of our daily lives as they are 
today. It is amazing how much progress we have made in this 
decade. Also this past decade we have seen a time of deregulating 
only to regulate. We will be speaking a lot about that in the 
next two days because, as we have freed up the airwaves and other 
public supports such as transportation and other things,it has 
forced in the disability field, and certainly in the blindness 
field, pressures to create regulations that put a stop to the 
kind of systemic discrimination that all of us face so often in 
our daily activities.
     We must be mindful of what these so-called freedoms are 
going to mean in our world in the next millennium with terms such 
as e-com and digital economy. However, either blind people in the 
world are going to be within the digital economy, or we are going 
to fall outside the realm. I would suggest to you that in some 
parts of the world--even in developed countries--as the digital 
economy speeds up, gains momentum, and is hugely funded, blind 
people are victimized and continue to fall between the cracks. I 
know that you will be astounded in the course of these next few 
days at what you will hear in that regard. We must understand the 
implications for blind persons of globalization as a phenomenon 
and a reality of our life in the future. . . . The NAFTA 
agreements in our countries, the European Bloc, the now G 20 that 
has been established, the UN agencies and that whole entire 
system affect blind people directly.
     In Canada we have established partnerships within the 
blindness field, for example, with the Library of Congress 
through Mr. Cylke's programs and with many other countries around 
the world. I truly believe, whether in accessible technology or 
the range of services and programs, that this sector will not 
escape globalization any more than the other things that touch 
your life. We are seeing these trends move ever more rapidly. It 
is therefore incumbent on the leadership in this room during 
these two days to exploit this opportunity. Let us take the 
long-term view, create that vision, build on it, and secure it. 
As the conference agenda indicates, we are here to set in motion 
action plans for the technology services that blind people will 
require in the third millennium. 
     
     
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Raymond Kurzweil]
     Brave New World:
     Technology for the Blind in the 21st Century
     by Raymond Kurzweil, Ph.D.
     
     From the Editor: Ray Kurzweil has demonstrated his 
commitment to improving the lives of blind people through 
technology since the mid-seventies. He is a talented inventor and 
thinker, and he has keynoted all four of the U.S./Canada 
technology seminars. We found it necessary to summarize parts of 
his remarks as the keynote speaker on October 27 since a written 
transcription of his demonstration of his new language-
translation program would have made very little sense.
     
     It's a great pleasure to be here at the headquarters of the 
National Federation of the Blind, which I would honestly say is 
my favorite organization, and I see many of my favorite people 
here, whom I have kept running into over the past quarter 
century. This is a very rewarding field of work, and I think 
people who discover it never leave. So it's always the same group 
of people.
     It started about a quarter century ago when I met Jim 
Gashel--who hasn't changed a bit--and he introduced me to Dr. 
Jernigan. We had this little project of a reading machine for the 
blind, which we were trying to interest people in, and a lot of 
people were interested in it and wished us well. But Dr. 
Jernigan, being the visionary and entrepreneurial person that he 
was, wanted to get involved and help us--help us in ways we 
hadn't expected, including helping us design the reading machine. 
We didn't realize we needed that help, but we did. Dr. Jernigan 
and Mr. Gashel organized a whole team of blind engineers and 
helped insure that the reading machine would be really useful to 
blind people.
     In my first session with Dr. Jernigan I didn't know a lot 
about blindness--I'm still learning, though I know more than I 
did a quarter of a century ago. He said that blindness could be 
just a characteristic, just a minor inconvenience, and that blind 
people could accomplish anything they wanted to, just like 
sighted people. At the time I wondered to myself to what extent 
that was really true--was this a goal or a political statement, 
or was it a reality? I want to come back to that as I talk about 
the role of technology because I think technology has one small 
part to play in realizing Dr. Jernigan's vision. I very quickly 
came to recognize that Dr. Jernigan's statement was a plain, 
realistic assessment, provided that you had an organization like 
the National Federation of the Blind to make some prerequisites 
of the vision a reality. Those prerequisites include training in 
the skills and knowledge to accomplish the things desired.
     The right attitudes about what blind people can accomplish 
are important for blind and sighted people alike. And information 
accessibility in all forms must be encouraged at every level. 
Technology has one role to play, but the technology needs to be 
useful to blind people. It needs to have the right features. 
Blind people must be involved in its development. The technology 
and the skills needed to use it effectively must be available.
     I want to come back to those issues, and I want to talk 
about how, in my view, technology will develop in general over 
the next century. I think we will be hearing a good bit about 
technology issues in the very near term at this conference. So I 
think it's appropriate to start out with a little more expansive 
view about where technology will go over the next several decades 
and how that will affect technology for the disabled, with 
particular regard to the visually impaired.
     I would like to start with some contemporary technology. 
This is technology circa 1999--actually I should probably say 
circa 2001. I had to decide whether to show you some bullet-proof 
technology that would be reliable or share with you some really 
cutting-edge technology that's not so bullet-proof. I opted for 
the latter, so I hope you'll bear with me. This is a rather 
complicated assemblage of software components, which usually work 
well together, but this is only the second time I have given this 
demonstration. I gave it in a private meeting with Bill Gates 
about ten days ago because he likes to stay on the cutting edge. 
It actually worked pretty well. It did make one mistake, which I 
will share with you after I give you this demo.
     [Dr. Kurzweil began by calibrating the system for the 
acoustical environment in which it would be working. He then said 
three times in a clear voice, "It is very good to be here comma." 
After a pause a female voice repeated the words in extremely 
understandable German. Speaking in short, clear phrases, he went 
on to say that this was a demonstration of a prototype of a 
translating telephone and that in several years anyone would be 
able to speak to anyone else regardless of the languages spoken 
by the parties. Each phrase was faithfully translated into 
excellently accented German.
     After making a small alteration in his equipment, Dr. 
Kurzweil spoke again, and after one patch of gobbledy-gook, 
French replaced the German. The same female voice spoke just as 
acceptable French as it had German. Then Dr. Kurzweil spoke in 
French, and the system produced unaccented English. In fairness 
one should point out that the machine's French pronunciation was 
considerably better than the human being's; yet the machine 
understood it and did its job.]
     This was a combination of three technologies running on a 
notebook computer: speech recognition (Version 4 of Voice 
Express, the Kurzweil voice-to-text technology I sold to Lernout 
& Hauspie two years ago), language translation, which can go back 
and forth in sixteen languages, and RealSpeak, which is a new 
speech synthesizer. This system uses a new version of Voice 
Express. I have another one which I used to dictate my book, but 
this is a fresh one that has only heard me for about ten minutes, 
so you can see that it is quite accurate.
     As for RealSpeak, I've been watching speech synthesis for 
twenty-five years, since we developed the first full text-to-
speech twenty-five years ago in the Kurzweil Reading Machine. The 
early text-to-speech required some getting used to. Over time 
speech synthesis has gotten more understandable, but it has still 
sounded synthetic. RealSpeak is new technology. It's not quite 
out as a product, but it is coming out. That was not recorded 
speech; it was text-to-speech. [He then typed a sentence into the 
computer for the system to read back, proving that it really was 
producing high-quality synthetic speech.] The speed can be 
varied.
     This full text-to-speech system will be in our reading 
machine anyway, along with the language translation, so that you 
can read something in French and hear it translated in a human-
sounding voice. A lot of the technology is actually devoted to 
the prosodics, understanding at least the grammar of the speech, 
so the inflection is fairly reasonable--not as intelligent as a 
human reading it, but pretty good. There will be other voices, 
and next year you will be able to record a sample of your own 
voice and have the machine speak in your voice or maybe someone 
else's voice that you like to listen to. 
     Let me now talk about where technology is going. We will be 
hearing a lot about the next few years, so I'll concentrate on 
the more distant future, as is, perhaps, fitting for a keynote. 
Then I will come back and address what the implications are for 
technology for blindness, which is something that has been 
important to me for twenty-five years, and I'm sure to all of 
you.
     How many people here are familiar with Moore's law? 
Virtually every hand went up. I always ask that question, but now 
it is sometimes almost insulting to do so. It's like asking if 
you have heard of computers. But only two or three years ago 
relatively few hands went up in most audiences, even among people 
in the computer industry. So Moore's law has become more and more 
noticeable.
     What is Moore's law? It says that transistors on an 
integrated circuit get smaller--take up about half as much space-
-every two years. This means that you can put twice as many 
transistors on an integrated circuit. And, because they are 
smaller and the electrons don't have to travel as far, they run 
twice as fast. That's actually a quadrupling of computer power 
for the same unit cost every two years. That's been going on for 
quite some time. Gordon Moore first noticed it in the 1960's. At 
first he said it was every twelve months; then he revised it to 
every twenty-four months in the 1970's. Where does Moore's Law 
come from? Why is this happening? Randy Isaacs from IBM Research 
says it's just a basic set of industry expectations, that it's 
been going on, so we know where we need to be at particular times 
in the future, and we target our research to be there. It is a 
self-fulfilling prophecy.
     But in examining where technology will go in the twenty-
first century, it's important to understand this phenomenon in 
greater depth because that paradigm of the shrinking transistors 
is going to come to an end. There is some controversy as to 
whether it is in ten years or twenty years, but sometime during 
the teen years, 2010 to 2019, the key features of transistors 
will be so small that they will be only a few atoms in width, and 
we won't be able to shrink them anymore. So is that the end of 
Moore's Law? Well yes, but is it the end of the acceleration of 
computer power, the exponential growth of computing that we have 
seen in recent decades?
     That is a very important question to answer because, 
depending on the outcome, either computer technology will 
continue to become more and more profound, or it will level off. 
So I have spent a lot of time examining that issue. Relatively 
little has been written about it. The first thing I did was to 
consider all of the computers over the past hundred years--forty-
nine machines going back to 1900. I started with the computer 
that did the 1890 U.S. census and ran up to the Turing Robinson 
machine built out of telephone relays that cracked the German 
Enigma code.
     That's actually an interesting story. A Polish spy had 
stolen the German Enigma machine, which had three coding wheels, 
and they figured out how it coded. But they needed a computer to 
figure out every combination of the coding wheels in order to 
decode messages. The only problem was that they didn't have a 
computer, So Turing invented the computer and built the first 
functioning computer in 1942. It succeeded in breaking the German 
code, and Churchill had a complete transcription of all the 
German military messages.
     He knew when the Nazis were going to bomb various English 
cities. He was under great pressure to warn city officials so 
that they could take necessary precautions, and he refused to do 
that because he figured that, if the Germans saw these 
precautions, they would realize that their code had been broken. 
He didn't really use this information until the Battle of Britain 
when suddenly the English planes just seemed to know at every 
moment where the German planes would be. Despite the fact that 
they were outnumbered, they won the Battle of Britain. And if it 
hadn't been for that, we wouldn't have had a place from which to 
launch our D-Day invasion.
     Anyway, I have that machine on the chart in the early '40's. 
Then there was the vacuum-tube computer that CBS used to predict 
the election of Eisenhower in 1952. The notebook computer you 
bought your daughter for Christmas last year is on the chart 
also. I put the computers on an exponential graph, in which a 
straight line would mean exponential growth. The first thing I 
noticed was that the exponential growth of computers goes back a 
hundred years, long before we had any integrated circuits, long 
before Moore's Law was feasible. So it turns out that Moore's Law 
is not the first but the fifth paradigm to project exponential 
growth in computing, starting with the relay-based electro-
mechanical calculators, then relay-based computers, then vacuum-
based computers, then transistor-based computers, and finally 
integrated-circuit computers.
     The other thing I noticed is that it's actually not a 
straight line. That graph is another exponential; the rate of 
exponential growth in computing has actually been growing 
exponentially. We doubled computing power every three years at 
the beginning of the century, every two years in the middle of 
the century; and now we are doubling it every year. So that rate 
continues to accelerate. One of the predictions that this 
suggests is that, when Moore's Law dies, there'll be another, a 
sixth paradigm to continue the exponential growth of computing.
     We don't have to look far to figure out what that is. 
Despite the fact that they are very dense, integrated circuits 
are built in two dimensions; they're flat. Our brains, by 
contrast, are built in three dimensions. We live in a three-
dimensional world; why not use the third dimension? That 
obviously will be the sixth paradigm. There are already chips 
with dozens of layers of circuitry; they are building some now 
with hundreds of layers of circuitry. And there is a new 
technology called nanotubes, which are basically pentagonal tubes 
of carbon atoms, and researchers have been able to arrange them 
in such a way that they can do every kind of electrical 
manipulation--emulate transistors and other types of electrical 
components. So they can actually build three-dimensional 
computing circuits at the atomic level using these molecular 
structures that are extremely strong and impervious to heat, 
which is the main problem in building two-dimensional circuits.
     They have built small-scale circuits; they haven't yet built 
a full nanotube-based computer, but this is technology that we 
can touch and feel. We know that it works. A one-inch cube of 
nanotube circuitry would be a million times more powerful than 
the human brain. There are probably a dozen different three-
dimensional types of circuitry being developed. We can't be sure 
which one will prevail, but I think we can have confidence that a 
sixth paradigm will be there when this fifth paradigm of Moore's 
Law runs out of steam just as in the 1950's, when they were 
building vacuum-tube-based computers. They kept shrinking the 
vacuum tubes and making them smaller and smaller. They finally 
came to a fundamental limit where they just couldn't make them 
any smaller; then transistors came along. Transistors are not 
small tubes; it's a completely different paradigm. 
     As we look at the history of technology, we see that this 
exponential growth of a technical process is inherent in all of 
technology. Moore's Law is not the only example of exponential 
growth. Take the human genome scans, a completely different 
issue. We can sequence DNA at a certain speed. Twelve years ago 
the human genome project was announced, and it was greeted with a 
lot of skepticism because people pointed out that at the speed 
with which we could then scan the human genome, it would take 
10,000 years to finish the project. Proponents of the project 
said, "Well, technology accelerates, so we'll figure out how to 
make this fast." And indeed, if you plot genome sequencing 
speeds, they have accelerated in the same way that computing 
speeds have. We are now going to finish that project on time, in 
a fifteen-year period. In fact, it is going to finish years 
early.
     Brain scanning used to be very crude, low-resolution, and 
slow, but it has also accelerated in the same way. We can make 
this basic observation about technology in general. Technology is 
an evolutionary process, and it accelerates. The first steps in 
technology took tens of thousands of years. It took thousands of 
years to figure out that, if you sharpened both sides of a stone, 
you created a sharp edge which made a useful tool. It also took 
tens of thousands of years to develop the other early steps in 
technology such as the wheel and using fire. But a key difference 
between the human species and other species is that we remembered 
these innovations. There are many examples of other species using 
tools, but they don't have a species-wide knowledge base that 
they pass down from generation to generation and to which they 
add on layers of innovation.
     Humans, in contrast, have used the tools from one generation 
to create the tools of the next. So a thousand years ago paradigm 
shifts took only a few hundred years rather than tens of 
thousands of years. We accomplished more in the nineteenth 
century than in the ten centuries before it. We accomplished more 
in the first twenty years of the twentieth century than we did in 
all of the nineteenth. Today paradigm shifts take only a few 
years. The World Wide Web didn't exist in anything like its 
current form just a few years ago. So technology accelerates.
     If we take an even broader view, we can say that any 
evolutionary process accelerates. Technology is just one example 
of that. Take the evolution of life forms. It took billions of 
years for the first cells to form. Then in the Cambrian explosion 
paradigm shifts took only tens of millions of years. Later on 
humanoids would evolve in only a few million years, then homo 
sapiens in only a few hundred thousand years. At that point the 
accelerating pace of the evolution of life forms became too fast 
for DNA-guided protein synthesis to keep up with it, and the 
cutting edge of evolution on Earth migrated from the evolution of 
life forms, changed from evolution of DNA-guided protein 
synthesis to the evolution of technology. 
     Obviously DNA-guided biological evolution continues, but it 
is at such a slow pace that it is insignificant compared to the 
accelerating pace of technology. The key point is that technology 
in the twenty-first century will become so powerful that it will 
provide the next step in evolution.
     If we view Moore's Law in this perspective, it's just one 
example of an accelerating technological process. It took us 
ninety years to achieve the first MIPS (million instructions per 
second) per thousand dollars. Now we add a MIPS per thousand 
dollars every day. So that process is accelerating. It is one of 
many accelerating processes in technology. Any particular 
innovation allows us to grow exponentially for a while, but then 
the paradigm eventually ends, and it's taken over by some other 
innovation. It is basically the process of human innovation and 
creativity that allows the exponential growth of a technology to 
continue. We can view the exponential growth of computing as an 
example of the exponential growth of any evolutionary process, 
and it goes back to the evolution of life on Earth. It's a multi-
billion-year process which is now getting faster and faster. 
     There are many technologies waiting in the wings which will 
continue that process. Where will this take us in the twenty-
first century? The human brain is immensely powerful in one way. 
It's remarkable that such an intricate, complex, rich, and deep-
thinking entity could evolve through natural selection. On the 
other hand its design is limited and crude in certain respects. 
The tremendous power of the human brain comes from its massively 
parallel organization. We have a hundred billion neurons. Each of 
them has a thousand connections to other neurons. That's a 
hundred trillion connections. The calculations take place in the 
connections, so that's a hundred-trillion-fold parallelism.
     This notebook computer I have up here does one thing at a 
time, and it does it very quickly. The human brain, by contrast, 
does a hundred trillion things at a time. That's a very different 
type of organization. On the other hand, the circuitry it uses is 
an electrochemical form of information-processing. It's both 
analog and digital. We can do analog processing with electronics-
-there's nothing unique there. But it's very slow. The human 
brain interneural connections calculate at about two hundred 
calculations per second, which is at least ten million times 
slower than electronic circuits. Neurons are quite big, clumsy 
objects compared to electronic circuits. Most of their complexity 
is devoted to maintaining their life processes and reproduction, 
not their information-processing capabilities. If we take that 
hundred trillion connections and multiply it by two hundred 
calculations per second, we get a capacity of about twenty 
billion million calculations per second, or about twenty billion 
MIPS, which is on the order of a million times more powerful than 
notebook computers today.
     But, as I mentioned, electronics and computing is growing 
exponentially; human thinking is not. It is relatively fixed. Our 
human thinking is constrained to a mere hundred trillion 
calculations at a time. Nonbiological intelligence has no such 
constraint. I have developed a mathematical model of this double 
exponential growth, which matches different technological 
processes. (Another one, by the way, is miniaturization. You have 
certainly noticed in your lifetime how technology gets smaller 
and smaller. That's actually another predictable exponential 
process. Right now we are shrinking technology at a rate of 5.6 
per linear dimension per decade.) So we can project where 
technology will be, at least in these types of quantitative 
terms,at different points in time. By 2019 a thousand-dollar 
computer--and they won't look like this rectangular box I have on 
the podium--will match that twenty billion million calculations 
per second. By 2030 a thousand-dollar computer will be a thousand 
times more powerful than the human brain. By 2050 a thousand 
dollars of computation will equal the thinking capacity of ten 
billion brains. I might be off a year or two on that. 
     I did actually predict in a book I wrote in the 1980's that 
by 1998 a computer would take the world chess championship, based 
on how many moves ahead I thought the computer would need to look 
to match the playing of a human grand master or chess champion. 
That was actually off by a year because it happened in 1997.
     But by 2019 we will have the basic capacity of human 
thinking in nonbiological form. That's a necessary but not 
sufficient condition to recreate human intelligence. We could 
have a machine that's a million times more powerful than the 
human brain and have merely a very fast calculator that could 
calculate your spreadsheet in a billionth of a second. But we 
wouldn't necessarily have the richness, subtlety, suppleness, and 
flexibility of human intelligence. We wouldn't have the endearing 
qualities of human thought. How are we going to achieve that, 
which I would call the software of human intelligence: the 
knowledge, the skills of human intelligence? 
     Before I address that question, let me say that, once 
nonbiological intelligence achieves the richness and capabilities 
of human intelligence and all the diverse ways that humans excel 
in thinking, it will necessarily soar past it for several 
reasons. For one thing machines can share their knowledge. If I 
spend years learning French, I can't download that knowledge to 
you. Humans can communicate, something that other species have 
not been able to do, in the way of building up a species-wide 
dialogue and cultural knowledge base and technological knowledge 
base, but we don't have quick downloading ports on our 
neurotransmitter concentrations.
     If I learn French, where is that knowledge; what is it; what 
represents all of my knowledge and skills and personality and 
capabilities? It's a pattern of information; it's a pattern on 
interneuronal connections. Our brains do grow new connections 
between neurons. That's part of our skill and knowledge. It's a 
vast, intricate pattern of information that's in my brain--in 
everyone's brain--representing memories, knowledge, and skill. 
And we don't have a way of taking that pattern and quickly 
instantiating it into someone else's brain.
     Machines do have that. Take this system I just demonstrated 
to you. We spent years teaching several research computers how to 
recognize human speech. We started with certain methods which 
were imperfect. We had tens of thousands of hours of recorded 
human speech, which is annotated with the accurate transcription. 
We had the speech-recognition system try to recognize it, and 
when it made mistakes, we corrected it. We've automated that 
teaching process, and patiently we have taught it to correct its 
errors. It adjusts its pattern of information to be able to do a 
better job. But after years we have a system in our laboratory 
which does a very good job of recognizing human speech.
     Now, if you want your notebook computer to recognize human 
speech, you don't have to go through those years of training. You 
can quickly load the program, which is the pattern of information 
that we've evolved over a couple of decades of research, and you 
can load it in a matter of seconds. So computers can share their 
knowledge; they do have the means of loading these patterns 
quickly. As we build these nonbiological equivalents of our 
thinking process, we are not going to leave out quick downloading 
ports for interneuronal connection patterns and neuro-
transmission concentration patterns.
     Another advantage is that electronics is inherently faster--
ten million times faster right now and continuing to get faster. 
As we can build structures that are equivalent in three 
dimensions to the massively parallel processing of the human 
brain, they will be inherently faster than human thinking.
     Machines have more accurate memories. We are all hard-
pressed to remember a handful of phone numbers. Machines can 
remember billions of facts accurately and recall them very 
quickly. So, if we combine the subtlety and richness of human 
thinking with some of these advantages of knowledge-sharing, 
speed, and accuracy of memory, it will be a formidable 
combination. And the nonbiological forms of intelligence will 
continue to grow exponentially.
     But how are we going to achieve that software of 
intelligence? All of this speed is just brute force,crunching of 
information. It's not the subtlety and richness of human 
intelligence. In my book [The Age of Spiritual Machines] I talk 
about a number of different scenarios, but I'll just address one, 
which I think is the most compelling. We have an example of an 
entity that has human-level intelligence: the human brain. We 
have several dozen examples in this room. It's not hidden from 
us.
     It's not impossible to access that information. In fact, we 
are well down that path. We've been scanning the human brain,and, 
as I mentioned earlier, the speed and resolution of our ability 
to do that is continuing to accelerate as well. We have the 
ability today actually to scan the human brain with sufficient 
resolution and fineness of detail to see every single detail, all 
the neurotransmitter concentrations, the interneural connections, 
provided that the scanning tip is in close physical proximity to 
those neural features. So we take that scanning tip and move it 
around in the brain so that it's near every single interneural 
connection, every neurotransmitter concentration, every detail.
     How are we going to do that without making a mess of things? 
We are going to do it in the following way. This is a scenario 
that we can touch and feel today. Everything I am going to 
describe is feasible today, except for cost and size. But those 
are aspects that we can readily predict because of the ongoing 
trends of the accelerating price performance of computing and 
diminishing size or miniaturization. We simply develop what I 
call little nanobots, nano-robots, the size of blood cells, which 
are little computers with some robotic and scanning capability, 
and send them through the bloodstream. By the way, we already 
have early prototypes of nanobots, something called smart dust, 
which is extremely tiny specks that actually have computers in 
them, scanning devices, communication devices. They can actually 
fly; they have little wings. So we are already building little 
tiny devices.
     By 2030 we will be able to send billions of these little 
nanobots through the bloodstream. They will travel through every 
capillary in the brain and get into close physical proximity to 
every neural feature and build up a big database of exactly how 
that human brain is organized.The results will at least be a data 
dump of the organization of a human brain. What are we going to 
do with that information? One thing is that we are going to learn 
how the human brain works and understand how those massively 
parallel analog algorithms work. That's already underway. We 
actually already have maps of the early auditory and visual 
cortex. This speech-recognition, for example, has built into it 
the transformations that the human brain does on sound 
information. Without that speech recognition wouldn't work very 
well. So we are already applying our insights into the human 
brain from these scanning projects to the design of intelligent 
software.
     Another application of this kind of intelligent software is 
that we could reinstantiate the whole database into a neural 
computer of sufficient capacity. That wouldn't necessarily 
require us to understand all the methods. We would need to 
understand local brain processes, but not necessarily global 
brain processes. So if you scan my brain and reinstantiate it 
into a computer, you'd have a new Ray Kurzweil, and he would 
claim to have grown up in Queens, New York, and have gone to 
Massachusetts to go to MIT, and then he met Dr. Jernigan and 
developed a relationship with the National Federation of the 
Blind and was involved with reading machines for a few decades. 
He would say, "I walked into the scanner over there and woke up 
in the machine here. This technology really works." He will have 
a memory of having been Ray Kurzweil and will believe that he is 
Ray Kurzweil.
     Of course I'll still be here in my old carbon-cell-based 
body and brain, and I'll probably end up jealous of the new Ray 
Kurzweil because he'll be capable of things I could only dream 
of. Sometimes this scenario is presented as a road to 
immortality, but there are some philosophical issues that one has 
to contend with. For example, you could scan my brain while I am 
sleeping and reinstantiate. I wouldn't even necessarily know 
about it. If you came to me in the morning and said, "Hey Ray, 
good news--we've successfully scanned and reinstantiated your 
brain; we don't need your old carbon-cell-based body and brain 
anymore," I might discover a flaw in that philosophical 
perspective.
     We could talk for a long time about the philosophical 
conundrums of what consciousness is and whether these entities 
are conscious at all. I will say that these entities will 
certainly seem conscious; they will claim to be human even though 
they are based on nonbiological thinking processes. They will 
seem very human, and they will be very intelligent, so they will 
succeed in convincing us that they are intelligent. We will come 
to believe them; they will get mad if we don't believe them. Some 
philosophers will say, no, you cannot be conscious unless you 
squirt neurotransmitters, or you can't be conscious unless you 
are based on DNA-guided protein synthesis. Yes, they seem very 
conscious and they're compelling and they are funny and they get 
the joke and are emotional and they are very clever, but they 
don't squirt neurotransmitters, so they aren't conscious. At that 
point the nonbiological intelligence will crack a joke and will 
complain about being misunderstood, so we will come to accept 
that these are conscious entities.
     But the more practical scenario we will see is that we will 
expand our own human intelligence through combining with this 
nonbiological intelligence. One way we will do this is with these 
nanobots. Today we have something called neuron transistors. 
These are little electrical devices, which, if they are in close 
physical proximity to a neuron, can communicate in both 
directions with that neuron. They can detect the firing of a 
neuron and can also cause that neuron to fire or suppress it from 
firing. That is two-way communication noninvasively--it doesn't 
have to stick a wire into the neuron; it just has to be next to 
it. 
     This technology is being used today. The whole era of 
neuroimplants has already started. I have a deaf friend who, 
before he got his cochlear implant, was profoundly deaf. I can 
now talk to him on the telephone because of his neural implant. 
There are neural implants for people with Parkinson's Disease--
Parkinson's scrambles a certain locus of cells--and this neural 
implant replaces that neural module with an electronic equivalent 
and communicates through this type of noninvasive, electronic 
interface. This was first developed about three years ago. In a 
dramatic demonstration of the technology, patients with advanced 
Parkinson's so that they were completely rigid were wheeled in to 
the room. The doctor, who was controlling them noninvasively 
through wireless radio control--which is a little scary--flipped 
the switch, and suddenly they came alive. Their Parkinson's 
symptoms were eliminated as he activated their neural implants.
     In my book I talk about an era of neural implants in which 
we will all use them to expand our thinking capability, not just 
to reverse diseases such as Parkinson's. People have challenged 
that, asking how many people are going to want to get a neural 
implant? Brain surgery is a pretty big step, a pretty formidable 
obstacle. The response is that we will be able to do this 
noninvasively. I just wrote a paper called "The Noninvasive, 
Surgery-Free, Reversible, Programmable, Distributed Neural 
Implant." It again uses these nanobots.
     Remember that already today we have the means for electronic 
devices to communicate in both directions in the brain, to detect 
what is going on in the neural biological circuits and also to 
control them. So these nanobots go through the blood stream and 
take up positions in millions or billions of different locations; 
they can basically expand the brain. They can create new 
interneural connections because they will all be on a wireless 
area network. They will also all be plugged into the World Wide 
Web wirelessly, so they can expand all of our biological 
networks, or memory, learning capability. We will be able to 
download knowledge and skills. This will really happen. It will 
be gradually introduced in different ways. But as we go through 
the twenty-first century, we will be expanding our thinking 
capability through this intimate connection with nonbiological 
intelligence.
     So let me come back to technology for the blind and just 
mention what we'll see as a few milestones. The very early part 
of the twenty-first century, the next several years, will see a 
rapid evolution of reading machines. They will take on new 
capabilities. They will sound human. They will translate 
languages. This is technology that will be introduced very soon. 
They will also get smaller. I have talked about my vision of 
hand-held reading machines for many years. We are really very 
close to having the technical means to have a digital camera that 
you can hold in the palm of your hand and instantly snap pages 
with sufficient resolution. We are also close to providing a 
pocket-sized reading machine that you can hold up to printed 
information in the real world, not necessarily on paper, like 
road signs, LTD displays, or other examples of real-world text.
     If we look out ten to twenty years from now, computers as we 
know them are essentially going to disappear. They are not going 
to be in little boxes and palmtops that you can put into your 
pocket. They are going to become very small and discrete and be 
built into our clothing and into other little devices that we can 
carry around on our bodies. This again is all technology that we 
can touch and feel today. There are already tiny visual sensors 
the size of pins that provide very high-resolution imaging. In 
fact, the smart dust that I talked about has visual sensors. Part 
of the application for that is spying. One version of this is 
being developed by the U.S. military so that they can just drop 
millions of these in enemy territory. These tiny little visual 
sensors will be flying around and sending back reports on what 
they see.
     But we can also apply this type of technology to the 
visually impaired. We will have the means constantly to interpret 
that visual information and present it through other modalities 
such as whispering in your ear or providing tactile information 
or combinations thereof. There will be plenty of opportunity to 
develop the most appropriate means of doing that. It's probably 
something we can't fully describe today. But information can be 
presented in many different forms. The reading machine is one 
example of that.
     These visual sensors, which will be looking around in all 
directions, will be interpreting that information and providing a 
constant stream of information for a visually impaired person. 
This would include reading. Any kind of printed information could 
be spoken or translated by using reading machines, but they will 
also provide other interpretations of the visual world,
     That's the scenario for 2010 to 2020. These devices will 
also be plugged into the World Wide Web through wireless 
communication. Everyone is going to walk around plugged into the 
World Wide Web at all times. Going to a Web site will mean 
entering a virtual-reality environment. We'll have the means of 
communicating with other people through that type of wireless 
communication at all times. These computing devices will be in 
and around our bodies and clothing within ten years. That's the 
scenario for between 2010 and 2020.
     As we go out to 2030 and beyond, the type of technology I 
described, which can be introduced inside our bodies and brains, 
will become a reality. Like every other type of technology, they 
won't provide every capability that one could imagine initially, 
but the technology will continue to evolve. The power of the 
computing substrate will continue to grow exponentially, so we 
will have the means of introducing knowledge and information into 
our brains in a more intimate way. This is a vision for everyone. 
Ultimately that will mean that we will have many different ways 
of experiencing the world and expanding our knowledge.
     Of course it will be important to develop and design this 
technology in ways that provide equal access for people with 
disabilities to overcome the disabilities and overcome the 
handicaps associated with disabilities. One lesson I have learned 
is the difference between the words "disability" and "handicap." 
Visual impairment, blindness, is a disability, and it may or may 
not be a handicap, depending on whether that person has the right 
set of skills and access to the right kind of technology. That's 
why organizations like the National Federation of the Blind and 
the Canadian National Institute for the Blind are vital, so that 
the power of this technology is applied to overcoming those 
handicaps.
     One handicap is the inability to access ordinary print for 
material that isn't readily available in Braille or Talking Book 
form. Reading machines have the potential of overcoming that, 
provided that they are designed in the right way and that people 
have access to them and that they are affordable and distributed 
and that people learn how to use them. That's true for all 
technology. Overcoming handicaps is not necessarily an issue of 
technology. Sometimes simple technical solutions such as the 
fiber glass cane can overcome limitations in travel. But that's a 
matter of having the right set of skills, and again we need 
organizations like the NFB to make sure that they are available.
     We will have many new tools in the future. These will 
provide opportunity, but there will also be challenges as we saw 
with the graphical user interface, which was a new technology 
that suddenly made visual information from the computer harder to 
access. With concerted efforts over the past five to ten years 
we've made great progress in making GUI information available. 
But we are going to continue to have those kinds of challenges 
when new technologies that create new sources of information are 
introduced. It's important that we keep in mind accessibility and 
make sure that blind people have access to the information. But I 
think the technical tools will be there, provided that we develop 
them in the right way.
     That's really the purpose of this conference, to deal with 
some of the near-term issues of new technology. That will 
continue to be the case as we go forward. But I think we will 
have the tools, provided that we develop them in the right ways 
to continue the vision that Dr. Jernigan articulated, which I 
quickly decided back twenty-five years ago was true for all the 
people I met coming out of the Iowa Commission and from the 
National Federation of the Blind, but wasn't true for every blind 
person. Some didn't have the access, the training, and really the 
attitude that information is available in many different forms 
and that there is nothing that a blind person is unable to 
accomplish if there is access to the information and skills. That 
is the purpose of this conference. Technology has one role to 
play. I look forward to continuing to work on this. I've been 
involved with this field for twenty-five years, and I look 
forward to working with Dr. Maurer and Dr. Herie and other 
leaders of this field to continue that progress.
     
     
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Curtis Chong]
     The Current State of Technology for the Blind
     And the Challenge for the Twenty-first Century
     by Curtis Chong

From the Editor: Curtis Chong is the Director of the National 
Federation of the Blind's Technology Department.

     I am very pleased to be able to talk with you today and to tell 
you where I think we are with respect to technology for the 
blind. I also hope to share some of my thoughts about what I 
think we should do in the next century to ensure that the blind 
get a piece of the action in the area of technology.
     It is fair to say that we, the blind, have entered the age 
of technology with a vengeance. Technology has profoundly 
affected our lives. We see this in the classroom, where the blind 
child learns to use an electronic note-taker, Braille embosser, 
or computer. We see this in the colleges and universities, where 
blind students routinely write and spell-check their college 
papers with word-processing software and communicate using e-
mail. We see this in the vocational rehabilitation system, where 
clients ask their counselors for computers, screen-reading 
programs, print-reading systems, and electronic note-takers to 
help them compete with the sighted. We see this in the office, 
where blind employees use the same computer programs as their 
sighted peers. We see this in the home, where blind people 
struggle to learn enough so that they can use computers to manage 
personal finances, send e-mail to friends and relatives, and shop 
on the Web.
     Much of the technology we use today was designed 
specifically for the blind. Other technology, developed for the 
general commercial market, is used by the blind with the help of 
so-called assistive technology. And to a growing extent there is 
commercial off-the-shelf technology which has in it enough 
nonvisual access that a blind person can use it out of the box.
     We have speech output and refreshable Braille note-takers 
which, while pretending not to be computers, allow us to take 
notes, organize information, execute ordinary and scientific 
calculations, and keep track of time and appointments. You might 
think of these devices as personal digital assistants (PDA's) for 
the blind. However, unlike PDA's for the sighted, our PDA's still 
can't send and receive faxes or e-mail, they don't fit very well 
into fanny packs, and they cost a lot more.
     We have Braille embossers of all types that receive text 
from computers and produce anything from personal letters to 
magazine-style publications. Because of these embossers and the 
Grade II translation programs which are necessary accompaniments, 
we can get more literary Braille than has ever been produced 
before. Because of improvements in Grade II translation software, 
the level of skill required to produce readable, properly-
formatted literary Braille depends less upon an understanding of 
the Braille code than on an understanding of the differences 
between print and Braille formatting. The Brailling of 
mathematics and highly technical material still requires more 
sophistication, however; the electronic source format for these 
materials cannot yet be converted automatically into properly-
formatted Nemeth Code or Computer Braille.
     We have refreshable Braille displays with which we can read 
a single line of rapidly-changing text. However, these devices 
are still beyond the financial reach of most blind individuals, 
and the cost of manufacturing a refreshable Braille display with 
multiple lines is still prohibitive.
     We have stand-alone reading machines and computer software 
that can convert pages of printed text into speech. For those 
blind users who don't mind working with a system that is not 
necessarily blind-friendly, this technology can also be found in 
the commercial market--for a lot less money. But the technology 
still misses on average about one in every hundred letters, does 
not handle cursive writing or pictures, requires at least thirty 
seconds to process each printed page, and is not portable by any 
stretch of the imagination.
     We have NEWSLINEr for the Blind and America's Jobliner. 
These technologies were developed by the National Federation of 
the Blind to close the gap in access to information technology 
for the blind. With NEWSLINE the texts of seven national and more 
than twenty local newspapers are made available to blind people 
around the country who need only a conventional touch-tone 
telephone to access the system. With America's Jobline blind 
people and many others now have access to job announcements on 
America's Job Bank, and they don't need a computer to get this 
information. While these technologies provide the blind with 
unprecedented access to important information, there are still 
not enough local service centers to blanket the country.
     Moving away from blindness-specific technology, we have the 
personal computer, made nonvisually accessible with the help of 
screen-access software and hardware. The combination of 
blindness-specific technology with off-the-shelf commercial 
technology has given us unprecedented access to information in a 
way that we have never had before. It has also given rise to 
challenges whose solution requires the blending of technical 
expertise from the commercial sector and from the blindness 
sector.
     Today, no matter what professional job you have, the 
personal computer is an important and highly visible part of 
getting your work done. If you can't use a personal computer or 
if you can't find a way to get somebody else to do your computer-
related tasks, you will be operating at a severe disadvantage, 
and your ability to produce quality work will be diminished. This 
is the reality today, and I predict that the ability to use a 
computer will become even more important for the professional 
jobs of tomorrow. This will be as true for the blind as for the 
sighted. The difference for us, the blind, is that unless the 
technology moves in a radically different direction, we will 
still have to rely upon so-called third-party or assistive 
technology to use the computer--technology which introduces added 
complexity, requires additional training, and demands its own 
unique brand of technical expertise.
     While we are on the subject of the personal computer, we 
cannot avoid talking about access to the Windows operating system 
and Windows applications. Today we have fairly good access to the 
Windows 95, 98, and NT operating systems. Most operating system 
functions are accessible through the keyboard, and the screen- 
access vendors have enough information about how these operating 
systems work to keep track of what most operating-system 
functions send to the screen. Windows 98, released by Microsoft 
last year, tries to make things on the screen appear as if you 
are browsing the Web. This confuses many of the screen-reading 
programs. Fortunately, with a bit of customization, the Web-like 
appearance can be turned off. (This is, by the way, one example 
of some good work that has been accomplished by Microsoft to aid 
the accessibility effort.) On a less positive note, with Windows 
NT, it is still not possible today for a blind computer user to 
run a screen-reading program while identifying him- or herself to 
the operating system. Logging in is still more a matter of faith 
and good keyboarding skills.
     Nonvisual access to Windows-based word processors, data base 
programs, accounting packages, Web browsers, and e-mail clients 
is still not what it should be. Yes, to a greater or lesser 
extent we can use Microsoft Word, Internet Explorer, the Access 
data base program, various e-mail programs, and other Windows 
applications, but our ability to use these programs with 100% 
efficiency leaves a lot to be desired. It is also far too easy 
for any access that might have been gained on a current version 
to be lost when a new version is released. There are also too 
many programs, developed internally by employers for their 
employees, which work either poorly or not at all with screen- 
access technology for the blind. This is a significant barrier to 
employment.
     All of this is to say that our access to Windows and its 
applications is far from perfect. I still cringe whenever I hear 
about a new Windows program or a proposed upgrade to Windows 
itself. Why? Because the first thing I ask myself is, "Will the 
upgrade or program work with screen-access technology for the 
blind?" In the case of a Windows upgrade, it is almost certain 
that the screen-access technology will have to be updated to deal 
with internal changes that have been made to the operating 
system.
     In the case of a new program--such as a new customer service 
application used by XYZ employer, it is more likely that the 
program will not work well or at all with screen-access 
technology for the blind. We can't go out and hunt up a new 
financial management program, a new data base program, or a new 
word processor and just buy it because we like its features. We 
have to pay for the program, test it with our screen-access 
technology, and if it doesn't work, return it and hope to get our 
money back.
     The World Wide Web is likely to become a critical element of 
the solution to our nonvisual access problem. Although most of us 
think of the Web in the context of Windows, Netscape, and 
Internet Explorer, the fact is that Web-based information is not 
dependent on a specific operating system or computer platform. 
The technology of the Web is very quickly becoming central to all 
manner of inter- and intranet applications. E-commerce, 
electronic forms, online encyclopedias, and chat rooms: these are 
but a few of the applications which either are or soon will be 
based on Web technology. In order for the blind to have nonvisual 
access to the Web, we must have nonvisual access to the Web pages 
themselves, the Web browsing and other software which brings the 
Web pages to the user, and the tools which help us to design and 
publish our own Web pages.
     All of these access issues are currently under consideration 
by the Web Access Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web 
Consortium. What this means for the blind is that the entire 
range of nonvisual and other access issues is being considered 
internationally. So far as I can tell, a good deal has already 
been accomplished. The WAI has already released a recommendation 
on Web content accessibility and is hard at work on accessibility 
guidelines for user agents and authoring tools. If the 
recommendations emerging from the work of WAI are followed, we 
stand a very good chance of having the kind of access we need in 
order to take full advantage of this burgeoning technology.
     I want to talk briefly about access to electronic copies of 
published works. At one time there were those who thought that, 
if you wanted an electronic copy of a printed book, it was 
sufficient to get a plain ASCII text version from the publisher. 
Anyone who has done any transcription with today's Braille 
translation software will tell you that converting straight ASCII 
text to properly formatted Braille is a labor-intensive process. 
The reasons for this are too complex to discuss here, but suffice 
it to say that what is needed is material from the publishers 
with more information about how the material is structured. Is a 
line of text a sidebar, a heading, a line item in a table of 
contents, an index item, or simply a normal paragraph? Which text 
is supposed to go into a footnote? What should be done with the 
repetitive information that often appears at the top or bottom of 
each page?
     If electronic copies of published books contained this 
information from the beginning, the process of converting the 
material into Braille would be much easier. Unfortunately, 
publishing tools in use today are designed to provide visual--not 
logical--structural information. As long as the source material 
is prepared only for visual presentation, we will always have 
this problem of conversion from a visual format to a nonvisual 
one. This increases the amount of work required to get a good 
Braille textbook from an electronic copy supplied by the 
publishers.
     No discussion of the current state of technology would be 
complete without mentioning digitally controlled appliances and 
the problems they pose for the blind. As far as I know, very 
little work is going on to attack the problem of on-screen menus, 
buttons that we cannot feel, rotary knobs whose settings can be 
ascertained only by looking at a visual display, and "smart" 
appliances which refuse to forget your last mistake and take you 
right back to your disaster even after you pull the plug.
     The other day I went to look at some electronic appliances. 
Do you know that there are now stoves and ovens with controls on 
smooth glass surfaces that are completely undetectable by touch? 
Admittedly these digital controls appear today only on some high- 
end appliances. But if nothing is done, it is only a matter of 
time before they begin creeping into the lower-end appliances. At 
the very least the blind consumer shopping for appliances today 
must give careful attention in the store to how the controls 
operate or risk finding out after it has been delivered that the 
appliance cannot be operated without sight.
     I want to turn now to considerations for the twenty-first 
century. I think everyone would agree that in the next century 
our use of technology will increase in ways we haven't even begun 
to imagine. We, the blind, must be able to take advantage of the 
new technologies that are sure to be developed or risk being 
relegated to the technological backwaters of society.
     We must find ways to obtain nonvisual access to operating 
systems and application software without having to use software- 
and hardware-dependent strategies. We are fortunate indeed that 
Windows and the Intel-based processor on which it runs have 
achieved widespread use in the world today. This has permitted 
the development of a variety of screen-access programs, 
stimulating competition, and reducing costs to the consumer. But 
what will happen if we have to contend with ten or more different 
operating systems and dozens of different processor types? Where 
will screen-access technology be able to take us then?
     One possibility is a smart screen reader capable of looking 
at and interpreting the contents of any video display. Another is 
the development of a cross-platform protocol which allows 
information to be transmitted between any computer-controlled 
system and a portable access device. I am sure there are other 
possible solutions. We just have to get busy and create them.
     Developers and designers of commercial technology must be 
encouraged--if not required--to include nonvisual access during 
the design stage of their products and to provide the information 
we need directly--for example, a self-voicing application. This 
will allow nonvisual access to be added at a point where its cost 
is relatively trivial, and it will help to move nonvisual access 
into the commercial market, where its cost can be spread over 
billions of consumers.
     Inevitably there will be times when we will be able to use 
specific devices only with a combination of sighted assistance 
and old-fashioned basic blindness skills. This underscores the 
continuing need for training programs which teach the alternative 
techniques of blindness while promoting a positive, can-do 
attitude which encourages innovation, creativity, and self-
reliance. Remember, the human brain continues to be the most 
flexible computer in the world. Oftentimes the simplest methods 
provide the most effective solutions.
     We must find ways to make complex technologies easier to 
use. For too long we have forced the blind user to accommodate 
his or her tasks and skills to conform to the requirements of the 
technology--not the other way around. Why can't technology be 
smart enough to accommodate itself to the blind user? If I can't 
see the screen of a computer, shouldn't it be smart enough to 
talk to me? A picture may be worth a thousand words, but what if 
I need to hear the thousand words? If I don't know how to type, 
why can't the computer listen to what I have to say and do what I 
want? Yes, computers aren't smart enough to do these things 
today, but they surely will be tomorrow. Our challenge is to 
ensure that the development of more sophisticated technologies 
works to our benefit instead of putting roadblocks in our path.
     We must find a way to bring together the concepts of visual 
and logical structure in electronic publications. At the very 
least, publishers of commercial books intended for the sighted 
must be willing to put some effort into the task of converting 
materials intended for visual presentation into a format which 
facilitates production of material in nonvisual formats such as 
Braille or speech.
     Perhaps the biggest challenge facing us in the next century 
is the unpredictability of technological change. We know that the 
one constant we can count on with respect to technology is 
change. We also know that even our best predictions are often 
proven wrong. In 1981 Bill Gates said, "640K ought to be enough 
for anybody." The desktop computers of today, with anywhere from 
32 to 128 to 256 megabytes of memory, are vivid reminders of the 
fallacy of that statement. So, while we know that big changes are 
ahead, we must also bear in mind that the nature of those changes 
is hard to predict. If we exercise our human talents of 
flexibility, adaptability, and creativity and if we always keep 
in mind the competence and normality of the blind, the next 
century will indeed be a time of progress and accomplishment.
     
     
[PHOTO/CAPTION: James Gashel]
     The State of the Law on Technology and the Blind:
     What It Is, and What It Ought to Be
     by James Gashel
     
     From the Editor: Jim Gashel is the Director of Governmental 
Affairs for the National Federation of the Blind.
     
     There ought to be a law! This is what we're taught to say in 
my line of work. I am the Director of Governmental Affairs for 
the National Federation of the Blind. Having laws made, rather 
than having machines made, is our way of fixing things and 
solving problems. This is what many people say is wrong with our 
country. Perhaps that is so, but I still say, "There ought to be 
a law!"
     For those of us who are blind, the advent of modern and 
evolving communications technology virtually forces this 
response--"There ought to be a law." I can remember only a few 
years ago when a single computer workstation was nothing more 
than that--a stand-alone computer with a monitor and a printer 
connected to it. You could use it to process words, keep lists, 
or perform computations, but that was just about it. If you 
wanted to find information that did not reside within that 
system, you would have to go somewhere else to look it up. If you 
wanted to communicate with another person about the information, 
you could use the computer to write that person a letter, then 
print the letter out, drop it in the mail, and hope. That's the 
way it was, even in the early part of the decade now ending.
     I realize that many--perhaps most of you in this group--may 
not have the same perspective on technology that I do because 
working in this field is your life. For most people in the world, 
however, contact with sophisticated computer and communications 
technology has not been a common, daily experience. Besides, 
someone else with the ability and skill required could usually be 
called upon to operate the equipment when needed. If you were 
blind, unless computers were directly within your line of work--
such as programming them--you could avoid interacting with them 
pretty much altogether. At least that's what I did.
     Now the world is changing. That is obvious. And the way we 
communicate with one another is changing every day. On Monday of 
this week, for example, I received my first spoken-word e-mail 
message. I have no idea why the person sent the message as a wave 
file, using a service called "shout-mail," but, if the message 
itself was not interesting (which, like most of my e-mail, it was 
not) the technology used to deliver the message certainly was.
     More than being just interesting, of course, the technology 
which is now at our fingertips has become a regular part of daily 
life. Access to electronic information technology is absolutely 
essential. The communications infrastructure now being built will 
make skilled use of this technology even more essential for 
anyone, blind or sighted, in the years ahead. Simply put, we are 
all being forced to become technology-literate, or watch from the 
sidelines while those who are technology-literate pass us by.
     The pace of implementing new ways to communicate and acquire 
information is frightening to some, but the failure to include a 
means of nonvisual access is most frightening for blind people. I 
say that this is most frightening because barriers to 
communication are intolerable roadblocks to success in the 
knowledge-based economy of today and beyond. Barriers to the 
acquisition of information are not the kind of nuisance-level 
annoyance that the blind can overcome with good training. The 
barriers in the cyber-world are real. Unless we respond 
effectively, these barriers now being built will impose a 
competitive disadvantage upon blind people as a class.
     This is obviously a serious matter. Therefore I submit that, 
among the things which must be done, we need more laws. I know 
there are laws on the books already to deal with technology 
access, but we really do need more of them. The Americans with 
Disabilities Act declares that discrimination on the basis of 
disability is illegal in public services and in public 
accommodations provided by private entities. This prohibition is 
echoed and applied to governmental entities--federal, state, and 
local--by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as 
amended. Isn't this enough law? I don't think so.
     Laws against discrimination are fine as a general 
proposition, and we usually support them. However, using the law 
of nondiscrimination to address technology access has not worked, 
or at least not worked very well. I think this is so because 
enforcement of laws against discrimination occurs more or less as 
a case-by-case event. Also enforcement usually occurs to correct 
wrongdoing after the fact.
     With nonvisual access to information technology, we need to 
correct wrongdoing before the fact--before the technology is 
built and particularly before it is installed. If that does not 
occur, the claim of hardship, which will be presented as a 
defense against a charge of discrimination, may be overpowering. 
After all, most judges can see, and they generally don't believe 
that a failure to make a device one way, as opposed to another, 
would constitute discrimination.
     This is why our approach to access has focused on the law of 
procurement and not solely on nondiscrimination law. I think that 
most of you are aware of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 
1973, as amended, which was completely revised as a part of the 
latest series of amendments to the Rehabilitation Act, enacted in 
1998.
     Section 508 speaks forcefully for access requirements in the 
development, purchasing, and use of electronic and information 
technology by agencies of the federal government. Later in this 
conference Pat Cannon, who serves as one of the public members on 
the Access Board, will discuss the new standards being developed 
under this law. These standards are expected to be in effect for 
all of the federal government next August.
     This is certainly part of what is needed, but it is still 
not enough. About two and a half years ago the National 
Federation of the Blind published a model bill for states to use 
in promoting nonvisual access to information technology. To date, 
five states--Arkansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Texas, and Virginia--
have enacted laws patterned on this model.
     The provisions of these laws differ somewhat from one state 
to another, but the general thrust is the same--to require all 
procurement contracts for information technology to include a 
nonvisual access clause. In Maryland and most of the other states 
as well, the content of this clause is specified in the law, 
requiring (1) that the technology must provide equivalent access 
for effective use by both visual and nonvisual means; (2) that 
the technology will present information, including prompts used 
for interactive communications, in formats intended for both 
visual and nonvisual use; (3) that the technology can be 
integrated into networks for obtaining, retrieving, and 
disseminating information used by individuals who are not blind 
or visually impaired; and (4) that technology which is designed 
to be compatible with nonvisual access devices and software will 
be obtained whenever such technology, not requiring modification, 
is available.
     The bottom-line, fundamental point of this legislation is 
that systems and technology which are purchased and used by the 
state must be designed with compatibility for nonvisual use built 
in from the very beginning. In case you hadn't noticed, the 
federal government is not the only entity involved in the 
procurement of information technology. When we placed this bill 
before the Maryland General Assembly two years ago, the state was 
expecting to spend close to half a billion dollars on information 
technology in that year alone. The same is happening everywhere. 
Cities and counties too are purchasing information technology in 
order to be part of the new infrastructure being used to 
communicate and disseminate information.
     In the view of the National Federation of the Blind, and I 
suspect that this is a generally held view within this group as 
well, any public entity must include criteria for nonvisual 
access in contracts for the purchase of information technology. 
The same is true of private entities that provide services to the 
public. We must see to it that they do it.
     Therefore consistent enactment of the model access 
legislation in as many political jurisdictions as possible, and 
applying to as many entities as possible--states, counties, 
cities, school districts, the private sector, etc.--must be 
placed at the top of our priority list. The technology of the 
future will certainly have a new look. Our responsibility is to 
insist upon a new sound and a new feel to the technology as well. 
The times require it, and the law must demand it.
     
     
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Fredric Schroeder]
     Rehabilitation Requirements and the Need for Universal Access to 
     Information: The Accelerated Pace of Technology, a Challenge
     for Vocational Rehabilitation
     by Fredric K. Schroeder, Ph.D.
     
     From the Editor: Dr. Schroeder is the Commissioner of the 
Rehabilitation Services Administration, U.S. Department of 
Education.
     
     I was very pleased in an earlier presentation to hear Mr. 
Chong talk about some of the access issues surrounding the 
ubiquitous appliances filling our lives. Last May I had the honor 
of being at the ceremony when Dr. Maurer was awarded an honorary 
doctorate by the University of Louisville. I was talking about 
this issue with Dr. and Mrs. Maurer and Dr. Cranmer. In 
particular I was complaining about remote controls for 
televisions in hotels. I said that it seemed to me there should 
be some simple, commonly agreed-upon symbols to signify frequent 
activities, such as up-and-down channel, up-and-down volume, and 
on-off buttons.
     It wouldn't solve all the problems; it certainly wouldn't 
solve the problem of menu-driven features now on televisions. (I 
was astonished one time, when I was trying to run a hotel 
television, suddenly to have Spanish coming over my TV. I do not 
speak Spanish fluently, so it was some disadvantage to me to have 
this happen.) Anyway, I was saying that, just as the dot on the 
five of telephone and other keypads has become widespread, there 
ought to be a standardized set of symbols for television remote 
controls. Mrs. Maurer commented that perhaps we could call it the 
Uniform Button Code, which I thought had some merit.
     My purpose this morning is to talk to you about technology 
as it relates to rehabilitation. Successive Harris polls 
commissioned by the National Organization on Disability have 
shown that two-thirds of people with disabilities in the United 
States are unemployed. The Social Security Administration reports 
that over seven million people now receive Social Security 
Supplemental Income or Social Security Disability Insurance at a 
cost of more than eighty billion dollars annually. The high 
unemployment of blind people and others with disabilities is a 
national tragedy. Accordingly, two years ago President Clinton 
noted, "If America is to continue to grow and prosper, if we are 
to lead the challenging global economy of the twenty-first 
century, we cannot afford to ignore the talents, energy, and 
creativity of the fifty-four million Americans with 
disabilities."
     But how do we solve the unemployment and underemployment of 
the blind and others? All of you are aware of recent changes to 
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act that strengthen the 
requirement for federal agencies to purchase accessible 
technology. Later you will hear a detailed discussion of the 
Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board's work 
on developing accessibility standards. It is critical that the 
federal government put its buying power to work as an economic 
incentive for industry to consider accessibility at the 
development stage. I have distributed copies of a document giving 
updated information on the status of Section 508 implementation 
and a letter from Assistant Secretary Judith Heumann and the 
Director of the National Institute on Disability and 
Rehabilitation Research, Katherine Seelman, concerning the 
applicability of Section 508 requirements to states receiving 
funds under the Assistive Technology Act.
     But what other resources can help address the unemployment 
and underemployment of blind people and others? In America the 
vocational rehabilitation program commits two-and-a-half billion 
dollars each year to support job training efforts for blind 
people and others with disabilities. The services available 
through the VR program are many and varied, according to the 
unique needs of the individual. The VR system provides assessment 
services, planning services, adjustment training, specific job 
skills training, placement services, assistive technology 
services, and much more. Yet to conceptualize the VR program as 
nothing more than a dispenser of discrete services is to miss the 
most important aspect of rehabilitation.
     While these services are important, it must be understood 
that services support a set of expectations. Services do not 
drive expectations; expectations drive and define our services. 
If we assume that blind people can work in only a narrowly 
defined number of jobs and occupations, then our services, and 
for that matter, our creativity will be employed in support of 
this minimal expectation.
     I believe that there are essentially two paradigms of 
blindness which have an impact on the future development of 
access technology. One (and it is the one most commonly held by 
society) is that the blind, by virtue of their disability, are 
inherently less capable and less productive than others. If our 
expectation is that the blind will always be less capable than 
the sighted, any degree of progress which appears to ameliorate 
any amount of incapacity will be regarded as improvement. Simply 
put, this paradigm starts with the presumption that the way the 
sighted perform work is the best and most efficient method, and 
hence the challenge to our technology is to seek methods by which 
the blind can perform work in the same manner as the sighted.
     Alternatively, there are those (unfortunately a minority, 
but at least a growing minority) who hold the view that blind 
people can compete alongside the sighted and achieve a status of 
real equality. The view is that what is important is what an 
individual accomplishes and not how the individual performs a 
given task. If expectations drive technology, then a shared 
vision premised on the fundamental equality of the blind is 
essential to the development of future technology. In other 
words, if we believe that blind people can perform work as well 
as others, we will not be satisfied with our technology until it 
enables blind people to work competitively.
     Under this paradigm we set aside the methods by which the 
sighted function and concentrate on the product or outcome we 
desire. I recognize that there is an immediate need to give blind 
people access to the technology readily available in the 
workplace. However, I believe that the long-term challenge to our 
technological development is to find the best and most efficient 
ways for blind people to perform work, rather than continuing to 
seek to modify the methods used by the sighted.
     Given that most commercial technology assumes the user to 
have sight, the use of graphics will unquestionably continue to 
expand. As the use of graphics increases, the challenge of 
providing blind people equal access becomes more and more 
daunting. Recently we have seen efforts to create text 
descriptions of graphic material. This approach is useful; yet, 
as more and more visual information is integrated into the high-
tech workplace, the awkwardness of representing visual 
information using text will be compounded. More to the point, the 
reason that the sighted use graphics is often that it is a 
concise way of representing complex material or relationships. 
Simply adapting our technology so that graphical material has a 
text equivalent fails to address the point that the graphical 
presentation of material was a better, more concise, and perhaps 
more comprehensible representation of complex information.
     What I am promoting is a construct in which blind people are 
seen as inherently different from the sighted, yet not inferior 
to them. Some presume that to acknowledge difference is somehow 
an affirmation of inferiority. On the contrary, I believe it is 
only through the declaration of difference that we can assert 
true equality. People from different nations may have striking 
differences, the most obvious of which may be a difference in 
language. In some instances a concept that is readily expressed 
in one language may be quite difficult to express in another. 
Surely this does not imply that one language is, therefore, 
superior to another. If we accept that blind people function 
differently from the sighted, then the task is not simply to give 
blind people access to what the sighted see but to create methods 
by which both the blind and the sighted have optimum access to 
needed information and, thus, the same opportunity to work 
competitively.
     Presently we are preoccupied, perhaps out of necessity, with 
giving the blind access to what the sighted see without 
recognizing that what the sighted see is simply a representation 
of information designed with vision in mind. True access for the 
blind, therefore, starts not with what the sighted see but with 
the information which needs to be conveyed to the user. If we 
presume that the blind can receive, comprehend, analyze, and 
express ideas and information as readily as the sighted, then the 
limitation of today's technology becomes just that--the 
limitation of our technology--not the limitation of the blind. I 
believe that we need such a goal for access technology, a goal 
that transcends our current technology and charts a course for 
future development, a goal that is rooted in the promise of real 
equality for the blind rather than in the lesser promise of 
decreased dependency.
     You may think that what I am suggesting is entirely 
unrealistic. While it is desirable to develop technologies that 
allow blind people access to information in ways that are 
designed specifically for blind people, the odds of such 
development happening are quite low, given the complexity of the 
task and the small number of blind people. But I think there is a 
larger market than simply blind people who could benefit from 
other approaches to accessing information.
     Computer technology is still a relatively new phenomenon. 
Accordingly, the people who are involved in designing the 
hardware and software in current use for the most part are people 
for whom computers make sense. For this reason they tend to share 
a common learning style, an orientation that leads them to view 
information in similar ways. I believe that current computer 
technology, such as word processing, is rooted in the assumption 
that all people are spatial learners. This is true because the 
people who develop the programs--that is the people for whom 
computers make sense--are most likely spatial in their 
orientation. Accordingly, when people are not spatial, when they 
cannot make sense of the graphical world, they are generally met 
with frustration since they cannot understand why the spatial 
graphical display of information is easy and efficient. These 
people hate upgrades. They do not regard them as improvements but 
rather as introducing new and entirely incomprehensible icons, 
any one of which is likely to initiate all manner of trouble. 
Assurances that the new system is easier and more powerful than 
the old one do not impress them.
     Yesterday I was working in my office, only to be confronted 
by a message indicating that I had performed "an illegal 
operation." This message may mean something to all of you, but to 
me it meant that the computer would not do what I wanted it to 
do, and, beyond that, it was blaming me for the problem. Some of 
these problems are due to our technology, and some are due to the 
fact that our technology mostly assumes a given learning style or 
orientation. What I am suggesting is that blind people are not 
the only people who need alternative ways of viewing information.
     There will always be a need for blind people to interact 
using the technology devised for the sighted, as there will 
doubtless always be a need for language interpreters. And as with 
interpreters, the process of communication from one language or 
medium to another will undoubtedly bring with it some measure of 
inefficiency. Yet I believe this is the context in which computer 
access for the blind should be viewed, not simply access to the 
computer screen, but access to the information contained in the 
computer.
     It may well be that some information will need to be 
tactually represented, either through some type of refreshable 
device or by means of a device which is conceptually refreshable 
and which allows the creation of solid, three-dimensional 
objects. We may need systems that employ sound, not simply for 
the purpose of synthesizing speech, but perhaps to lend color, 
depth, and intensity to concepts or information being expressed. 
We must view the screen as simply a vehicle for conveying 
information visually and recognize that the material on the 
screen is not the information itself but a representation of 
information, thought, and ideas.
     The measure of our success therefore is the degree of access 
blind people have to the information available to the sighted in 
ways that are as efficient as the access the sighted have to the 
information by means of graphics, not some less tangible 
incremental progress toward eliminating new and emerging 
technological hurdles. 
     We have made much progress, and we will continue to make 
more. I believe there is a genuine possibility for full and 
meaningful integration of the blind into society. To accomplish 
this end, we must be willing to challenge ourselves to believe in 
a vision of the future that surpasses our current technology and 
experience. We must be willing to become partners in a movement 
toward accelerated change that brings with it risk and promise. 
Blind people want to be productive. Blind people want to live 
normal lives as normal people with the opportunity for education, 
employment, and social integration. To accomplish this goal, we 
must first believe that it is possible. When we believe that it 
is possible, then we will drive our technology to develop in 
support of our beliefs.
     
     
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Richard Ring]
     America Online:
     Stonewalling Responsibility and Ignoring Access for the Blind
     by Richard Ring
     
From the Editor: Richard Ring is the Supervisor of the NFB's 
International Braille and Technology Center in Baltimore.
     
     The first time I had the opportunity to speak to the U.S./ 
Canada Conference on Technology, I had the dubious honor of 
following Dr. Kurzweil. Now I have the honor of being the first 
speaker after a good lunch.
     Access to the world of personal computers is one of the most 
important issues facing blind consumers and professionals alike. 
When we look back on the state of accessibility that existed at 
the time of the Third U.S/Canada Conference on Technology for the 
Blind, which was held at the National Center for the Blind in 
November of 1996, we can see that we have come quite a distance. 
Many of the breakthroughs in accessibility can be attributed to 
the work of those of you attending this conference.
     Screen-access programs that allow blind people access to the 
Windows operating system have improved dramatically during the 
past three years. Many of these programs provide support not only 
for speech synthesizers (both hardware and software) but for 
refreshable Braille displays as well. Many Windows applications 
now function reasonably well with the latest versions of screen- 
access programs. Though there are many barriers still to be 
overcome, access to most off-the-shelf software appears to be 
achievable in the foreseeable future.
     Two of the most frequently asked questions at the 
International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind are 
"How do I get on
line?" and "How do I use the Internet?" The Internet dominates 
our world today as few things ever have. One cannot open a 
newspaper or magazine, listen to the radio, or watch television 
without being inundated with references to some aspect of the 
Internet. Any organization or individual of consequence has a Web 
site: corporations, universities, governmental agencies, and even 
private citizens.
     The list of things we can do online is growing, it seems, 
faster each day. One can purchase nearly anything, apply for 
loans and credit cards, and obtain access to governmental 
services. There is no end in sight to how much commerce, 
entertainment, and access to information of all kinds is going to 
be available to those who can successfully use the Internet. It 
is not surprising, therefore, that more and more people are 
getting online every day, and while it might be argued that a 
relatively small percentage of the population is currently using 
the Internet, that percentage is growing at a remarkable rate.
     Blind people are no exception. We want access to the 
Internet as much as anyone else. Because of improvements made to 
screen reading programs and a little cooperation from commercial 
software developers, this access is becoming easier to 
accomplish. These improvements have made the World Wide Web a far 
more rewarding and productive venture for the blind than it once 
was.
     The majority of Internet service providers--those companies 
who provide our connection to the Internet--can be used by blind 
persons, chiefly because they do not force us to use a specific 
piece of software to obtain that access. Rather they provide a 
gateway to the Internet, allowing the user to choose the e-mail 
client, Web browser, and news reader that function best with his 
or her screen-access software. However, one major player on the 
Internet, America Online (AOL), has steadfastly refused to adopt 
this convention. Because of its insistence that users run 
proprietary AOL software, the blind have been effectively shut 
out of AOL and any access to the Internet they might have hoped 
to obtain through the AOL service.
     America Online is the largest provider of Internet access in 
the world. It has nearly nineteen million subscribers world wide. 
It saturates our mailboxes with CD's offering us hours of free 
access. The AOL software is available in supermarkets and on the 
Web. AOL says that it can support as many as four million 
simultaneous logons. Add to this the fact that AOL has already 
gobbled up Compuserve and Netscape, and you begin to understand 
why we are discussing AOL today.
     The bottom line is that the blind are barred from effective 
access to AOL's proprietary software; it simply doesn't work at 
all well with our screen reading software. It is that simple.
     What makes the AOL software so difficult for the blind 
computer user? To answer this question, let us first examine how 
software that is nonvisually accessible works. First, it provides 
keyboard equivalents for the many commands normally executed by 
sighted users with the mouse. While screen-access programs for 
the blind contain features to move the mouse pointer from the 
keyboard, it is far easier and more efficient when a blind person 
can use keyboard shortcuts to execute various commands.
     Second, nonvisually accessible software uses standard 
Windows controls--controls which can be detected by screen 
reading programs. These controls include, but are not limited to 
the following: pull-down menus, list boxes, edit boxes, combo 
boxes, radio and other push buttons, and check boxes. It is also 
important for text labels to be associated with these controls. 
For example, when you tab over a button which says "cancel," the 
screen reading software detects the label and says "cancel 
button." When you tab into an edit box where you are to enter 
your first name, the screen reading software sees the label 
"first name," and says "first name."
     Another aspect of nonvisually accessible software is the use 
of focus to let the screen reading program know where the user's 
attention should be directed. When a blind user invokes functions 
from the keyboard, it is extremely important for the focus to 
move as keyboard commands are executed. For example, if you use 
the up and down arrow keys to move through the items in a list 
box, it is important for the focus to move to each item on the 
list as it is highlighted.
     Nonvisually accessible applications do not require screen- 
access software to be customized to deal with unknown control 
types or window classes. Although it is possible to configure 
screen reading programs to function with unfriendly or 
incompatible software, such tasks are usually beyond the 
capabilities of the average computer user.
     Let us now turn our attention to the AOL software itself. We 
looked at two versions: AOL 4.0 and, most recently, AOL 5.0. We 
noticed no significant differences between these two versions. 
Both were equally inaccessible to the blind.
     The first problem we encountered with the AOL software 
occurred during the sign-up and installation process. Without 
sighted assistance, you cannot press the button which tells AOL 
whether you are a new or existing user. The forms used to select 
a local access number and enter personal information (i.e., your 
name, address, and credit card number) are not compatible with 
screen-access software. The blind person has no way to know what 
information needs to be entered at any given time.
     After the AOL software has dialed and established a 
connection with the main AOL system, the blind computer user is 
presented with a complex and busy screen layout. Most of the 
information which can be discerned easily by sight eludes 
detection by the screen-access program. In many cases, after you 
complete the logon procedure, you are presented with the welcome 
screen. Visually this screen resembles a complex dialogue box 
containing multiple pages in a window with the traditional title 
bar, menu bar, and toolbar. This may be the visual appearance of 
the screen, but internally, where it is captured by the screen- 
access program, it is anything but standard. This makes it 
difficult if not impossible for the blind user to learn anything 
about the choices that can be selected. After logon AOL will play 
a wave file which says, "Welcome," and, if unread electronic mail 
is pending, another wave file which says, "You've got mail!" 
These wave files are more gimmicky than anything else, and they 
certainly don't help the blind user to understand what to do 
next.
     The majority of the controls displayed on the welcome screen 
are unlabeled icons. The text on the screen can be seen visually, 
but because a lot of it consists of bitmapped images of text, it 
is unavailable to the screen reading program. Accordingly, though 
there are many services available to a sighted user of AOL, these 
services are nearly impossible for a blind user to discover, let 
alone activate.
     One problem with the AOL software that we discovered right 
away is that you cannot predict what screen will appear when you 
connect to the system. You might get the welcome screen just 
discussed, a screen of advertisements, or a screen which asks you 
to enter a search term. The point is that you cannot predict with 
certainty what screen will appear when you establish a connection 
with AOL.
     On the screen of advertisements which sometimes appears, a 
group of buttons is displayed. You will see buttons labeled "No 
thanks" and "Tell me more." While it is possible to hear the 
names of these buttons and while you can move between them with 
the tab key, the behavior of the buttons is inconsistent. 
Sometimes you can activate a button by pressing the spacebar. At 
other times pressing the spacebar doesn't work. Also you cannot 
read the text of the advertisement without using your screen 
reading program's mouse movement keys to examine the screen.
     Many of the available AOL services are invoked from the 
welcome screen. However, because of the nature of this screen, a 
blind user can never be certain what service he or she is 
selecting. There are many services: an online encyclopedia, chat 
rooms, headline news, shopping, sending and receiving e-mail, 
etc. One service is called Channels. It appears to provide the 
AOL user with a convenient way to browse through numerous areas 
of information and then to focus upon a desired information 
category or service. Channels is quite inaccessible to blind 
users. Both opening the Channels screen and selecting a desired 
channel require sighted assistance.
     One service which would certainly be of interest to AOL 
users is Headline News. This service is not accessible to the 
blind for two reasons. First, the "Headline News" selection is 
very difficult to find on the screen, and, second, the news is 
presented using an animated news-ticker-like display, which 
screen-access technology cannot track.
     While the majority of AOL services are largely inaccessible 
to the blind person using speech or Braille screen-access 
software, it would appear that AOL's electronic mail service is 
minimally usable. We discovered by accident that a few keyboard 
commands can be used to invoke various e-mail functions. Let me 
walk you through the steps necessary to send e-mail with the AOL 
software. First you press CTRL-M to activate the "Write Mail" 
function. At this point, although your screen reading program 
doesn't tell you this, you are in the "to:" field, where you 
would enter the recipient's e-mail address. You type the address 
and then press the Tab key to go to the next field. Again, the 
screen reading program doesn't tell you what the field name is, 
but you can infer after some exploration that you should continue 
pressing Tab until you hear the word "subject" spoken. You then 
type the subject of your note and press Tab again, at which point 
you guess that you are in the body of your message, where you can 
begin writing. If you want to send a carbon copy or a blind 
carbon copy, you have to hunt around the screen with your 
simulated mouse pointer until you find the appropriate buttons. 
Believe it or not, this is the most accessible of all the AOL 
services.
     The World Wide Web can be explored using the AOL software. 
AOL displays what appears to be an ordinary Web page, but the 
screen reading program has no clue that a Web page is being 
displayed. The user is therefore unable to navigate the page 
using the Tab and Enter keys as is customary when using more 
accessible Web-browsing software. We learned that, once a 
connection has been established with AOL, you can use an ordinary 
more accessible Web-browsing program to surf the Web. We would 
like to think that this feature was deliberately included in the 
AOL system, but we can't be sure.
     We could continue to catalog the many aspects of AOL's 
software which make it a difficult and frustrating experience for 
the blind computer user, but it is clear from what we have said 
thus far that AOL is not a place where the blind are currently 
made to feel welcome. It is also clear from some of the 
correspondence we have had with individuals from AOL that the 
company simply doesn't get it.
     On October 26, 1998, almost exactly one year ago, Curtis 
Chong, the Director of Technology for the National Federation of 
the Blind, wrote a letter to Rob Jennings, who was at that time 
serving as AOL's Vice President of Programming and Development. 
In this letter Mr. Chong outlined many of the problems blind 
people were experiencing with the AOL software and suggested 
steps that AOL might take to solve the problem. The letter was 
cordial and informative. Although Mr. Jennings did respond to Mr. 
Chong's letter with a telephone call, he did not keep his promise 
to visit the International Braille and Technology Center for the 
Blind shortly after the 1999 new year. In fact, we never heard 
from Mr. Jennings after that one phone call.
     In the spring of this year we came across another letter 
from AOL, written in response to an inquiry about AOL's 
accessibility to the blind. The letter made much of the fact that 
AOL was testing software which could convert speech to text and 
vice versa. It would seem that all of the information Mr. Chong 
supplied to Rob Jennings was somehow lost in the AOL bureaucracy. 
Anyone who has been involved in technology for the blind during 
the past few years would know that text-to-speech and speech-to-
text software already exist and that our problems with the AOL 
program are caused by its inconsistent and nonstandard behavior 
in the Windows environment--not by any lack of text-to-speech or 
speech-to-text technology.
     In early October we heard from a highly placed AOL official 
who told us, "We have plenty of good news on our side, since we 
have been doing serious work to make AOL fully useful to the 
blind." This is the sum and substance of the information we have 
received in written form from AOL. We have no idea what the "good 
news" is, and we certainly have no evidence of any "serious work" 
being conducted by AOL. It definitely has nothing to do with the 
recently-released AOL Version 5 software, which is just as 
inaccessible to the blind as its predecessor.
     How long must we wait to achieve full nonvisual access to 
AOL software and services? Will we see any improvements in AOL 
Version 6? Version 7? Will we have access in a year? Two years? 
Three years? The largest Internet service provider in the world 
should surely be able to demonstrate a better understanding of 
the issue and a stronger commitment to solving the problem.
     
     
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Len Fowler]
     Talking Bank Machines
     by Len Fowler
     
     From the Editor: Len Fowler is co-founder and Chief 
Operating Officer of T-Base Communications of Ottawa, Canada.
     
     Let me begin by stating that I believe everyone in a 
democratic society is entitled to be provided with opportunities 
to participate and contribute. I believe that acknowledgement of 
cultural and physical diversity is an essential element in a 
strong and healthy society. I also believe that the 
conceptualists, designers, and technologists responsible for 
developing products, programs, and services on behalf of 
government and industry have a duty to ensure accessibility to 
the broadest possible range of people. For us this means 
considering accessibility in the concept design and keeping it 
simple throughout the development process. 
     For most people talking bank machines are a new and 
important step forward in the quest for independence in an ever-
changing social and economic system. For others talking bank 
machines represent a significant advancement toward a future in 
which all technologies and services are designed to be 
universally accessible, enabling the full participation of all 
citizens in the democratic process. And for some people talking 
bank machines are just another example of rampant liberalism, 
which will surely be the downfall of the entire economic system 
by driving the cost of doing business to unimaginably high 
levels.
     Whatever your thoughts about talking bank machines, they are 
becoming a functional reality in the United States of America. On 
October 1, 1999, a group of companies with local government 
support and involvement launched the first American talking bank 
machine. At a press conference on that day, Susan Leal, Treasurer 
of the City and County of San Francisco, William Wolverton 
(President and CEO of the San Francisco Federal Credit Union), 
Diebold Inc., the Credit Union Cooperative, and I announced the 
event to the world.
     The core technology which led to our involvement in creating 
talking bank machines was initially developed in 1993 when T-Base 
was approached by Digital Equipment to provide technical 
expertise in a joint bid to develop an interactive smart card 
system for deploying federal employment insurance benefits to 
Canadians via an electronic network capable of interacting with 
the existing banking system. 
     The proof of concept for this project required the 
development of three software programs: host system software to 
manage the service delivery, ATM software to manage the human-
machine interface, and software to manage smart card interaction 
with the system. The smart card software was easy. The host and 
ATM software development proved to be more difficult due to the 
very limited band width available at that time. 
     Our lead technical authority, Dan L'Ecuyer, and I developed 
the plan, and work commenced. Three months later a functioning 
proof-of-concept host system and ATM were displayed at GTECH (the 
Government Technology Show in Ottawa, Canada). Unfortunately, the 
project was shelved due to pending amendments to Canadian 
Legislation to permit electronic payment of benefits.
     However, we used the core of this software with subsequent 
enhancements to create several other accessible service-delivery 
systems, namely:
*     InfoTouch--the first publicly accessible automated 
information-access and delivery system capable of producing 
information products on demand in multiple formats: Braille, 
large print, audio cassettes, and computer diskettes;
*     Universally accessible smart-card system--a cost-effective 
access module capable of securely interacting with smart 
cards for service delivery over the Internet; and
*     AccessAbill--a system which receives monthly billing and 
statement data from clients, parses it, translates it on the 
fly into appropriate formats (Braille, large print, and 
ASCII text), and prepares for publishing.
     In the fall of 1996 T-Base was asked by the Royal Bank of 
Canada to work as subcontractors to NCR Canada (the ATM equipment 
supplier) in making the bank's automated bank machines accessible 
to people with disabilities. We designed the human-machine 
interface, created bilingual voice files required for audio 
enhancement, and managed the consumer- and service-provider 
consultation process. In October 1997 the world's first talking 
bank machine was launched at the Royal Bank of Canada in Ottawa.
     In mid-June 1999 Ms. Laura Arriola, Special Assistant to the 
Treasurer of the City and County of San Francisco, asked if T-
Base could assist the City with the creation of a Talking ATM. An 
oral agreement with the City of San Francisco Federal Credit 
Union got us started, and in September, 1999, work began.
     Because the base platform is a Diebold ATM running on the 
Deluxe Network, we requested and received generous assistance 
from both Deluxe Network and Diebold, Inc., in our development 
activities. 
     The first step in the development process was to make the 
ATM talk by upgrading the existing Diebold ATM with the voice-
guidance option as well as scripting and creating the required 
WAV files, the results being the Talking ATM currently serving 
the public in San Francisco's City Hall. 
     In the next phase of our development activities we want to 
use our core technologies to create an intelligent software 
module that will be capable of receiving data from the host 
system in its existing form, parse the data, determine voice file 
requirements, manage the system key mapping to accept function 
key or keypad input to provide the user with audio instructions, 
and return the appropriate data to the host to fulfill 
transaction requests.
     This intelligent software module will enhance rather than 
replace the existing terminal software. The goal is to avoid the 
necessity of altering the software currently running on the host 
system while overcoming local terminal limitations for the 
provision of accessible services.
     Our long-term goal is to provide enough intelligence in the 
ATM to off-load application code from the host to the terminal. 
The short-term approach addresses only the issues involving user 
interaction with the software application. It fails to address a 
number of issues involving user interaction with the peripheral 
hardware (for example, cash dispenser or envelope depositor). 
Context-sensitive voice assistance and smarter handling of error 
conditions, such as timeouts, are needed. For the ATM to become 
truly accessible, it is necessary to offer the user much more 
control over the interactive experience than is currently 
available. This goal cannot be achieved within the existing host-
centric design since it is not practical to maintain remotely a 
sophisticated human-machine interface.
     An additional, and as yet unstated, benefit of addressing 
accessibility issues in this way is the improved and expanded 
services which can be made available to all. More intelligence in 
the ATM will permit a much richer environment to be presented and 
enable many more services to be developed faster and more cost-
effectively than is currently possible, with less lead time to 
market.
     We have outlined our vision for this technology in our 
paper: "Reversing the Trend: Designing for Accessibility in the 
Twenty-first Century." It outlines some of the reasons for the 
failure to consider accessibility issues in the deployment of 
today's technology-based systems and explains what can be done 
about it. I invite you to contact me for a copy.
     I also invite you, as consumers and providers of services, 
to give us your comments on the technologies we create and the 
services we deliver. 
     Note: Mr. Fowler's e-mail address is <lfowler@tbase.com>.
     
     
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Pat Cannon]
     Access to Electronic and Information Technology:
     Evolving Federal Standards for Nonvisual Use
     by Pat Cannon
     
     From the Editor: Pat Cannon is a member of the U.S. 
Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board and 
Director of the Michigan Commission for the Blind.
     
     I am pleased to be here. Dr. Maurer introduced me as a 
member of the Access Board and also as the Director of Michigan's 
Blind Rehabilitation Agency. Both are accurate, but I'd also like 
to be wearing a consumer hat today as well, and along with that 
would be the advocate's hat. Richard was talking about the 
challenge of being the first speaker after lunch. I can relate to 
that a little differently. I think I am the eighth or ninth 
speaker today. I sort of feel like Zsa Zsa Gabor's eighth or 
ninth husband. My challenge will be to do something interesting 
or different.
     I'd like to start with a confession that I too have 
committed illegal operations. My computer talks to me and has 
told me so. It's interesting the things that computers will do to 
you. It's what Mr. Kurzweil was talking about this morning: 
taking on a life of their own and being sensitive and so forth. 
Not long after I had that admonishment, I was composing a memo, 
and the computer said to me without solicitation, "It looks like 
you are trying to write a letter." I didn't ask for that.
     My impulse was to say, "Who asked you?" or "What's it to 
ya?"
     I'd like to talk about what the U.S. Access Board is. The 
full name is the United States Architectural and Transportation 
Barriers Compliance Board. It is an independent federal 
regulatory agency, and the only agency in federal government that 
has more letters in its name than it has federal employees, which 
tells you that it is a small office, located in Washington, D.C. 
The Access Board was originally established under the 
Rehabilitation Act to enforce what's called the ABA, the 
Architectural Barriers Act, which covers access of federal 
facilities like post offices and so forth. That was the original 
role of the Access Board. Beyond that, though, it took on a major 
role when the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted 
in 1990. The role of the Access Board at that time was to draft 
and have the Department of Justice adopt what were called the ADA 
Accessibility Guidelines (affectionately referred to as ADAAG).
     The Accessibility Guidelines for the ADA really set out the 
standards for providing accessibility in the built environment 
consistent with requirements of the ADA. This includes scoping 
requirements and technical requirements and so forth. On the 
subject of ATM's (automatic teller machines, banking machines) or 
otherwise interactive-transaction machines, those are covered 
under the ADA. We believe that the ADA Accessibility Guidelines 
are under revision right now, and when the new guidelines come 
out, we believe that you all who were concerned about access for 
blind people at ATM's will be encouraged by the new requirements 
that will be embodied in the new ADA.
     That's been the role of the Access Board with ABA and the 
ADA, and about three years ago we had another responsibility, 
which took us into a new arena, one that was very satisfying, 
particularly to a lot of people with sensory disabilities. In 
1996 Congress enacted and the President signed into law the 
Telecommunications Act, and the Access Board then took on the 
responsibility of drafting the rules to implement the 
Telecommunications Act. Our job was to write the accessibility 
guidelines for telecommunications equipment and customer premises 
equipment--things like answering machines, caller ID's, pagers, 
and all the things that come under the umbrella of 
telecommunications. Earlier this year the Federal Communications 
Commission (FCC) adopted our guidelines as regulations and gave 
them the force of law.
     I want to talk about the process we've used for the 
Telecommunications Act Guidelines, as well as for the revisions 
of the ADA Accessibility Guidelines. It's called an advisory-
committee process. It's important because it follows a mandate by 
President Clinton to negotiate, not dictate. The composition of 
the Access Board, by the way, is thirteen public members 
appointed by the President, and twelve federal agency members, so 
it's a twenty-five member board. But the Administration's mandate 
was not to make rules in a vacuum in an office or a meeting room 
in Washington but rather to get out of Washington, get into the 
communities, and get input from the stakeholders into the rules 
being made. That's really what the advisory-committee process is 
all about.
     When we were going through the revisions to the ADA 
Accessibility Guidelines and the Telecommunications Act, we used 
the advisory-committee process. In this process members of the 
Advisory Committee included relevant stakeholders. For example, 
in telecommunications, representatives from the 
telecommunications industry were there; the technology industry 
was represented; (a lot of folks here in this room served on that 
Advisory Committee), as well as people with disabilities and 
advocacy organizations.
     That advisory-committee process is really the first step in 
rule-promulgation. They effectively make a recommendation to the 
Board of what the guidelines should look like. The Board then 
considers them, maybe tweaks them, and ultimately publishes them 
in what's called a notice of proposed rule-making.
     That's very similar to the process we used with Section 508. 
You heard earlier today from Dr. Schroeder and also Mr. Gashel a 
little bit about Section 508. As you heard, Section 508 was 
originally put into the Rehabilitation Act in 1986 to require the 
federal government to procure and use only accessible electronic 
and information technology. The problem with Section 508 at that 
time was that the guidelines set forth were really not binding, 
and there were, to be blunt, no teeth in that language. Section 
508, I think, is now much stronger.
     As you heard earlier, on August 7, 1998, when Congress 
passed the Workforce Investment Act, the Rehabilitation Act 
Amendments became part of that, and as such Section 508 was 
rewritten and now has some strength in it. That's what I'd like 
to comment on briefly. The process again used an advisory 
committee. Curtis Chong was on that committee, and maybe some 
others in this room. As a starting point I think we used some of 
the same language and processes we used with the 
Telecommunications Act because to some extent we are talking 
about similar kinds of technology.
     Out of that came the recommendations from what's called the 
EIAAC (Electronic and Information Access Advisory Committee). The 
EIAAC set forth its recommendations to the Access Board, and we 
are in process right now; in fact, as we speak, in Washington 
they are putting the last pages to bed, and within three weeks we 
will see the proposed rules for Section 508 published as a notice 
of proposed rule-making. We expect that to happen somewhere 
between the middle and end of November. That's the process that 
has gotten us to this point. You now have a little background in 
what the Access Board is and, perhaps, what it is not, as well.
     Electronic and information technology really is all of those 
things that come into play in transporting information, whether 
it's computer hardware or software--any kind of information 
conveyance is covered under information technology. As a starting 
point we used the definition of information technology which was 
included in another federal statute called the Clinger-Cohen Act. 
The federal government is the entity covered under Section 508. 
Any federal agency or department is covered under 508 and, as 
such, they may not develop, procure, use, or in any other way put 
in place electronic information technology that is not accessible 
to people with disabilities.
     Section 508 does not cover the private sector. When we first 
published the committee report, there was some misunderstanding 
in some parts of the country. People thought that it applied to 
private industry or to private Web pages and so forth. It does 
not; it applies to the federal government or to any item that is 
contracted for with the federal government. That's who it applies 
to. The requirement of the federal government is pretty clear. 
The technology that is in place must be accessible to and usable 
by people with disabilities.
     The exceptions to that are quite limited, similar to what's 
in the ADA. There is a defense of undue burden, which is 
significant difficulty and expense. Even if the federal agency 
could make the case of significant difficulty or expense or undue 
burden, that does not take them off the hook for having to 
provide the information or data in another way that is accessible 
to and usable by a person with a disability. There is also a 
narrow exception for national security interests, combat, 
arsenals, and so forth that those kinds of systems are exempt 
from the Section 508 requirements.
     I talked about having more teeth in it. The enforcement 
mechanism in Section 508 is going to be what is to be called the 
Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). These guidelines are what 
federal government is guided by in procuring all of the things 
that it requires. They are pretty stringent requirements. The 
accessibility provisions of Section 508 will become part of the 
FAR regulations or the FAR Manual. The enforcement power is that, 
if people--federal employees or citizens--believe they have not 
been granted the accessibility they need by an agency because 
information was not available to them because of disability, they 
could file a complaint. The complaint process is very similar to 
the process in place for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. 
People can be given injunctive relief and compensation for 
attorney fees and so forth. Section 508 does not provide for 
compensatory or punitive damages.
     We expect that the rules will be published, as I said, by 
the end of November. There will be a sixty-day comment period, 
and after that the federal-acquisition-regulation people will 
have to adopt that in their regulations, and, beginning August 7, 
2000, all equipment must be accessible. Any equipment or 
electronic information technology acquired after that date that 
is not consistent with regulation would be in violation of the 
law.
     That's the long and the short of where the Access Board is 
with electronic and information technology. I just want to make 
one personal comment as a consumer and advocate. There are a lot 
of brilliant minds in this room who have created magnificent 
technology, and you have done so because of your talent. You have 
also taken risks. As a consumer I just want to say thank you. 
Thank you very much because you have really helped a great deal 
to level the playing field.
     
     
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Deane Blazie]
     Refreshable Braille Now and in the Years Ahead
     by Deane Blazie
     
     From the Editor: Deane Blazie is President of Blazie 
Engineering:
     
     I am going to try to keep this talk light because I am often 
accused of being too serious. I don't think we can talk about 
Braille display technology in the present and in the future 
without talking about the past. So, briefly, the first I knew 
about Braille displays--and these were Braille displays that were 
commercially available--was from Mr. Schaefer and Mr. Schonherr 
in Germany from the University of Stuttgart. (If anybody 
disagrees with any of this, by the way, it may be because I made 
it up, and you may be right.) They had electro-mechanical 
displays based on very tiny solenoids. These would latch a pin in 
the up or down direction. We even sold a few of these at my 
previous company, Maryland Computer Services, and they worked 
fairly well. They were prone to stick due to dust and dirt a lot 
more than current displays, but they actually worked. That was 
sometime in the mid-1970's.
     Then in the late '70's Oleg Tretiakoff introduced the first 
Piezoelectric display. He eventually put it in a device, and it 
was sold around the country. Does anyone remember the name of 
that device? The company was Elinfa, and the device was the Digi-
cassette. Remember, you had to turn it upside-down on its side to 
get it in the record mode? That's the truth. Oleg invented the 
first one and he tried to market it to TeleSensory but decided 
they could do their own, and in the early eighties TeleSensory 
introduced the VersaBraille with their own display based on 
Oleg's Piezo design.
     The VersaBraille was really the first high-volume product 
using refreshable Braille displays that were more or less what 
everything today is based on. In the early to mid-eighties the 
Europeans got into the act when Frans Tiemon from Holland started 
making Braille modules. Again, he was able to get around the 
various patents that were on the market at the time-TeleSensory 
and Tretiakoff. He eventually took over a large share of the 
market. 
     Mr. Schaefer, who was with the early mechanical Braille 
displays, eventually started a company called Metec in Germany, 
and they also eventually, in the late eighties, went to the Piezo 
displays. In fact, right now he is probably the largest producer 
of Braille displays in the world. Since the mid-eighties we have 
made only incremental improvements in Piezo Braille displays. 
     Before I talk about the present, let me talk about some 
things that have been tried in Braille-display design. I'm sure 
you have a hundred stories of things you can think of--but these 
are some of the things I remember, most of which we should 
discourage people from trying again. But, you never know; maybe 
somebody will make one of them work.
     We have tried electric shock to the finger tip in a six-dot 
pattern--not a bad idea; it just doesn't work. We have also tried 
thermal sensing of the finger tip by putting very tiny chip 
resisters on a substrate and heating them up, but again it didn't 
work well. There are a lot of problems with these ideas, but at 
the time they seemed good. 
     IBM had an interesting idea. They took a Braille module, one 
six-dot Braille display and said, well, if you have one of those, 
why not put it on a slider, and, as you slide it, it moves the 
display as if you had a long line of eighty characters. That 
really did seem like a good idea, but again it didn't pan out. 
The problem is that your finger isn't moving across the Braille; 
your finger is sitting on a display of six dots; and, as you move 
the slider and hit a certain point, it switches to the next 
character, and your finger feels the next character. We all know 
now that Braille isn't read that way. Braille is read by brushing 
your finger across the pins or across the surface of the Braille 
page. The brushing is much more useful to the sense of touch. So, 
while the idea IBM had was good, it also didn't work well.
     That same idea was used by Mr. Perenio in Spain. In fact, he 
may be still working on it; I'm not sure. But again there's the 
same problem; your finger really does need to brush across the 
Braille. 
     Along the same lines, somebody as recently as this year has 
come up with an idea through a NASA/Langley grant, I believe. 
They were paid to do a prototype, but the idea was the same 
thing. If you could reduce the number of Braille cells, then you 
could reduce the cost a lot. That is a good idea. The trouble is: 
how do you get the finger to feel as if it's moving across a 
Braille page? Their idea is to have a rotating wheel that causes 
the Braille to move under your finger. They have two cells of 
Braille and a big mechanism underneath that pops the dots up at 
the right time. The jury is still out. I don't think they have 
actually built one; they just have a concept, and they are 
looking for funding for it. So the idea is still around that we 
should be able to simulate your finger's moving across a sheet of 
Braille.
     In the 1970's there was a moving belt of Braille. Then about 
six or seven years ago Densitron Corporation tried to revive that 
idea. This was a belt of Mylar, and they would punch the dots up 
in the Mylar and display the forty cells. Then, when you pushed 
the button at the end to read the next line, the belt would 
rotate underneath the device and be erased by pushing the dots 
down in the other direction. The line would then be repainted as 
the belt moved around. That didn't make it to the market either 
for lots of reasons: the Mylar would wear out; it didn't feel 
very good; it was slow; it was noisy--lots of reasons. 
     In the early 1990's TeleSensory tried a different thing, 
which was a one-cell display on the BrailleMate. Actually, I have 
known people who have used it, and I have watched BrailleMate 
users. They really do get some information from that single cell. 
You can turn in your BrailleMate, by the way, and get a brand new 
Braille Lite--a little commercial plug.
     That brings us to the present state of the art. The Piezo 
display still rules. There is virtually nothing on the market 
except Piezo Braille displays. They all use the same technology, 
a little piece of ceramic substrate that's shaped to the right 
dimensions. You put 200 volts on it, and it bends. The trouble 
with those is that they're expensive. The current price on a 
Braille cell, which is eight dots, has gone from around a hundred 
dollars a cell in the early eighties--OEM [original equipment 
manufacturer] cost if you bought a bunch of them--to about $35 a 
cell now. That thirty-five-dollar price is negotiable, but it's 
roughly $35 a cell. So we have made some improvements, and if you 
consider the cost of money, that's probably a five-fold reduction 
in the cost of a Braille cell, which is pretty good. But it's 
still too expensive.
     Piezo displays have also gotten smaller. The earlier ones 
were probably five inches long and two inches high. The original 
VersaBrailles were huge, huge things. Now Braille cells are on 
the order of half an inch high and three inches long. I think we 
will continue to see incremental improvements in the size of 
Braille displays. I don't think we will see a large decrease in 
the price. They will hover around the $29 to $30 range for quite 
some time unless there is a breakthrough in the basic movement, 
the bender.
     That brings us to the future, and who knows what the future 
will bring. I think I know about most of the research going on 
out there in the line of Braille displays and there is quite a 
bit going on. There needs to be a lot more, so you guys with big 
pocketbooks, like Dr. Schroeder, should really be spending some 
of that money on Braille-display research, not necessarily with 
us, but a lot of funding is needed. 
     First of all there are mechanical displays that are being 
researched. The rotating wheel I mentioned: they're looking for 
someone to take that technology and build it and see if it really 
works. Pneumatic displays: about ten years ago we built a 
pneumatic display. This was one driven by air. I think a 
pneumatic display still has a lot of promise. We gave up on it 
because we ran out of funding that we had gotten from a grant, 
and we got excited about another technology, so we didn't pursue 
it. But I really think, and our engineers think, that a pneumatic 
display has good possibilities. I don't know of anyone else 
working on pneumatic displays at present. 
     Dan Hinton from Science Applications International has taken 
over a National Science Foundation grant for a mechanical 
display. I don't know the current status of this work; I saw it 
about a year ago here at the Center, and it was more or less a 
mechanical display like a print head that poked up dots from 
underneath and painted the dots on a display. Then something else 
would erase them--not a bad idea, low cost, pretty low-tech, but 
it really might work. But as far as I know, work has stopped on 
it because I haven't heard anything at all.
     The real breakthrough may come in what's called smart 
materials. You have heard a lot of talk about Moore's law and how 
it applies not only to electronics but to science in general and 
technology and just about everything in our lives. We are seeing 
a lot coming out of materials lately, and the advancements have 
been exponential. A tremendous number of new materials are coming 
out. One of these is the field of electrorheological fluids. The 
simplest one is cornstarch and corn oil. You mix the two 
together, and you get an electrorheological fluid. Pour it into 
your Braille display, and send it back in to get it repaired. 
When you put an electric field on these ER fluids, which is 
really easy to do, they get stiffer; their viscosity changes. So 
instead of pouring like water, they would pour like pancake 
syrup. The viscosity of the fluid gets lower, so if you could 
apply that to a Braille display, you should be able to move the 
Braille dots up and down.
     There are some patents out there showing how Braille 
displays can be made from these electrorheological fluids. Again, 
nobody has taken the ball and run with it, and I think it 
deserves some attention. I really think these are possible. We 
did a very short study of them and concluded that the viscosity 
doesn't change enough, so you might get into problems. We didn't 
continue the research, but I really think the idea deserves some 
attention. There are more and more ER fluids being developed and 
the viscosity change is larger, so they may be usable.
     The next area is a polymer, which is a huge class of 
materials. Smart polymers do all kinds of things when you put an 
electric field on them or a magnetic field; they react in 
different ways. Electrostrictive polymers are the ones we've 
looked at. These are polymers that either shrink when you put an 
electric field on them or grow. You might have heard of 
electrostrictive gels; these are actually polymers that can grow 
and contract as you put an electric field on them. These show a 
lot of promise.
     Texas Instruments announced a Braille display based on 
these. It was supposed to be the be-all and end-all of Braille 
displays, and it may be. But so far not much has happened with 
it. Texas Instruments wanted to make a very high-quality 
projection television. So one of their polymer physicists, Marvin 
Cowens, demonstrated how he could make a very small mirror, about 
a half-inch square, and put a million little, tiny mirrors on 
this substrate, and he could make each mirror tilt a little bit. 
By tilting enough, he could deflect the light off the screen, so 
essentially he had a television set based on mirrors. He really 
made these things, and I believe TI sells them in a product. It 
was all done with mirrors--you see why I get accused of being too 
serious. If you can move a small mirror, why not a Braille dot?
     I made about three dozen phone calls to TI, but finally I 
got them to release to the public domain the information on these 
polymers. So it is available. Anybody who wants to do research on 
these can get the information. I really do believe there's 
potential here, probably more than in any of the other fields I 
have mentioned. The formulae are in the TI literature; they can 
give you data on how fast or slow they reacted. The only thing we 
saw was that it took three or four seconds for the pin to go 
down. But they thought they knew why that was happening, and they 
thought it could be fixed. The TI polymer is based on 
Polyacrilimid, in case anybody wants to research it. I have 
paperwork on most of these if anybody wants it; I'd be glad to 
share it. Nothing I've talked about so far is proprietary.
     Another total area outside of smart materials is called MEMs 
(micro electronic machines). These are the little robots that Ray 
Kurzweil was talking about this morning. I'm sure they use some 
of this MEMs technology to move those little wings that fly 
around. These things are able to move little, tiny parts inside a 
microchip. The microchips look just like parts say inside a 
Braille 'n Speak or anything else, except that they have moveable 
members.
     The problem for Braille displays is that the parts move only 
on the order of twenty-five microns, and that's just not enough 
to get a good display. However, Stanford Research Institute--SRI 
it's now called--has a grant application in to do some work with 
MEMs to try to make a Braille display. They think they have a way 
to do it that can actually result in a real Braille display with 
the normal twenty-five thousandths of an inch movement. I read 
the proposal; in fact, we're teaming with them on it. And it 
looks as if it is feasible. They would start on the display 
somewhere in the year 2000. 
     The last area, and one that we are involved in more than any 
other, is shape memory alloys (SMA), titanium nickel alloys. This 
is an old technology; it's been around and been worked on quite a 
bit by a company out in California called TiNi, Inc. They worked 
on it for four or five years, and they actually did make a 
Braille cell. It was demonstrated here at the NFB National 
Center. The problem was that it wasn't reliable and took a lot of 
power to activate. There were some mechanical parts on it that 
are very difficult to make and duplicate. The activator is a 
little wire about the size of a human hair, four mils in 
diameter. A tiny piece of wire that would make a Braille dot go 
up and down costs about two cents. So the pricing is right to 
make a very low-cost Braille display. The trouble is that it does 
use a lot of current, and it's rather difficult to work with.
     Over the past two years we've experimented with SMA wires a 
lot, and we've gotten over fifty million actuations on a piece of 
wire. At that point the wire stabilized and stopped changing 
properties, so we concluded that it would probably do another 
fifty million actuations. We now have a single dot going up and 
down fifty million times; it takes a long time to do fifty 
million actuations; figure it out. We are in the process now of 
designing an actual Braille module with these wires. They may be 
incredibly difficult to build. They've got little, tiny springs 
in them. But assuming that you can get robots to put these things 
together, they really do have promise. That's the display work 
going on at Blazie Engineering. I don't know anyone else working 
on shape memory alloy except Purdue University, and I believe 
their research has stopped.
     I still think that the Holy Grail in blindness is the full-
page display. Everybody who is designing Braille modules wants to 
try to make one that you can replicate in two dimensions so that 
you can make a full page. There is a lot of talk about whether 
you really need a full page, or is four lines or six lines or 
eight enough? I believe that four lines is probably enough, but 
not being a blind person, I just extrapolate what I see people 
doing. A full-page display has been made by Metec. There are 
probably two in existence, probably not more than that--four, 
Dave tells me. They sell for about $50,000. And it's also a 
graphics display so that you can actually display dot patterns as 
well. It uses the little, tiny solenoids that Shaefer and 
Schonherr developed a long time ago.
     That in my opinion is the current state of the area in 
Braille displays. We need more research money in Braille 
displays, more people doing the work--not just more money in the 
same pockets but new people, with new ideas doing the research. I 
know VisuAide is doing some research on Braille displays--I'm not 
supposed to tell you that--but I didn't sign a nondisclosure, so 
I can tell you. The last thing I would like to tell you is sort 
of a commercial plug. You know we are working on an Optacon 
grant. We are also still repairing Optacons. If you've got a 
broken Optacon, we'll try to fix it.
     One way that you could help us is that, if you know anybody 
who has Optacons that aren't being used, give them to us so that 
we can use them for parts. We just can't find enough parts. Some 
state agencies have donated five, six, and seven Optacons that 
were in their closets, just sitting there gathering dust. There 
are a lot of people who depend on an Optacon for their jobs and 
their livelihoods, so they need to keep them repaired. With no 
parts anymore, we are begging people, please, donate your 
Optacons if you're not using them anymore, and we will get what 
we can for them for you. And if you have one that needs to be 
repaired, send it to us, and we will do our best to repair it.
     Finally, our Optacon grant is being funded by the National 
Science Foundation. It's not nearly enough to finish the project. 
We are having trouble with the tactile ray technology now. We are 
going back to the old way of doing it, which is brute force, but 
trying to modernize it. So, if anybody has any funding sources 
and wants to see this project speeded up, please talk to me 
sometime before the end of the meeting.
     
     
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Tim Cranmer]
     A Call for Research
     on Braille Reading and Haptic Perception
     by T. V. Cranmer
     
     From the Editor: Tim Cranmer is President of the 
International Braille Research Center and Director of Research 
for the National Federation of the Blind.
     
     It is surprising how little we know about how blind people 
write and read Braille. It is all the more surprising once it is 
understood that writing is just as important to the blind as it 
is to all people who possess normal sight. It fulfills the same 
function for me as it does for you in the audience with your pens 
and pencils near to hand.
     There is something about the written word that delights the 
human mind. There is something mystical, miraculous, and not 
fully understood that happens when the trained and practiced 
fingers of a blind reader skim the symmetrical patterns of 
Braille dots that transfer to his conscious mind words, thoughts, 
ideas, and emotions from a friend or from people long dead.
     Braille seems magical to those who have forgotten that 
infants instinctively reach out to touch things they see to grasp 
their new surroundings better. Braille is mystical to those who 
forget that children want to hold a toy in their hands and won't 
settle for just looking at it. We all must be reminded from time 
to time that touch and sight are peers in the hierarchy of the 
senses.
     We who are blind haven't always enjoyed the marvel of the 
written word. According to a usually reliable source, National 
Geographic, our progenitor, Lucy, the hominid that made bipedal 
footprints on the shore of a lake in Africa, lived some three 
million years ago. I think it is safe to assume that Lucy was 
illiterate. According to the venerable Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
writing appeared in Mesopotamia some eight thousand years ago. 
Braille appeared in France about 1829. From these facts it is 
clear that the time writing first appeared to the time Louis 
Braille invented the code that the blind use today spanned 
several thousand years. In this long interim it was left to 
others, sighted others, to record the blindness experience.
     Writing, in all its forms, is a marvelous invention of man. 
The encoded presence of your name or mine in print or Braille 
continues to delight us. A case in point:
     The interview that I gave for an appearance on the "Sixty 
Minutes" TV program lasted for some four hours. When the show 
aired, my part lasted but a moment. A big part of that brief 
appearance on camera was focused on Lesley Stahl's name written 
in Braille on a Braille Lite. My hands were shown reading as I 
spoke "L E S L E Y, S T A H L." No mention was made of the fact 
that I had to ask the hostess how to spell her name because I had 
never before seen it written. The orderly pattern of Braille dots 
that represented the name of Lesley Stahl was magical. It 
possessed entertainment value as well as some potential 
educational merit. In the view of the show's producers, it was 
worthy of the attention of a national television audience.
     Braille is the written language of the blind. It would be 
difficult to overemphasize the importance of Braille. It is a 
regrettable fact, often repeated nowadays, that 70 percent of all 
blind people are unemployed or under-employed. It is a fact, not 
repeated often enough, that ninety percent of blind people who 
read Braille are employed in decent jobs.
     Braille is not much understood and little appreciated by the 
general public. Far too many educators share the public's 
indifference to the importance of Braille to those blind people 
who master it. After decades of neglect by trained teachers of 
the blind, many individuals in the blind community have been led 
to believe that there are viable alternatives to learning 
Braille. There is none. The same educated people who believe that 
there are viable substitutes for Braille will scoff at the notion 
that substitutes for print are available to the sighted.
     Over the years there have been several studies to understand 
how blind people read Braille. Psychologists and other 
professionals who could not read Braille efficiently, if at all, 
undertook most of these research efforts. I have been unable to 
identify even one study of Braille reading and writing that 
included subjective insights from blind individuals who were 
participating in the investigation. One might expect that good 
Braille readers would be asked to explain how they read.
     The blind community and society will greatly benefit from 
new, enlightened research that leads to better training in 
reading and writing Braille. We are in need of better knowledge 
of the physiology of touch. We need accurate measurement of 
transmission bandwidth through the sense of touch, that is, to 
ask: How many parallel channels can be simultaneously carrying 
tactile data to the brain? How many bits per second can flow 
through each tactile channel? What are the physiological 
limitations inherent in tactile communication?
     More information is needed on haptic recognition of objects 
large and small and how tactual imagery is acquired and stored 
from the practical experience of blind individuals. How dependent 
is haptic interpretation on context? The list of opportunities 
for research could be extended indefinitely.
     Please imagine this haptic experience, as I did a long time 
ago. I was asleep in the middle seat of an airplane. The aisle 
seat to my right was empty. That is to say that it was empty when 
I went to sleep. Upon waking, I shifted the position of my right 
hand from my lap and allowed it to drop onto the seat at my 
right. It came to rest on a nude knee. The time that my hand 
remained at rest on the knee could have been measured only in 
milliseconds. That was quite long enough for me to recognize that 
my hand should be moved, that there was a passenger in the seat 
that had previously been empty, that the passenger was wearing 
shorts or a miniskirt, that it was probably a young lady or a 
young boy. If I could but have returned my hand for a second 
peek, I could have determined the gender and age of the knee and 
a measure of unhappiness experienced by the knee's owner.
     The wealth of information that passed through my hand in the 
instant of contact defies analysis. With all my insight I can 
offer only the lame observation that context played a major role 
in every aspect of the event. 
     Better understanding of haptic perception should be pursued 
through new research inspired by new insights into how real blind 
people interact with the physical world. Let's begin with Braille 
reading.
     I posit that the cognitive processes involved in reading 
print and Braille are essentially the same. The image flowing 
through the specialized regions of the brain where they are 
stored and processed for their linguistic meaning are the same 
for all reading, whether done visually or through the sense of 
touch. Recent articles in scientific journals, as well as the 
popular press, report that the visual cortex in the brain of 
sighted and blind individuals is the site where imagery is 
stored. Thus the only difference between reading print and 
reading Braille is in the perceptual modality necessary to 
establish a train of imagery passing through the visual cortex--
that is, the visual path to the brain on the one hand and the 
tactual path to the brain on the other hand.
     I wish to emphasize this process: Print readers must 
establish a stream of images in the visual cortex, and Braille 
readers must likewise establish a flow of images through the 
visual cortex. Images passing through the visual cortex of the 
brain of sighted and blind readers are true images in both cases 
even though they are encoded in visual perceptions and tactual 
perceptions respectively.
     Other researchers will have to repeat experiments that 
indicate that the same region of the brain is used for processing 
tactile and visual images before professionals in the field will 
accept it. Once the role of the visual cortex in reading has been 
established, the investigator into factors affecting Braille 
reading will be free to focus entirely on the mechanical 
interface through touch with the Braille page. This understanding 
will also reduce the importance of the role of comprehension as 
one measure of reading speed.
     Grasping the meaning intended by the author of a written 
passage may play no more than a minor role in the transformation 
of the written words to their equivalents in natural speech. 
Sighted people who read well can do so without comprehending the 
information contained therein. This is common knowledge among 
blind students who have employed sighted individuals to read 
aloud from a textbook. 
     I cannot resist a brief digression to share with you one of 
my experiences with sighted readers. Back in my younger days, 
when I was enthralled with chemistry and could not find a book in 
Braille on the subject above the beginner's level, I hired a 
young lady to read an advanced book on chemistry. She read it 
with ease. She read it with as much speed as I could tolerate. At 
one point I asked her if she understood what she was reading. 
With exaggerated good humor she replied: "Oh, yes. I understand 
every word. But it's the sentences and paragraphs that give me 
problems."
     Once we accept the premise that the focus of an inquiry into 
factors affecting Braille reading will be confined to those 
relating to touch alone, it will be necessary to identify the 
specific factors to be evaluated. Here is a brief starter list of 
factors affecting reading by touch:
     
     * Compliance of the skin covering finger pads. The top 
layers of skin that contact Braille must be soft enough to be 
deformed by the pattern of the Braille characters as they pass 
beneath the reading fingers.
     * The area of the skin brought in contact with the line of 
Braille being read has a critical relation to the efficiency with 
which the tactile information is passed to the brain. This is a 
variable of the reading strategy of each individual: one finger, 
two fingers, or more; one hand or two hands. The greater the skin 
contact with the Braille line, the larger the tactile view.
     * Temperature of the reading fingers. Cold fingers do not 
make for good Braille reading.
     * Alignment and tracking of hands and fingers with the lines 
of Braille being scanned. Misalignment and poor scanning may 
result in contact with Braille on an adjacent line. This may 
corrupt the tactile data flow. Engineers would refer to this 
extra tactual stimulation as signal noise. A maximum ratio of 
signal to noise will contribute to the reading process.
     This partial list of largely mechanical factors affecting 
Braille reading omits any reference to reading strategy. Some 
researchers have attempted to analyze reading techniques of blind 
subjects by studying video recordings of their hands as they read 
in a laboratory setting. Other researchers have explored Braille 
reading by presenting Braille one character at a time using a 
contrivance called a tachistotactometer. I suspect that the use 
of video recordings and tachistotactometers tells us more about 
the sighted investigators' love of technology than the technique 
used by the reader of Braille.
     Now here is my next posit; one sure to offend the 
establishment: The best information about effective Braille 
reading technique will come from analysis of subjective reports 
from skilled Braille readers themselves. I contend that no amount 
of observation by a sighted investigator can ever surpass the 
subjective reports of what is going on at the interface between 
the blind reader and the Braille page. I also believe that this 
assertion applies equally to continuous Braille reading and to 
searching for specific information in a Braille book.
     As we harvest the fruits of our research into tactile 
reading and haptic perception, a clear set of principles for 
designing computer-controlled, tactile transducers should emerge. 
These should be of two types. The first tactile display may 
consist of a printer that produces layered deposition of solid 
material on paper with the fine detail required for representing 
objects in three dimensions. A human face would be a good choice 
to exemplify tactile image printing. The face could be built up 
as a bas relief with true X and Y dimensions and a Z axis scaled 
to meet minimum requirements to provoke immediate recognition of 
such features as nose, mouth, eyes, and so forth. With sufficient 
resolution and detail, a bas relief image formed in this way 
could take on the aspect of a tactile photograph. I should be 
excused for coining the term tactograph for this medium. In fact, 
I submit that tactographs of human faces could be produced in the 
very near future with minor modification of machines used in 
industry today in rapid prototyping applications.
     It does not require a great leap of confidence to imagine 
the second transducer, which should be a computer-controlled, 
dynamically variable surface topography capable of producing 
refreshable bas-relief imagery. Very little in technology today 
appears suited to the manufacture of a display of this 
complexity. New materials must be found or designed to this end. 
None will be found or designed till the men and women in various 
branches of materials science are inspired to begin the quest 
with the same zeal with which they now pursue materials with 
desirable electro-optical properties.
     The International Braille Research Center is eager to 
support fully or partner with any individual or group attending 
this conference who shares our feel for the future, who can 
imagine the instruments to augment tactile perception in order 
for the blind to feel that which they cannot now touch and find 
the path we must follow to build the tactile technologies of the 
future.
     
     
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Joe Sullivan]
     Duxbury in the Year 2000 and Beyond
     by Joe Sullivan
     
     From the Editor: Joe Sullivan is President of Duxbury 
Systems, Inc.
     
     I am going to subtitle this, "Duxbury in the Year 2000 and 
Beyond," and I hasten to add that that doesn't mean that I'm 
saying that Duxbury and Braille translation are now the same 
things. Many other people throughout the world are involved in 
Braille translation and Braille-related software.
     I am glad to say, though, having been invited to speak about 
where we are going to be in the year 2000 and beyond, with only 
two more months to go, I'm glad to say that I think we'll be 
here. If we can actually make it to July 4, to be exact, we'll be 
celebrating our twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the 
company. Maybe more remarkable is that we will still be very much 
specialized in software for Braille. That is what we do, and that 
is all we do. That is kind of remarkable, because, when I look 
back to those early plans that we laid in 1975, we considered 
that we could identify probably a total of ten customers world-
wide that we might eventually serve, hopefully at the rate of 
acquiring one per year. We have actually kept track of that rate, 
and our estimate was about right for the first few years.
     I'd rather say that nowadays we are busier than ever, and 
that customer count is exceeded by a factor of roughly a 
thousand, which we are naturally happy about, but it might cause 
you to wonder how good we are at prognosticating.
     I'm not going to try to go too far out in what I'm talking 
about, not certainly through 2025 and beyond as we've been 
hearing. I did, by the way, read Ray Kurzweil's book, The Age of 
Spiritual Machines, and much enjoyed it, Ray. It was very 
thought-provoking. I was dismayed, though, at the end of it to 
realize that I don't recall any mention of Braille throughout the 
book. I wondered what that meant. Also in the speech you gave 
this morning, there was no mention of Braille, except for one 
oblique reference to other modes of display.
     If I had to do a little thinking about that question: are we 
going to have Braille in the year 2025 and after. . . . I keep 
hearing, not that Braille would be supplanted, but that there 
seems to be an implicit expectation that, if somehow print is 
converted to speech--whispered in the ear or somehow made 
available--that is a method by which print can be made available 
to blind people. If that's all it is, it is still not quite 
enough. It's good, but it's not the same as Braille, and I think 
that's basically what we were hearing from Dr. Cranmer, and I 
have certainly found that over and over again in my work.
     If we get to 2025 and print is gone, that information in 
some direct form that isn't print is coming to us through robots, 
or whatever it might be--the clothes we are wearing are smarter 
than we are, great, that's good, and somehow the information is 
presented. I'd love to see it, but if that happens, and either 
print is gone or if access to print for blind people is actually 
direct, not through speech, as it is for sighted people now, then 
we may see Braille gone. Otherwise, I'm going to bet that what we 
will see from technology is increased support for Braille, not a 
replacement for Braille in the coming years.
     How about a few details about what we are doing? First an 
area that is kind of old-hat, but I'll go over some of the things 
that we've been working on for years and perhaps some new 
frontiers in those areas: languages and codes. We've been working 
with different natural languages since the first year after our 
incorporation. We did contracted Spanish in late 1976, the first 
non-English code we did. We've been adding one or two every year 
since that time to the point where I think it was about thirty or 
so the last I looked.
     At this point it's explosive. I just can't keep up with the 
number of requests we are getting to do different languages. We 
are working on quite a few in parallel. As Dr. Herie said, "We 
are in the age of globalization." Everybody, even in countries 
and using languages that we might not have heard of a few years 
ago, wants access to technology and deserves it; and by gum we 
have to give it to them.
     We are also working to make our software, not only do these 
languages in Braille, but be usable in those languages. We have a 
project with a partner in France, the Association Valentin Hauy 
to add more facilities including the ability to work with the 
program naturally in French. The way we do that will also make it 
easy to do other languages as well.
     Moving on to other codes, many of you know that I'm deeply 
involved in the Unified Braille Code, our UBC. It's not the 
unified button code as we heard earlier today. Sometimes I wish 
it was; we have a lot of controversy there. As some of you may 
know also, there will be a meeting in this very building next 
week in which the International Council on English Braille (ICEB) 
will be taking another look at the UBC. ICEB is in fact the 
sponsoring agency under which the UBC project is being conducted. 
I doubt very much that it's going to result in instant adoption 
of UBC as the code, but we certainly feel we are likely to 
continue working in that direction, hopefully in a few years to 
make UBC the prevailing code. 
     I won't go into a lot of detail about what UBC is, but it is 
very much in line with the kind of things we've been hearing 
here. It is oriented toward making Braille more accessible, that 
is to say more easily produced from who knows what, whether it be 
the World Wide Web or different electronic files. The idea is to 
remove the interpretation process from the transcription end and 
present to the reader an unambiguous presentation of symbols in 
the same manner and parallel fashion as in the print itself. You 
can look at this as saying we are going to try to replace the 
current plethora of Braille rules. There are so many of them, 
it's so complex, and they so depend upon the transcriber 
interpreting and adding meaning to the material, which of course 
drives up the cost of Braille. The whole UBC philosophy is based 
upon the idea of reader rules--the reader does the reading from a 
clear and unambiguous presentation of the symbols. The reader 
does the interpretation.
     If you want to know more about UBC, you will probably want 
to visit the Web site <www.ICEB.org> to see where that's going. 
Hopefully that will be updated as we go along in the near future 
as a result of next week's conference. 
     Music code: this is an area, by the way, in which we expect 
to cooperate with others who are already doing good work. I think 
primarily of Dancing Dots. In the early stages I have been 
working with Dancing Dots to allow our files to be pulled back 
and forth so that music can be presented in the middle of a 
document. It makes good sense for us to do that.
     Similarly in graphics, as many of you know, we work with 
files already produced by the Reprotronics TTD program, which is 
a program that allows a blind person to create graphics 
independently. Again, we haven't gotten into the area of 
graphics, but we are able to import those files so that you can 
have graphics presented in the midst of a Braille document. 
     All of these areas have to do with languages and codes. None 
of them are terribly two-thousandish; they are ongoing right now. 
But where we find the future is most pressing in upon us has to 
do with sources and platforms under which all of these things 
take place--the environment in which the Braille translator 
functions. Braille is needed not only for books in standard paper 
format, but also from other kinds of sources and in devices that 
may be new and themselves rapidly evolving--Braille everywhere, 
in other words. The DAISY standard for Digital Talking Books 
would be one example of a type of format that we see as a natural 
source from which we can derive a nicely formatted Braille 
document. In a sense this is a continuation of work and 
philosophy that goes back a ways, especially the ability to 
import SGML and of course more recently the HTML (which is a type 
of SGML) into a Braille format. We have believed in that approach 
just about forever, and it is good to see that it continues to 
apply. In working with these kinds of sources, we concur with the 
comments that Mr. Chong made that what you need are well 
structured, well tagged documents, and from there we can do the 
Braille just fine. That's what we have in the Talking Book, 
thanks to George Kerscher and the DAISY people. We have a coming 
era in which digital books will be available that could just as 
well be put into Braille. It could be a full Braille document--or 
why not have a Braille display actually being used instead of 
speech, if you wish, to show you the different parts of the 
document? Technically that's what we see is involved.
     It isn't that deep, but there are some business questions 
that I'm afraid are a little deeper, and I don't know the answers 
to those. One of them Bill Raeder raised. That is the question of 
whether the convenience of that kind of book is going to narrow 
the gap between the advantages that Braille has for random access 
visa vis speech-based methods. In other words, when you have a 
digital book and you can jump back and forth easily just as you 
can with a Braille document, will you in fact be as inclined to 
use the Braille? If I had to guess, sure, for a given individual 
there will probably be a bit more use of digital talking books 
and a little less use of Braille. But I'll bet that we are still 
going to see more use of Braille overall because, again, you 
still have this basic issue that speech is not a complete 
substitute for Braille.
     What we have seen--and it's incredible--is that the use of 
Braille has just increased exponentially over the years, rather 
than decreased as everyone was predicting awhile back. I really 
don't expect that to change, but the percentage for a given 
individual might change in favor of the digital talking books. 
That's fine because they are certainly going to be very useful 
tools. 
     All of this is in line with what we consider our goal: 
Braille everywhere. That's the bottom line for us, Braille usable 
for any kind of information that may come your way by whatever 
means. Speaking of information, I can't resist including a quote 
from Bill Raeder at lunch today. He said, "You know, we are 
drowning in information before we have a chance to develop a 
thirst for it." I can only agree, but I suppose what we have to 
do is make sure that blind people have the same opportunities as 
the general population to get drowned in this information 
explosion and sort things out for themselves.
     In this sources-and-platforms area one of the things we are 
doing is dealing with the need and desire to have Braille in such 
things as Word or in other common applications that you might be 
using. Of course we import Word documents, WordPerfect, and lots 
of others. That's not entirely what people want; people just want 
to be able to push a button when they are in a Word document and 
have it come out in Braille. Some of this dovetails with some of 
the developments we're seeing. We are just beginning to see 
Braille embossers that are Windows-oriented, so that instead of 
the old teletype model which you drove by sending ASCII 
characters, they are driven in the same way that laser printers 
are driven, so you have a field of dots that can be raised. 
Interestingly enough, common applications can in fact drive them 
at this point. So we have internally a development in which you 
can be in Word, press a button, and it turns to Braille before 
your eyes, something we call DuckWord. That name may not last; 
we'll see.
     Then there is the person who isn't into Braille enough to 
have an application of any kind on his computer or who wants his 
document handled professionally. What about that person who is on 
the Web and wants to send a Braille document to a friend--maybe 
doesn't want the Braille himself? This all comes down to the 
whole issue of Web-based delivery; and, yes, there too you may 
have seen the announcement made at the APH [American Printing 
House for the Blind] meeting last week. I'll read it to you: 
"Duxbury, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and the 
American Printing House for the Blind have agreed to collaborate 
to develop E-Braille, an electronic Web-based system for the 
management, transcription, production, and delivery of Braille. 
We hope and believe this project and the resulting processes will 
revolutionize the ability to deliver Braille texts and Braille 
textbooks to students and individuals throughout North America. 
It is also our belief and intent that this project will 
facilitate access to Braille and Braille production around the 
world." So this is management and distribution primarily, but it 
also involves translation, potentially online translation, in 
some cases. We are just starting this project and are very 
enthused and very excited and feel very privileged to be 
involved.
     I just have a few notes on a couple of hot-button items 
here: pricing. We've heard people say, "Now that you are a 
monopoly, the prices will go up." Well, we are not a monopoly for 
one thing, and we are just simply holding the line, but if there 
is any trend, it obviously ought to be downward. We do intend to 
bring our former competitor, Mega Dots, along in the sense of 
basic maintenance. We are not going to be advancing that program 
because it's DOS-based, but we do intend to bring its good 
facilities, and there are a number of them, over into DBT 
[Duxbury Braille Translator] as we advance DBT. Eventually there 
won't be a further need for the Mega Dots program as such, but in 
the meantime it will be maintained. We've also added a training 
division and are working on better training for all of our 
customers in how to use our products, which some people find 
complicated. The bottom line for us is Braille everywhere.
     I just want to leave you with one thought as we approach 
2000. It was actually, as Tim said, around 1829 that Braille was 
developed. Just think about how forward-looking it was that Louis 
Braille in 1829 produced a system that is already Y2K compliant!
     
     
[Picture/Caption: Judy Dixon]
     Web-Braille: A New Distribution System for Braille Books
     by Judy Dixon
     
     From the Editor: Judy Dixon is the consumer relations 
officer for the National Library Service for the Blind and 
Physically Handicapped of the Library of Congress.
     
     I'm very happy to have this opportunity to tell you about 
Web-Braille. Joe Sullivan posed the question, "Would Digital 
Talking Books in any way decrease the use of Braille?" I'm 
thinking that it won't because we are here to tell you about 
something like the digital Braille book. While these books won't 
necessarily have the rich markup that we'll enjoy from Digital 
Talking Books--and hopefully we'll have Braille from those as 
well--at least these books are in digital form right now, and we 
can enjoy some of the benefits of the digital form in that they 
can be searched and bookmarked and stored and things like that 
that can happen in a digital document.
     Web-Braille is new. It's very exciting for us. It's the 
NLS's system to deliver Braille books on the Internet. Web-
Braille offers immediate, twenty-four-hour access to thousands of 
Grade II Braille books. We had one user a few weeks ago who wrote 
very enthusiastically because he needed to help his ten-year-old 
child with his math homework and found a four-volume book on Web-
Braille called Helping Your Child With His Math Homework. He 
downloaded it that evening and was actually able to be helpful in 
a way that he would not have been able to do had he needed to 
wait to get a physical book from his library.
     NLS has been saving the diskettes with the files on them 
used to emboss Braille books since 1992. On Web-Braille we have 
virtually every Braille book produced by NLS in the last seven-
and-a-half years, except for print-Braille books and Grade I 
Braille books. In October of 1997 we got the idea to create Web-
Braille. We had all these books hanging around. We had good 
Internet ability. We had a server with a lot of storage. We had 
all the bits and pieces that we needed, we thought. We started by 
examining the disks and realized that the producers of the 
Braille books had put the books (we just said, "Give us the 
disks;" we didn't say how) well, they put the books on there in 
some very curious ways. For those of you who are familiar with 
how Braille books are structured, two of the producers had put 
the preliminary pages for each volume in a separate file from the 
main volume of the book. All five producers had used completely 
different file-naming conventions. It was quite interesting. 
     We established a file structure, with some suggestions from 
Joe Sullivan, suitable for embossing on a double-sided embosser, 
and we established a file-naming convention. We then decided to 
launch a pilot of Web-Braille. We decided to select fifty books 
that we thought might be very appealing, but there were a number 
of things that we needed to do before we could launch this pilot. 
We had to create a security system. No one at NLS was very 
knowledgeable about these kinds of things, so a couple of us 
quickly took a few UNIX courses so we could understand a little 
more about UNIX and directories and files and permissions and all 
that good fun UNIX stuff. We learned how to set it up with the 
advice of Library of Congress employees from downtown. We were 
able to set up a simple security system that requires a user ID 
and a password.
     We selected the fifty books, manually stuck the preliminary 
pages and the main parts of the volumes together in a reasonable 
way, and created the HTML pages for how people would select these 
files and view them online. In March of 1998 we launched our Web 
browser pilot, and I think a number of you in this room were 
participants in that pilot. We had 174 people. We asked people to 
apply to us to participate in the pilot, but in reality we took 
anybody who came. It didn't matter to us. All we had to do was 
issue a user ID and a password. So as long as they were eligible, 
we let them into the pilot. We sent announcements to listservs 
and consumer organizations and so forth.
     We had only one real glitch in the pilot. With the help of 
Curtis Chong we were able to determine that it was really better 
for Braille Lite users if we put these files on our server as 
binary files with a binary transfer rather than as an ASCII 
transfer. So any of you who have always regarded Braille files as 
ASCII files (they are), remember they're more usable if you help 
them preserve their carriage returns and line feeds. Transferring 
them in a binary way does that.
     During the first month of the Web-Braille pilot we had 2,808 
hits by the one hundred plus people. In the test we had fourteen 
public schools and nine schools for the blind. One of our other 
surprises--and I suppose it shouldn't have been much of a 
surprise--but we started hearing from schools. "We need Braille. 
We can't get enough Braille. Oh, this is so wonderful. We're 
going to be able to get Braille!" Something is wrong with this 
picture. Libraries are going, "Oh Braille, ho hum, it takes up 
lots of space."
     Why are schools having trouble? We talked to several of the 
schools, and it turned out that in fact let's say a curriculum in 
Michigan required third graders to read Charlotte's Web. There 
might be twenty third graders in Michigan who were Braille 
readers. But in fact they couldn't afford to buy twenty hard-copy 
Braille versions of Charlotte's Web. The library didn't have 
twenty. If the library had scraped them up from all the other 
libraries around the country, they might have gotten twenty. It 
was very difficult for them, and they could not manage the 
process.
     They said, "We can buy all the paper it would take," And 
they were delighted. They were happy and willing to print twenty 
copies of Charlotte's Web. The schools are really looking at Web-
Braille as a very, very exciting thing for them to make Braille 
books for their students and also to provide Braille and Braille 
Lites and other kinds of refreshable Braille displays.
     After three months we surveyed all the participants in the 
pilot and found that the results were overwhelmingly positive. We 
had about seventy-nine people respond to the survey, and only one 
person rated it as anything other than excellent. So we decided 
to go full-scale and begin the process of launching Web-Braille 
in all its glory. We had thousands of archived disks, and they 
had to be gone through manually. This process really involved 
over a dozen NLS staff doing quite a lot of things like sorting 
through disks and making lists and doing lots of yucky, tedious 
things like that.
     Michael Moody, the NLS research and development officer, 
worked with a contractor to take all the disks and put those 
preliminary files back together with the main parts of the 
volume. They did that for 55,553 disks. It was quite an 
undertaking, and it took several months. The contractor wasn't 
very good at this, unfortunately, because Braille didn't make a 
lot of sense to them. We manually checked all the documents they 
did. This took quite a while, several more months.
     We also had to set up a system whereby the libraries could 
register people for Web-Braille and all that involved. We had 
about 2,600 titles to put up at this point, and we had to create 
HTML lists. So we created nine HTML files that went on the main 
page of Web-Braille. We also now have a frequently asked question 
section--we don't have two questions, so we call it frequently 
asked question. If we ever get another question, we'll change its 
name.
     As of July of 1999 we have nine HTML lists, and some of 
these files are great. They have over seven thousand links. We 
created an automatic link checker to check all the files and make 
sure that each file is one volume of Braille. When the files were 
ready, we had to get more storage, and interestingly enough, for 
those of you who are into this kind of stuff, right now we have 
over 2,758 books on Web-Braille. We're adding about ten books a 
week; 2,758 books is still less than a gigabyte. We have enough 
space for about six years of growth on our server.
     At present 304 people have registered for Web-Braille. We 
have established a mechanism for the NLS quality assurance 
section to upload the files. For those of you who are Web-Braille 
users and who may be in a situation where you are going to help 
other people understand it, here's the only sort of confusing 
part of it. The files on the main Web-Braille pages are static. 
They will not be added to. We have no really easy way to do that. 
But starting with the July/August Braille Book Review, all the 
books are linked to the Web-Braille files. So if you select a 
link to a particular volume in Braille Book Review, you'll then 
be prompted for your user ID and password. So Braille Book Review 
will contain the newest books.
     Here's a great Web-Braille trick. If we're near the end of 
the Braille Book Review cycle--and they are generally put up in 
the middle of the odd-numbered month (so November/December will 
go up around November 15), as we get closer to November 15, you 
know that the newest books are really there. You can actually 
access them by entering the whole URL with the book number. So 
you really can get them even though they're not on any list yet. 
They will be when Braille Book Review is put up in the middle of 
November. Our books are put up first, so they're really put up 
during the preceding two-month period.
     We launched Web-Braille officially on September 10. As I 
mentioned, we had 304 users. It will be announced in the 
November/December Braille Book Review. It is also beginning to 
appear in other libraries' lists. There still has not been a work 
day that someone wasn't added, so it's still continuing to flow 
very nicely.
     Planning for the future: what are we going to do now that we 
have launched Web-Braille so successfully, we hope, and it all 
seems to be going well? Our next step is Braille magazines. We 
will be starting a pilot on magazines. Magazines may actually 
prove to be a bit trickier, but we're going to look at magazines, 
make some decisions, and I welcome input from any of you who care 
about these things: whether we should put them up in their parts, 
whether we should put them up as one file, whether we should 
"article-ate" them, not to be confused with articulate--and just 
exactly how to do it in the least labor-intensive but most usable 
way possible. That's the balance here--labor against usability.
     We will start with the pilot of a magazine from a producer, 
probably some time in December or January; then we will see where 
to go from there as far as how magazines on Web-Braille work. We 
need to make some decisions, so those of you who are good Braille 
users and Braille readers, let's talk about that.
     
     
[Picture/Caption: George Kerscher]
     Implications of Digital Talking Books and Beyond
     by George Kerscher
     
     From the Editor: George Kerscher is a research fellow with 
Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic and the product manager for 
the DAISY Consortium.
     
     Mr. Chong asked me to talk about the problems associated 
with using publisher files. He also asked me to go through what 
DAISY is and what it's about, and also tell you about the open-
electronic-book technology that is evolving. He said to do this 
in twenty minutes. I'm going to move really rapidly, and I 
apologize for my machine-gun presentation, but there is a lot of 
content, and I think Michael [Gosse] is going to convey the kinds 
of information that you as leaders in your organizations need to 
know in order to make strategic decisions.
     First of all, talking about the publishers and publisher 
files, which we have been using to some extent over the past 
dozen years or so: When you ask a publisher for the files, they 
usually have postscript available because their product is print. 
They're print publishers; that's what they do, that's what they 
know how to do. That's their area of expertise. In order to get 
something more useful, you have to go upstream in the publishing 
process to what created those postscript files. In the K-twelve 
arena, for example, it's Quark predominantly--70 percent--and in 
higher education it begins to diversify, and you get all kinds of 
different file types.
     It's getting better, but the publishers may not even have 
those files to begin with. They may subcontract that composition 
out. They may give it to typesetters. They may not think that 
that is very important to them because they've got the postscript 
files, which are their bread and butter. So in many cases they 
don't have the files at all, but that's getting better because 
the publishers are beginning to wake up to the fact that these 
files may be important.
     In general, the publishing field is not the computer and 
technology field. They're not necessarily on the cutting edge of 
technology every minute of the day and night. They established 
procedures that they use, and that's exactly what they do. So 
availability of the files is the problem.
     Of course the file types vary even within a particular set. 
If we get Quark files, we have to keep what version of Quark was 
used to produce it, whether it was MAC or Windows, and the macros 
and other styles are different from publisher to publisher or 
even within the same publishing house, from department to 
department. So there's a wide variety in the files. 
     The types of files that we get are heavy with visual markup 
and visual presentation: all kinds of information about where 
things are positioned on the page, what font it is, whether it is 
bold--all that kind of information. Rarely is the information 
marked up with any kind of semantically important information. We 
don't know what things are. We don't know what's a paragraph. We 
don't know what's a heading. We know all kinds of visual things, 
but it's not marked up semantically with meaning. So when we get 
these files, we have to convert them, and it usually takes a 
fairly skilled person, a programmer, by and large, to have the 
first go at the files to do some of the analysis and try to 
figure out what to do. A lot of work is involved with technical 
people or trained technicians to convert these files into 
something useful.
     That's the experience that we've had, and it is time-
consuming. These are the same kinds of questions that the 
publishers have had to deal with when they make files available, 
for example, to the state of Texas.
     I'm going to move on to the DAISY Consortium. The DAISY 
Consortium is made up of libraries and organizations that provide 
information to people who are blind and print-disabled throughout 
the world. The major organizations, the full members, include 
Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic in the United States and 
RNIB in the UK, and we have full members in Sweden, Denmark, 
Germany, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, O.N.C.E. in Spain, 
and in Japan the Japanese Society for Rehabilitation of Persons 
with Disabilities. In addition, we have associate members all 
over the world, on every continent, except Antarctica. We have 
about twenty-four associate members. In the United States and 
Canada they are CNIB, who's been very active in working on the 
development of the training materials and the guidelines, a very 
active group--love them; INLB in Montreal recently joined; also 
APH; the Hadley School for the Blind; Arkenstone; and at the 
beginning of the year Minnesota State Services for the Blind.
     DAISY stands for Digital Audio-Based Information System. 
Originally it started to develop a replacement for the existing 
analog technology. But that's changed a bit, though the name has 
stayed the same. The mission of the DAISY Consortium is to 
develop the information technology for the next generation for 
people with disabilities. It also intends to develop ways of 
sharing the information with libraries around the world. Four-
track has been dominant in North America, but in other countries 
six-track; two-track; half-speed, two-track: all kinds of 
different formats have been used, and that difference in format 
has prevented inter-library loans between the various 
organizations. So we're striking out to accomplish that mission.
     What we've been developing is actually a multi-media 
presentation because audio by itself has no structure to it. So 
we use text to add the structure and navigation points to the 
information. What we've actually got is marked-up files, tagged 
files, using HTML. We are also using XML and developing all new 
technologies in XML. As you may know, HTML--the version 4.0 that 
we have right now--is the last HTML. From here on out it's going 
to be XML because it's much easier, much simpler to process. It's 
a much better system. Actually XML is a simplification of SGML, 
which has been around for a long time but just too bulky and 
cumbersome to use. So XML is it; XML is good.
     It also uses DTD, document type definition, which identifies 
the components of the document. We have paragraphs and headings 
and list items, things like that. The other component, in 
addition to the text marked up in XML, is SMIL (synchronized 
multi-media integration language). This is a standard of the W3C 
[World Wide Web Consortium]. So throughout, what DAISY has been 
using is international standards based primarily on W3C 
recommendations in order to develop its own specifications.
     We have come up with six categories of books. One is very 
simple with just a title. It is not what most of us would prefer. 
Probably one of the most common types of books will be a book 
that has a full table of contents, page numbers, and the full 
audio recording so that you can navigate through the digital 
Talking Book or go to any page, chapter, section, or subsection 
and move around very quickly to get to what you want.
     The other types of books include full text. The ideal, of 
course, is to have full text and full audio, and that particular 
multi-media would provide everything that has been recommended by 
the work groups--Curtis Chong headed up a work group which 
identified the user requirements. It's the full-text and full-
audio category that meets the user requirements laid out by that 
body and by a similar body in Europe established by the European 
Blind Union. That's the ideal.
     Also, once you've got the full text, the Braille is 
possible, and Joe is salivating. Joe Sullivan is ready to go, and 
we're really excited about his efforts and work in taking input 
of these types of files and outputting great Braille.
     The last type of book is just text. There is no audio 
associated with it. You would be using synthetic speech, 
refreshable Braille, large print, or a combination of those 
things to read that type of book.
     The standards that DAISY has developed so far--2.0 was a 
recommendation in September of '98, and that provides for 
headings, page numbers, and audio; but that's the extent of it. 
Two point zero one, which was just passed a couple of weeks ago 
in September, adds additional functionality, including full text 
in XML, and it includes footnotes, sidebars, and figure 
descriptions that can be turned off as an option by the reader. 
Gilles [P`epin] is going to be doing a section later on the 
players and reading-devices side of things, so I will leave all 
that for him.
     Of course one of the most important things that is going on 
right now in standards is the National-Information-Standards-
Organization (NISO) work that NLS initiated with Digital Talking 
Books, bringing together the key players in North America who are 
involved with Digital Talking Books and developing the 
specifications. DAISY was invited to participate in this work, 
and there's been an absolutely fantastic hand-in-glove 
cooperation between all the organizations to make sure that the 
standards developed by NISO lead to a single world-wide standard. 
I would expect that the DAISY specifications that come out in the 
future will actually be NISO specifications and recommendations. 
So you can rest assured that all the players intend to come up 
with one worldwide standard and not a divergent group. It's been 
great working with everybody on that team. Michael Moody in 
particular has been a fabulous person to work with.
     The DAISY Consortium is developing production tools. We will 
very soon be coming out with our first release. It's in final 
beta. We're about a month away from releasing something called 
LpStudio/Pro. It will be a full-fledged production tool, 
beginning to end, for digital talking books. It's been a year and 
a half in development and most of the money contributed by the 
members has gone toward that software development. We're also 
working on A to D conversions (analog to digital) in which we 
digitize existing tapes. The hard part of that is going back and 
adding the structure so that students have the kind of navigation 
they want in their textbooks.
     The distribution mechanism that we're looking at right now 
is CD ROM. It's very common, and we think that's going to be 
around for I don't know how long, but CD ROM distribution is 
something that is here right now and that we're doing. We know 
that RFB & D, for example, will have to support the cassette for 
some time. So the CD ROM and the cassettes will be in parallel 
for a certain period of time. It's a real pain to have to do 
that. But it's something that's inevitable when you've got an 
infrastructure as strong as we've got in the four-track system in 
North America.
     Of course long term the goal is to have Internet 
distribution either streaming this information or downloading it 
to solid-state devices. Everybody wants to get there as quickly 
as possible and as the band width improves, we'll move in that 
direction. Because we're using Internet-based standards and 
technology, that kind of transition is really built in. Some 
people are saying, "What are we going to do: are we going to 
distribute on CD ROM? or wait?" But the digital technology allows 
for the migration to any type of distribution mechanism that is 
right for a particular organization.
     Moving on to Open Electronic Book: who are the players here? 
We've got Microsoft, who is very interested in electronic books; 
manufacturers of Rocket Book and Soft Book, which is just a hand-
held book with a screen and some functions like page forward; 
Glass Book, who's very interested in security and digital-rights 
management. Many publishers are involved. About fifty to seventy-
five organizations have been involved in writing the standard 
that was published on September 21. OEB (Open Electronic Book) 
1.0, was published at that time. It was really designed for 
legacy documents.
     They know that we've got this problem with the publishers 
having postscript files, some of them having Quark, but they 
don't have real good files that are marked up in XML. The 
specification really leans heavily toward making it easy for the 
publishers to convert to this format, 1.0. In this way books can 
become available. The devices can grow and prosper. At the 
meeting Microsoft said that it is going to have Microsoft Reader 
available in the first quarter of 2000 to support open electronic 
books. There's a lot of support. This is the first time we've 
really seen a large effort in the publishing arena to move 
forward with electronic books.
     Open E-book is like an amoeba; there's no formal 
organization. I was involved with the 1.0 standards, trying to 
take this train which was moving forward at an incredible pace 
and make sure that some of the accessibility features get put 
into it. They worked from a base of HTML 4.0 and wrote a DTD in 
XML that is based on 4.0. We were able to carry with it all the 
accessibility features developed by the WAI [Web Access 
Initiative] by using that strategy. It was nip and tuck at times 
about being able to do that. But by and large the OEB folks see 
that the requirements the blind community has are really no 
different from the requirements that the sighted community has, 
in file specifications that is.
     So OEB now needs to form a real organization that can move 
this forward. That's underway. There will be a meeting December 
14, 15 in San Francisco.
     A big issue with the publishers is digital-rights 
management. That's the protection; it's a wrapper around the 
information that prevents the data from being sent willy-nilly 
wherever anybody pleases. Before there is large-scale use of 
electronic books, the publishers are going to have to be 
convinced that their intellectual property is secure, and 
digital-rights management is the way to do it. That's something 
that will be evolving over the next two years.
     The OEB folks know that 1.0 specification is really designed 
for legacy data, and they want to move toward a second 
specification that is much richer. That's where the work of the 
DAISY Consortium and NISO and Open E-Book in the 2.0 version have 
a possibility to converge their standards. With the DAISY-NISO 
work we've got objects identified like footnotes, note 
references, sidebars, notices, index, lists. These things are not 
defined in OEB. Only the very basics are part of OEB 1.0. They 
know they need that; They know they want it; and they plan to put 
it in 2.0. What I am suggesting is that it's strategically very 
important for our organizations to work toward convergence of 
standards with mainstream publishing. I think that's a very 
important point that we are going to be raising at the next NISO 
meeting next month in Louisville--a very important opportunity 
there.
     Sooner or later publishers are going to start dual 
publishing, which means they won't just focus on print, but 
they'll also focus on the electronic book. They'll want to have 
both books available at the same time. At this point the use of 
XML and that technology becomes natural. You have the XML marked 
up with structure and content, and, through a style for print, 
you go ahead and print. For a style for the electronic book, you 
include those kinds of styles. It's also a matter of styling for 
large print. It's a matter of styling for Braille.
     A different style can be applied to the same information; 
it's just a presentation difference. So the structure and content 
are all there. We're using the same information, but the way the 
information is presented is controlled by styles, and of course 
the reading device that one may use to present that information. 
We have a huge opportunity at this point, when publishers start 
dual publishing, to make books accessible essentially right out 
of the box. There will be a single source file for everything, 
the whole document in a variety of different types of 
presentation.
     What can be done by libraries right now? We can start 
digital mastering at this point. We are ready to start doing that 
kind of thing pretty much full scale. We want to work on A to D 
collection conversion to convert what we've got that is worth 
moving forward into the future and turn that into the new format. 
We want to test that with consumers to assure that we're 
providing the kinds of structure that they need. We want to plan 
for the launch in the United States of Digital Talking Books 
right now.
     What are the possible future outcomes? The single source 
file could become ubiquitous in publishing so that they use one 
single source file for mastering their information, and then they 
go to different formats at will. We could have access to 
information at the same time as everybody else. We could use the 
OEB source for producing full-text, full-audio books. The 
libraries could also add additional information to the OEB books 
with figure descriptions and other types of things, elaborations 
that need to be made on these types of books. We could eventually 
get to practically a full-audio and a full-text rendering of the 
information. And eventually the libraries can get down to trying 
to pay some serious attention to the very tough problems of math 
and science, which we know are sorely neglected at this point.
     I didn't touch on any of the international copyright issues 
in this presentation, but they need to be resolved before we're 
going to be able to distribute outside borders. And I didn't 
touch on DAISY's efforts in developing countries to move this 
technology and bring this information to developing countries, 
but I want you to know that's a very important item on the 
strategic plan within the DAISY Consortium. If you want to know 
more about DAISY, I'm available to talk any time. 
     
     
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Michael Gosse]
     Publishing Tools:
     Converting Obstacles to Opportunities
     by Michael Gosse, Ph.D.
     
     From the Editor: At the time of this conference Dr. Gosse 
was the Systems Engineer at the National Center for the Blind.
     
     Good morning, and thank you for giving me this opportunity 
to address the U.S./Canada conference on Technology. It is a 
great privilege to have the opportunity to address you this 
morning and to begin a dialogue on what I believe is a very 
important topic that will have significant impact on the lives of 
blind people throughout the world. My presentation today will 
focus on issues surrounding the interface between desktop 
publishing software, publishers, and the Digital Talking Book 
standard file formats.
     But this issue is really larger than the community assembled 
at this conference. The consumer market for electronic books 
encompasses the entire population of the earth. If the true 
capacity for electronic publishing is realized, people who can't 
read, speak the language, or physically turn a page will have 
access to books from across the world. The National Federation of 
the Blind, through its NEWSLINEr and Jobline initiatives has 
demonstrated that access to published information can be provided 
in a timely manner to the population through a simple telephone. 
The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically 
Handicapped is leading an effort to develop standards that will 
provide the basis for electronic books to be available to the 
blind. This DTB standard will allow books for the blind to be 
produced more quickly and will provide features that give blind 
people access comparable to that enjoyed by the sighted.
     There was a time when even print books were scarce because 
they were reproduced by hand. As a result only those who could 
afford books were able to read. This was dramatically changed 
with the advent of moveable-type printing. This invention allowed 
for mass production, greatly reducing the cost of books and other 
printed material. Since then, reading and writing have become 
essential for success in almost every facet of modern society. 
Now, in the information age, it is expected and mostly assumed 
that all people read. And yet, reading and writing are only a 
part of what the Information Age represents.
     It is no wonder that in this high tech world software tools 
have been developed to assist people in all aspects of 
information generation and retrieval. Word processors correct our 
spelling and grammar, suggest that it knows we're writing a 
letter, offers assistance, and allows others to collaborate and 
edit our work. Most word processors these days even go so far as 
to offer templates for various tasks. Readers on the other hand 
can search huge volumes of information for key words and even 
concepts, but only if the data are published in electronic form 
and only if the document is properly prepared.
     If you have done a search on the Internet lately, you 
probably have a clue about the effectiveness of the search 
process. You may find thousands of documents that match your 
search requirements, but few are relevant to your desired 
objective. This is not so much the fault of the search engine as 
of the electronic document. Search engines rely heavily on 
document structure to add significance to the words. Poorly 
marked-up documents result in poor search performance. As long as 
documents are produced with visual appeal as the central focus, 
the blind and sighted alike will be unable to take full advantage 
of the information revolution.
     The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) is 
assisting the National Library Services for the Blind and 
Physically Handicapped (NLS) with the development of a digital 
talking book standard. The DTB standard will consist of file 
specifications for the delivery of synchronized text and audio as 
well as other multimedia content. Rather than reinvent 
information systems for text and multimedia, the NISO DTB 
committee has wisely chosen to reuse standard technology. A 
rigorous set of end-user requirements has led to a file 
specification based on industry standard concepts.
     Extensible Markup Language (XML) and a DTB Document Type 
Definition (DTD) are the core components of the standard. These 
technologies appear to be the central components of the future of 
Internet publishing. Most leading Internet publishing software 
supports both XML and DTD's. This means that Digital Talking 
Books can be marked-up and published using commercial, off-the-
shelf products. Experience suggests that future versions of these 
standards will retain backward compatibility and therefore 
increase the useful life span of each generation of digital 
talking books.
     In contrast most desktop publishing software, such as Quark 
Express, produces documents in proprietary file formats. Although 
many tools are available which translate between file formats, 
information is often lost during the translation process. Several 
de-facto standards have emerged for portability of files between 
software packages and computer platforms. Among these are 
Portable Document Format (PDF), supported by Adobe, and Rich Text 
Format (RTF), supported by Microsoft. The main objective of these 
formats is to produce the same appearance of the document across 
hardware and software packages, platforms, and versions.
     In both these representations document structure is 
essentially ignored. For example, translation of table data into 
PDF from a desktop publishing tool may be accomplished by 
positioning the table cell data using tabs, spaces, or pixel 
coordinates on the page. Visually the document will look the 
same, but all information relating to the tabular nature of the 
data is discarded.
     Transformations of this nature are called lossy. In 
situations like this, human intervention and visual inspection 
are often required to restore the meaning of the original 
document. Automating the process is nearly impossible, defeating 
a significant advantage of electronic information exchange. File 
exchange formats like PDF and RTF may be acceptable for works 
that will wind up in hard copy, but they are antiquated for 
electronic-information processing. There is more to a book than 
simply making it look appealing on the page.
     In order for electronic information publishing to reach its 
full potential, data exchange must retain all structure, content, 
and related information. For document translation to be useful 
for the electronic publication formats such as Open E-Book, 
DAISY, or Digital Talking Books, developers must retain the 
visual presentation as well as the content and intent of the 
author and publisher. Furthermore, additional information can 
greatly enhance the value of the published document. Pictures, 
graphs, and charts can be enhanced with detailed text 
descriptions. The same is true for other multimedia data such as 
sound and video clips.
     This is where the publisher's task begins. If the software 
vendors provide the tools to allow accurate electronic 
representation of published data, then the publishers must take 
the initiative to use the tools consistently and to their fullest 
extent. Styles, templates, and procedures must be developed to 
ensure consistent representation of text and multimedia data. It 
is essential to keep in mind that a little work up front will 
save significant effort down the road. Finally, publishers must 
take the initiative and insist that the software tools provide 
direct translation into standard electronic book formats 
including the NISO DTB.
     Desktop publishing vendors have produced powerful tools to 
automate the publishing process. Now they need to enhance those 
tools to provide a mechanism that allows the author and publisher 
to do more than just position text and images on the page. 
Publishers need to be able to define content and structure and 
publish the result in standard file formats. These modifications 
to existing software tools will require significant thought, 
insight, and cooperation--not to mention a little modification to 
existing code.
     The future of books, magazines, and newspapers lies in their 
reincarnation in electronic form. The blindness community has 
seen the potential for electronic publication. We have explored 
the possibility and taken significant steps to embrace it. The 
Internet has served as the great equalizer that will soon level 
the playing field for the blind. Without the cooperation and 
resources of the rest of the world, equal access to printed 
material for the blind may be delayed. But, in the not-too-
distant future, blind and sighted alike will rely on our 
computers to retrieve, analyze, and read more than any one person 
can manage today. Publishers and software vendors can decide to 
make the changes now or later, but the changes will come. It is 
safe to say that the best products will make billions and the 
mediocre will be forgotten.
     
     
     A View from the Publishers
     by Carol Risher
     
     From the Editor: Carol Risher is Vice President for 
Copyright and New Technology at the Association of American 
Publishers (AAP).
     
     I recognize the importance of this conference, and I am very 
glad to present the views of the publishers. My remarks fit very 
well with those of the previous two speakers in this session. AAP 
publishers represent different markets. When you think of books, 
it is important to know that our members publish elementary and 
high school text books for a particular market; college text 
books; professional and scholarly books; and what we call trade, 
the consumer fiction and non-fiction. All of our members publish 
books in order to get information to the public, including those 
who have print-accessibility problems. We have been working with 
the NFB, the American Printing House for the Blind, the American 
Foundation for the Blind, RFB&D, and the National Library Service 
for many years to improve accessibility.
     We are now looking together at technology initiatives. 
Technology is an opportunity, but it's important that everyone 
realizes that for publishers it is also a threat. Right now, 
today, my office, which is copyright and new technology, gets 
reports that college students go into college book stores and buy 
text books; they then take them to self-service machines and copy 
the entire book and bring the book back to the book store for 
full credit. This is happening across the country. We also have 
won lawsuits about course packs, where people copy a chapter of 
this, a chapter of that, a chapter of the other thing. People are 
buying course packs and photocopying them.
     Now, with the advent of scanning technology, it is possible 
with a hand-held scanner to take an entire text book and put it 
up on the Internet. So we are fighting the threat of technology, 
and those of you who don't follow the law may not realize that 
there is also now a provision in a recent Supreme Court decision 
that states are immune from cash damages for copyright 
infringement. So the publishing industry is aquiver with fear 
that state boards will start reproducing text books for all the 
students without paying any attention to copyright and payment 
until they are sued, and then the only thing that we can do is to 
stop the copying.
     We're under threat, and the piracy is real to us. So we 
approach the challenge of accessibility on two levels: how can we 
use digitization and electronic files and technology to improve 
accessibility; but how can we insure that only the intended 
recipient obtains access to the content? Some of the areas that 
we look forward to working with all of the organizations 
represented in this room on are encryption, certification, 
software and hardware solutions, and access controls so that 
copies which are intended, which are distributed over the 
Internet or distributed in an unencrypted, digital format to 
blind people do not somehow find their way into commerce, not 
only in the United States, but around the world, totally 
destroying the market for books. We hope to work with our 
partners in this project on various approaches to achieve these 
goals.
     Technology poses other challenges as George Kerscher 
mentioned very well--the different formats, the cost of 
conversion. There is also a question right now over who holds the 
rights to electronic editions, and when you talk about legacy 
materials, there are lawsuits now which have proven that, 
although a publisher may have published the print version, it is 
the author who holds the electronic rights. So one of the 
concerns that we are looking at is how to make sure that for 
older materials we can get the necessary rights to convert a book 
to electronic formats.
     For creating electronic files there are two separate 
projects right now that AAP is working on. Maybe Tuck Tinsley can 
tell you more about the one at the El-High level to create a 
central repository of digital files. The school publishers are 
finding that each state has a different requirement for providing 
electronic files to provide versions for the blind. So an 
elementary-high school text book publisher is doing one thing for 
Texas, one thing for California, one thing for New York, one 
thing for Florida; and the hope is that, if there can be a 
central repository, you're not converting your book again and 
again and again in different formats at a tremendous expense. 
That is one project that we think is very important and AAP is 
working on.
     The other is the one that George mentioned, the OEB [Open E-
Book]. The pilot project that we are working on now is taking new 
books and putting them in the Open E-Book format. The theory is 
that publishers will want to do this for commercial reasons, as 
George mentioned, but no one has ever yet converted a book to 
OEB. And it isn't the publishers who do the conversion. 
Publishers have other people handle their output. So the folks 
from R. R. Donnelly and Son, one of the largest printers in the 
United States--I think they are a five-billion-dollar business--
and they print catalogs, magazines, newspapers, and books. R.R. 
Donnelly has trained its staff to do conversions to OEB. They had 
three weeks of training. From the time the specification was 
adopted on September 21 until now, they've been training staff to 
convert to OEB. We have identified two books that have some 
complicated materials in them. Not math and science, but we do 
have some sidebars, some graphs, some tables, and a lot of text. 
We are taking Quark files--as George mentioned, 70 percent of the 
books are in Quark--taking Quark files and converting them to 
OEB. I called the folks at Donnelly and said, "How is it going?"
     They said, "You know, in creating an electronic file for a 
book, what happens is that publishers and authors like to work in 
small, bite-sized pieces; so, if a book has ten chapters, they 
actually work on it as though it were ten separate books, ten 
separate files." So the Quark file is separate. In order to run a 
conversion, you'd like just to put it in a machine and say, "Now 
everything that looks like this, change to that." Unfortunately, 
they're finding that they have to convert each chapter as a 
separate project. They also found that for the tables and the 
charts and the graphs they need incredible manual operation 
because OEB is not easy to use to automate the process.
     We think this is a very useful project because we are 
learning the difficulties. We're learning ways that we can 
recommend things be modified to make it easier in the first 
place, but understand, we're going first from the Quark to the 
OEB. Then we're taking the OEB files and, by file-transfer 
protocol (FTP), we are delivering them to the National Library 
Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped at the Library 
of Congress. They're going to take the OEB files and convert them 
to the DAISY-NISO standard. Then the DAISY-NISO files are going 
to be delivered to Duxbury to put them into Braille. Each step 
along the way will be a learning process.
     What we think will come out of this pilot (and it's in a 
very tight time frame) is specific identification of things that 
should go into OEB Version 2 to make the files more compatible 
with DAISY-NISO and a rule set and a style sheet for how to 
prepare manuscripts. The concept that George mentioned about dual 
publishing is not yet there with publishers. As he said, "Book 
publishers are not on the cutting edge of technology." They are 
afraid of E-Books right now. There is a concern: will the E-Book 
cannibalize the market for the print book? How will the two work 
together? If you identify a wonderful author and, in order to 
promote the new book by the new author, do all the publicity and 
the marketing to get this author on the "Today Show" and the 
"Tonight Show," and every radio show and build a big market for 
it, we don't want somebody to undercut and totally take those 
print sales with some electronic format, where you're not even 
getting the proceeds.
     The business models are not yet there in the E-Book area. 
It's something that's evolving. The relationship between E-Book 
and print books is evolving. The relationship between authors and 
publishers in the E-Book realm is evolving. The agents announced 
in some kind of broadside that they want separate advances for 
the E-Book version and the print version. The publishers are 
saying that this is an untested market; we don't know what's 
going to happen. The agents are saying on behalf of their 
authors, "We want a hundred thousand dollars for this and a 
hundred thousand dollars for that, and, if you sell more print 
than you thought, it doesn't weigh against the other. We are just 
at the beginning, and I think it's important for everyone to 
understand. I know my friend Jim Gashel loves to legislate, and 
he thinks that, if you just make it happen by law....
     But making it happen by law doesn't make it happen, because 
the problem is the relationships, the markets, the technology, 
the rights--all of these very broad and complicated issues have 
to be addressed and they're better addressed not in the public 
forum of legislation, but with us working together, sitting 
around the table and saying, "We want to work with you," which 
the publishers do. "We want to provide you electronic files," 
which the publishers do. "But we want to do it in a way that 
works for all of us and doesn't destroy either the market or the 
incentive or the protection of the intellectual property 
product."
     My closing remarks are that we're excited about the 
potential. I identified just some of the obvious concerns, but we 
think this opportunity to work together and work out the problems 
jointly will benefit everyone--book publishers and the blind 
community.
     
     
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Gilles P`epin]
     Access to Information:
     The Next Step Forward
     by Gilles P`epin
     
     From the Editor: Gilles P`epin is President of VisuAide, 
Inc.     
     
     It is a great pleasure for me to be here today and have the 
opportunity to talk to you about a subject of great interest to 
me, a subject which has been discussed over and over, but about 
which there is still much to be said. I'm talking about access to 
information for blind people.
     My presentation today will focus on the question: What is 
the next step toward better access to information for blind 
people? So I have entitled my presentation "Access to 
Information: The Next Step Forward."
     
     The First Steps
     
     One of the landmark technological achievements toward 
independent access to information, after the advent of Braille, 
was the introduction of the Talking Book on cassettes. The 
arrival of the Talking Book meant a major cultural breakthrough 
for the blind community. Over the years it became for many the 
key to accessing education, culture, and knowledge, but for quite 
some time the Talking Book has undergone very few technical 
improvements.
     But, more generally, in the last two decades tremendous 
progress has been made in the quest for better access to 
information. First, at the beginning of the '80's access to 
personal computers offered great opportunities and high 
expectations. Computerized Braille production also greatly 
improved access to an ever-growing number of documents. 
     Then, at the end of the '80's OCR [optical character 
recognition] technology began a new era in the access-to-
information field. As a result blind users have had increased 
access to the world of print. In this context, at the beginning 
of the '90's a worldwide struggle began, and the main efforts of 
this industry have centered on access to Graphical User Interface 
for the past eight years or so.
     Then came the Internet, like a gift from heaven. And access 
to the Internet has been a great leap forward, with more and more 
documents now available in digital format.
     
     The Next Step
     
     But what is this next step in our quest for equal access to 
information? Sure, we all know that Braille production tools, 
reading systems, personal computer access, and access to the 
Internet will get better, faster, and cheaper in the next few 
years. And that is great.
     But what else can make more documents accessible? What else 
can make production of alternate-format books more efficient and 
universally accessible?
     The ideal access to information for blind users should be 
every bit as convenient, as dependable, as complete, and 
universal as it is in the sighted community. With the 
extraordinary technologies at our disposal, nothing less is 
acceptable.
     So what is this next revolution toward access to 
information? I for one firmly believe the answer to this question 
is the Digital Talking Book. You will say that I am biased since 
I have been working developing this technology for the last few 
years, and you are certainly right--I am biased. Nevertheless, I 
believe the Digital Talking Book technology will be something 
very important for blind people in the near future.
     
     VisuAide, Inc.
     
     Before I go into more detail about the Digital Talking Book, 
let me tell you a little about our efforts at VisuAide in this 
battle for equal access to information. For the last eleven years 
we have been involved in the development of innovative 
technologies for the blind. Our quest to develop information 
access led us at the end of the last decade to develop IRIS, one 
of the first reading systems on the market after the Kurzweil 
Reading Machine. We also developed Proverbe, a high-quality 
French software speech synthesizer, and Liber, a forty-cell 
Braille display.
     In the field of digital speech compression, we developed a 
few years ago a product called Magnum--the first digital recorder 
for the blind and predecessor of Victor, our digital talking book 
player, which we'll talk about in a few minutes.
     VisuAide is still actively involved in research and 
development projects, and I think we have an interesting approach 
to the development of new technologies for the blind. I would 
like to share it with you.
     As you know, the design of new products for the blind 
community is often based on state-of-the-art technologies. This 
was certainly the case when refreshable Braille, speech 
synthesizers, and reading systems appeared. At the same time it 
is very difficult to justify such developments on the blindness 
market only. Our industry simply cannot afford such important 
development.
     So at VisuAide we decided to look at the matter from a 
different angle. Here is how we have decided to do it. When we 
believe technology can provide solutions to some of the problems 
faced by the blind population, we simply find other markets such 
a technology can serve. Then we either create a new company 
focusing on this technology or find a partner interested in the 
new market.
     So about three years ago we created a sister company known 
as Haptech Technologies. The focus of Haptech is to add a tactile 
dimension to computer use, what we call the haptic sense. 
Remember when Dr. Cranmer described yesterday his experience in a 
plane? That is the haptic sense.
     Just a little anecdote here: when we started the Haptech 
company, we had an initial brainstorming meeting, and the first 
idea that was launched was to make Playboy accessible for the 
blind through the haptic feedback device. We think this 
technology will be highly useful for expanding information access 
in the blind community in the future. We are now developing a 
product called the PenCat and a software program called 
TouchWindows. In the future these tools will be used to virtually 
touch graphical objects displayed on a computer screen.
     But the broader market that Haptech is focusing on is 
input/output devices for specialized CAD systems, for controlling 
music systems settings and for learning tools. If we had 
undertaken this research within VisuAide, we would never be where 
we are right now.
     More recently, about eight months ago, we created a second 
spinoff company developing City Go, an electronic tourist guide 
based on a Global Positioning System (GPS) and a cleverly 
referenced information database to give tourists pertinent 
information about the places they are visiting.
     I am sure you already know how useful a modified version of 
this tool can be to blind users. The product will be called Mira 
and will be a simple, hand-held orientation tool able to guide 
you to your destination. We believe that, because this 
development is for the general market, we will be able to make 
the product better, smaller, and cheaper.
     Finally, as Deane Blazie explained without my permission, we 
are also researching new technologies for the Braille cell of the 
future.
     
     What Is a Digital Talking Book?
     
     So now lets come back to the main subject of this 
presentation, the Digital Talking Book or DTB. As George 
explained earlier, a DTB is simply a set of files which, put 
together, forms a multimedia document. One file contains the text 
of the book with all the indexing tags that describe the 
structure of the book. The indexing is done with the XML mark-up 
language.
     A second file contains the audio that has been recorded the 
same way we've done with cassettes, except that now the recording 
is digitized and probably compressed later on in the production 
process. Finally you have a SMIL file, which contains the 
necessary data to synchronize the text and the audio.
     We could also take some time to discuss in more detail the 
document type definition, the navigation control center, and the 
resource file associated with the DTB, but these are not 
necessary to understand the basic concept.
     As George also described, these three basic files may 
include different levels of contents to form different types of 
books to answer different user needs. For example, the richest 
form of book will contain all the text with its entire structure 
heavily indexed, all the audio recorded in a high-quality mode, 
and a SMIL file linking every recorded audio clip to the 
corresponding structure element in the book. If we look more 
closely at this richest type of DTB, we see that it can be 
reproduced for the user in all the alternate formats presently in 
use and more.
     First, since the audio is now in Digital format and linked 
to the structural elements of the book, the DTB is an improved 
Talking Book. Second, because the DTB includes all the text with 
the necessary tags for describing its structure, it can be made 
into a good Braille book using the future Duxbury software to 
translate it into Grade II Braille and format it properly. The 
text file of the DTB is also an improved version of the E-Text. 
And, finally, the same DTB without any changes can be used by 
low-vision users as well.
     As you can see, the DTB is a very versatile book format that 
has been designed taking into account the needs of all these 
clienteles. This new concept, the DTB, was made possible because 
of an extraordinary combined effort by people around the world, 
including specialized libraries, producers of alternate-format 
books, manufacturers, and users within the DAISY Consortium and 
the NISO working group.
     These efforts are leading to the establishment of a 
universal standard. From the manufacturers' point of view it is 
important that one, and only one, standard be adopted. Then we 
can relate to something concrete to design the best possible 
playback tools. I would like to add that our participation over 
the last three years in the DAISY Consortium and the NISO group 
has been very gratifying. This close relationship with all the 
stakeholders of this new technology enabled us to design a 
product that really meets the needs of all the interested groups 
involved. I believe that the DAISY and the NISO groups' working 
model is one we should reproduce in the development of other 
technologies.
     
     DTB Playback Tools
     
     Now that we know what this DTB is all about, let's take a 
look at which playback tools the user will have access to. As I 
described earlier, because of the fact that the indexed text is 
included in the richest type of DTB, blind users will have access 
to a large number of tools.
     
     Braille Displays
     
     First, for Braille users: the DTB will be distributed on a 
CD or over the Internet and can be read simply by using Braille 
translation software on your PC to print in Braille directly or 
by using your Braille display to access it. You will also be able 
to use your portable Braille Reader, on which you have downloaded 
your favorite DTB. The best example of such a portable reader 
would be your Braille Lite equipped with the appropriate reading 
software. And we are working with Blazie Engineering on this.
     Another interesting product in this category is the BookWorm 
from HandyTech in Germany, distributed in the U.S. by Arkenstone. 
It is an eight-cell Braille Reader designed for reading documents 
only. It has nice navigation and scrolling functions to review 
the document.
     
     Speech Players
     
     Again, because of the inclusion of the text in the ideal 
DTB, speech-synthesis technology can also be used. Just like 
their Braille counterparts, portable DTB speech players will also 
be available. The Braille 'n Speak can certainly be used for 
reading a DTB.
     There is also a very neat little product called the Road 
Runner. It is a tiny device that you can hold in the palm of your 
hand. It's equipped with a good-quality speech synthesizer and 
two MB of memory to store the text file of the DTB. This is a 
dedicated speech reader, but it was not developed for the blind 
although it seems to be quite easy for blind persons to use. In 
fact, it was designed for professionals who would like to 
download Internet content and read it on the road.
     
     Large-Print Readers
     
     It's worth noting that large-print users will also be able, 
when provided with the right software, to read the DTB using the 
enlargement they need. Portable devices will also be available in 
this category. In fact, I believe that the Open E-Book readers 
will offer such functions as enlargement as part of their basic 
functions. These Open E-Book readers include Rocket E-Book at 
$499 from Nuevo Media and the SoftBook, $599. I would like you to 
notice that our Victor is only $495, which makes it the cheapest 
E-Book player on the market today.
     
     Audio DTB Players
     
     Last but not least is the audio DTB player category. These 
players will use audio and the synchronization with the text to 
offer you all the efficiency and comfort you need while reading a 
book. In this category we find two types of players: software 
players for use with your computer and hardware players.
     There are actually three software players on the market. The 
first is called Sigtuna. It was developed by a U.S. company, 
Productivity Works, under a contract with the Japanese Society of 
Rehabilitation for People with Disabilities. This software is 
distributed free of charge by the JSRPD.
     The second software, PlayBack 2000, was developed by 
Labyrinten Data, a Swedish company, under a contract with TPB, a 
Swedish Library for the Blind. It will also be distributed for 
free. Finally, Productivity Works is also offering its own 
playback software called LpPlayer.
     Although these software programs are free of charge or very 
cheap, they offer most of the basic functions blind persons would 
need to read a novel, a magazine, and the like. But there is 
still a big gap where more powerful software is needed to answer 
the needs of students and professionals reading heavily indexed 
documents.
     Finally, Arkenstone would like to get involved in this next 
step toward better access to information. Arkenstone, together 
with other partners within the DAISY Consortium, is searching for 
grants to adapt its software to the DTB world to serve the needs 
of learning-disabled and dyslexic users, still using this same 
DTB we're discussing.
     
     Now the Audio Hardware Players
     
     There are two Digital Talking Book players on the market. 
These players are focused on playing back the audio file to the 
user, just as a tape recorder does. They don't use text files 
that much, but they offer a wide range of navigation functions as 
I will be demonstrating in a few minutes.
     One of these players is called Plextalk. It is manufactured 
by Plextor, a well known Japanese company. Plextalk is a desktop 
model based on a caddie CD-ROM drive. The advantage of the caddie 
is that the user does not have to handle the CD directly. The 
caddie is a protective case that you insert directly into the 
player. My lawyers have warned me that this is all I am entitled 
to say about this competitor product, but, seriously, you are 
welcome to see it. I will have it with me for the rest of the 
day.
     But there is another DTB player I can talk about for hours 
and hours. It is called Victor and is manufactured in Canada by 
VisuAide. The product is distributed in the United States by 
Blazie Engineering.
     
     Victor, a Portable DTB Player
     
     It is really a great product. But, before I present it to 
you in more detail, let me tell you about the design process we 
followed at VisuAide to develop this DTB player.
     In 1996 the European Blind Union began a consultation 
process with users and libraries to set out the characteristics 
of the ideal digital Talking Book player. The result was a very 
useful document entitled "Reaching Forward to the Twenty-first 
Century: User Requirements for the Next Generation of Talking 
Books."
     This document describes in great detail the needs of blind 
users. For example, it says that the DTB player should include 
sixty-five different navigation and search functions that are 
useful or highly desirable and also states that it should have no 
more than eight keys. Otherwise senior citizens would be 
intimidated by it. It also says that batteries should last for at 
least twelve hours; it must include a CD-ROM drive; and, of 
course, it should fit in your shirt pocket.
     Then the NISO working group was formed. We were really 
enthusiastic because here was a chance to find the right design 
criteria. So at the first meeting we began a discussion about 
batteries. Should they be rechargeable; should they be standard 
batteries; should they be replaceable by users; should they be 
solar batteries; and so on. After three hours of discussion 
someone finally said, "Let the manufacturers decide the battery 
type." Then we moved to something more important, a snoring 
detector. Yes, we discussed for an hour the fact that a lot of 
people read in bed, and the player should stop reading when the 
user falls asleep.
     But seriously, as I said before, our participation in the 
DAISY Consortium and in the NISO working group was extremely 
useful in the design of our Victor product. So at the end of 
these two processes we felt we knew all--and I really mean all--
the needs of users. And we knew we had to make some compromises. 
But which?
     So here are the choices we made while designing Victor. And 
by the way, we used smaller groups of users to help us to make 
the final choices.
     First of all we wanted the machine to be as compact as 
possible. Since we wanted it to be portable, we had to choose a 
CD ROM drive as opposed to a caddie drive. We decided that blind 
people could manipulate CD's because they have been doing that 
with music CD's for quite a long time. Our product runs on 
rechargeable batteries for about six to eight hours and weighs 
less than one kilogram.
     Victor is also a flexible digital Talking Book player. The 
fact is that, when we designed the product, we said that the 
technology will change quite a bit in the near future, so we 
needed to have a flexible design because in the future you are 
going to have new speech-compression algorithms coming out. You 
are going to have new DAISY, new NISO, and new Open E-Book 
formats to support. And you are going to have new functions that 
the users will ask for. So we designed Victor around a very 
flexible platform. It is based on the RISC processor, called a 
Strong Arm, and it operates with a Linux operating system. The 
Victor is also quite user-friendly. To see the features 
demonstrated, see me afterward.
     Now that we know for sure that DTB is the next step toward 
better access to information, I would like to share with you my 
thoughts of what the near future will bring. First, we will see 
improvements on the players side, adding exciting new features 
like the possibility of adding your own voice notes to your 
document, more powerful search and navigation functions, the 
ability to have words spelled or their definitions given as you 
are reading.
     The second generation of DTB players will be hand-held 
devices without any moving parts. You will be able to connect to 
the Internet, navigate a catalogue of available Digital Talking 
Books, and choose the one you like; it will be downloaded over 
the Internet and stored in the player's memory.
     We may also see in a few years mainstream products become 
very good DTB Players. For example, another project going on in 
Japan consists of developing DTB playback software that will run 
on a Windows CE new gaming machine. The MPEG-3 music players may 
also be good DTB players in the future.
     So in conclusion I would like to say that the DTB technology 
is a giant step forward toward equal access to information. I 
believe it is in the best interests of blind people to begin 
producing books in this new format as soon as possible.
     
     
     New Regulations, New Opportunities:
     Meeting the Challenge of Access for the Blind
     by Dale N. Hatfield
     
     From the Editor: Dale Hatfield is Chief of the Office of Engineering and 
Technology of the Federal Communications Commission.
     
     The Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Bill 
Kennard, apologizes that his schedule did not permit him to 
participate in your conference this year. I will have more to say 
about Chairman Kennard's personal interest and leadership role in 
disabilities access in a few moments. But I want to mention at 
the outset that it was the Chairman's vision of inclusiveness--
and commitment to community in the broadest sense--which 
attracted me back to government from the private sector. I also 
feel very passionately about these same issues, and I am very 
honored that you have asked me to speak to you today. However, 
since I am not the Chairman, I do need to offer the standard 
caveat that my remarks here this morning represent my own views 
and hence they do not necessarily reflect the views of any 
individual Commissioner, the Commission, or any other Commission 
staff member.
     I will divide my remarks into three parts. First, since this 
conference deals with technology and since my responsibilities 
are in the engineering area at the Commission, I will offer some 
brief observations about the overall trends in telecommunications 
technology. I will also discuss the impact of these trends in 
ensuring that telecommunications services and equipment are 
accessible to, and usable by, persons with disabilities. Second, 
I will discuss where we stand in implementing Section 255 of the 
Telecommunications Act of 1996. In particular, I will describe 
the Report and Order and Further Notice of Inquiry in WT Docket 
No. 96-198 that the Commission released just a short while ago. 
Third and finally, I will talk about the Chairman's--and the 
Commission's--commitment to ensuring that access for all is 
included in the design of new telecommunications services and 
equipment.
     
     Technological Developments
     
     Let me begin, then, with the technological developments. 
When I step back from all of the details, I see five major trends 
or developments in telecommunications technology:
(1)      the conversion from analog to digital networks,
(2)      the conversion from circuit switching to packet switching,
(3)      the conversion from narrowband to broadband transmission,
(4)      improvements--that is, reductions--in the transmission delay 
or latency exhibited by networks using packet switching, and
(5)      the ability to deploy not only wired networks with these 
advanced capabilities but wireless networks as well.
     Some of these developments may be familiar to you; others 
may not be. But rather than delve into the details of these 
developments, let me simply state the bottom line: these 
developments are producing high-performance networks--or, more 
properly, a network of networks--that promises to allow us to 
communicate virtually anytime, anyplace, and in any mode or 
combination of modes--voice, text, data, image, and video.
     Even more important, perhaps, this network of networks--this 
powerful platform--is associated with another special 
characteristic. The characteristic is that, in contrast to most 
earlier voice and data networks, this platform uses common, open, 
non-proprietary standards and protocols--that is, the Internet 
suite of protocols. Unlike the telephone network of old, where 
the network is intelligent and the terminals are dumb, in the 
Internet the terminals are intelligent and the network is dumb. 
As someone once said, the Internet is the telephone network 
turned inside out. In the Internet the control of individual 
calls or sessions and the creation of new services is shifted 
from the interior of the network to computers and other 
intelligent devices at the edge of the network. In the 
telecommunications world we refer to these devices at the edge of 
the network as customer premises equipment or, simply, CPE. 
Because the service is created in software as an application 
running on equipment at the edge of the network outside the 
control of the carrier or other provider, the opportunity for 
innovation and the pace of change it allows are truly amazing, as 
we have seen demonstrated dramatically over the past few years.
     These broadband, low-latency, all-digital, packet-switched 
networks--coupled with increasingly intelligent, programmable 
devices at the edge of the network--give engineers an extremely 
powerful set of tools with which to work. When engineers 
contemplate the range of human characteristics that may interact 
with the networks and devices they are designing, they can 
program in the capabilities to have alternative, flexible modes 
of communications and alternative interfaces for input and 
output. Modes of input can include tactile controls or voice. 
Modes of output can include graphical images, textual prose, 
speech synthesis, or electronic Braille displays.
     And, of course, the expanding availability of wireless 
access means that the designer can deliver those capabilities 
directly to the end users--wherever they might be--rather than 
imposing on the end users the need to come to the network. Future 
examples of this might include portable wireless devices that (a) 
provide information to blind travelers using the Global 
Positioning System (GPS) or (b) scan universal product codes and 
retrieve descriptions of them from a database on the Internet. As 
Chairman Kennard said in a speech late last year, "Properly 
harnessed, these networks and devices create a potent platform 
upon which to serve the needs of all of our citizens, including 
those with disabilities."
     However, I recognize that these developments present a 
threat as well as a promise to the blind and visually impaired. 
These higher bandwidth, multi-mode networks facilitate more 
dynamic multimedia applications, which tend to be highly 
graphics- or video-oriented. In this situation, if the same 
essential information carried by still and moving images is not 
conveyed by voice or text, a serious accessibility barrier 
results for the blind.
     Greater bandwidth--the ability to transmit more information 
in a given amount of time--means that these networks are capable 
of supporting simultaneous, coordinated, alternate modes of 
access, but it does not necessarily mean that they will. 
Moreover, given the tendency for evolving technologies to 
communicate increasingly through visual metaphors because of the 
power of that human sense, there is a natural tendency for new 
applications to reduce non-visual access unless the problem is 
confronted at the design stage.
     On the other hand, if non-visual access is included, greater 
bandwidth would benefit blind persons in some particular ways in 
addition to the general ways beneficial to all consumers. I 
understand that people who are blind continue to face an 
unemployment rate of about 70 percent. This can be reduced by 
participation in accessible electronic commerce either at the 
office or by telecommuting. Work tasks that previously required 
paperwork and reliance on sighted clerks for assistance in 
reading and writing may now be possible instead through 
interactive electronic forms processing. Other activities of 
independent living would also benefit from accessible broadband 
services, such as the ability to vote privately with an 
appropriate secure application or the ability to shop at stores 
not convenient to public transportation.
     Another factor that we must consider is the faster pace of 
change that is enabled by this common, open, non-proprietary, 
high-performance platform. With product cycles of eighteen months 
or twelve months or even less, a new product will have appeared 
before we can fix or adapt the old one to make it more 
accessible. Thus I conclude that, because (1) the availability of 
broadband networks may increase the tendency for new applications 
to reduce non-visual access as I mentioned a moment ago, and (2) 
a faster pace of change is associated with these powerful 
platforms, new services and new devices must be designed, 
developed, and fabricated at the outset to be accessible to--and 
usable by--individuals with disabilities. More specifically, it 
is absolutely essential that the issue of non-visual access be 
confronted at the design stage. 
     
     The Commission's Recent Action
     
     I will turn now to the rules that the Commission adopted on 
July 15, 1999, and formally released just a short time ago. These 
rules implement Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 
and Section 251(a)(2) of the Communications Act of 1934. They 
require manufacturers of telecommunications equipment and 
providers of telecommunications services to ensure that such 
equipment and services are accessible to and usable by persons 
with disabilities, if readily achievable. For example, the rules 
the Commission adopted:
(1)     require manufacturers and service providers to develop a 
process to evaluate the accessibility, usability, and 
compatibility of covered services and equipment;
(2)     require manufacturers and service providers to ensure that 
information and documentation provided to customers are 
accessible to customers with disabilities, if readily achievable;
(3)     require manufacturers or service providers to review the 
accessibility of a product or service and incorporate 
accessibility features, where readily achievable, at every 
natural opportunity;
(4)     require the universal deployment of accessibility features 
that can be incorporated into product design when readily 
achievable; where those features cannot be universally deployed, 
but are readily achievable to incorporate into some products and 
services, manufacturers and service providers have the 
flexibility to distribute those features across their products or 
services as long as they do all that is readily achievable;
(5)     where meeting accessibility requirements is not readily 
achievable, require manufacturers and service providers to ensure 
compatibility with existing peripheral devices or specialized 
Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) commonly used by individuals 
with disabilities to achieve access, if readily achievable; and
(6)     prohibit a telecommunications carrier from installing 
network features, functions, or capabilities that do not comply 
with the accessibility requirements of the rules.
     At the same time the Commission also adopted an informal 
complaint procedure whereby consumer complaints are forwarded to 
the manufacturer or service provider, who then has thirty days to 
attempt to resolve the customer's concerns and respond to the 
agency. Formal complaints may also be brought. In addition, the 
Commission may, based upon complaints or on its own motion, 
launch an investigation to determine if manufacturers and service 
providers are complying with our rules.
     In adopting these rules, the Commission felt it was taking a 
dramatic step toward bringing people with disabilities into the 
information age. However, it was also aware of the rapid changes 
in the telecommunications industry that I described earlier. More 
specifically, it recognized (a) that there was a vast array of 
communications-related equipment and services available that was 
not covered by the rules it was adopting, (b) that innovative, 
equipment and services were being developed and deployed at a 
rapid clip, and (c) that these existing and rapidly evolving 
services and communications-related equipment would undoubtedly 
affect access to communications by persons with disabilities.
     Accordingly, at the same time it voted for the rules I 
described in outline form a moment ago, the Commission also 
initiated a formal Notice of Inquiry to aid in its understanding 
of the access issues presented by communications services and 
equipment not covered by the rules it adopted. I hope that some 
of the organizations represented here today will consider filing 
comments in response to the Notice.
     
     The Chairman's and the Commission's
     Commitment to Accessibility
     
     To summarize, we are, first of all, benefiting from the 
development of a common, open, non-proprietary, high-performance 
telecommunications network platform that provides the 
technological basis for improving accessibility. Second, we now 
have the necessary legislative mandate and are putting into place 
the necessary rules and regulations to ensure that this 
possibility for improved accessibility is indeed realized.
     We all recognize that improving accessibility inevitably 
provides benefits to the general public, not just to persons with 
disabilities. Therefore, in an increasingly competitive market, 
we would hope that telecommunications companies will compete on 
the basis of accessibility as well as other factors and, in so 
doing, raise the bar for everyone. Nevertheless, we all also 
recognize that the marketplace alone may not be enough to ensure 
accessibility everywhere it is readily achievable. Consequently, 
an important remaining ingredient to ensuring accessibility is 
the commitment on the part of our agency to enforce those 
regulations.
     The best indication of that commitment is the priority that 
the Chairman of the Commission, Bill Kennard, has attached to 
accessibility. Through both his words and actions the Chairman 
has insisted that all Americans should be able to enjoy the 
benefits of the network revolution that I cited here today. 
Concrete evidence of that commitment lies in the steps the agency 
has taken to implement Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act 
of 1996.
     But as the Chairman recently pointed out in his remarks at 
the White House in conjunction with Disability Awareness Month, 
if you write a rule, you have to muster the resources and the 
will to enforce it. And, under the leadership of the Chairman, 
the Commission is doing exactly that.
     Just this week the Commission formally announced the 
formation of two new Bureaus in the agency: the Enforcement 
Bureau and the Consumer Information Bureau. In announcing the 
creation of these two new bureaus, the Chairman stated, "Our 
decision to establish bureaus devoted exclusively to enforcement 
and consumer information signals the enormous importance of these 
functions in our transition from an industry regulator to a 
market facilitator."
     In addition to enforcing our rules dealing with 
accessibility issues, the Commission is committed to making its 
own content and processes accessible to people with disabilities 
as expected by various Federal laws. This includes content and 
navigation of our Web site, our universal licensing system, and 
our electronic comment-filing system. Our staff has been working 
in these and other areas to improve the usability of FCC services 
and processes for people with disabilities, including persons who 
are blind. I expect further progress on that front with the 
formation of the new Consumer Information Bureau.
     I could point to other specific steps the agency has taken 
in the disability access area. However, my time is up, and rather 
than do that, I will close by mentioning one activity that may be 
of particular interest to you--video description.
     The Commission issued its first Notice of Inquiry on video 
description in 1995 and issued a second Notice of Inquiry in 1997 
in the context of its annual review of competition in markets for 
the delivery of video programming. The Commission has also issued 
two reports on the subject. Various parties have asked the 
Commission to take steps to enhance the availability of video 
description, and in the recent past we have received several 
concrete proposals in this regard.
     Because of the pending status of our efforts in this area, 
it would not be proper for me to speculate on what the 
Commission's response to these proposals might be. However, I can 
assure you that the Commission staff is seriously reviewing and 
considering the proposals, and, given the high priority that the 
Chairman has placed on accessibility issues, it would not 
surprise me to see some progress in this area in the near future.
     Thank you again for inviting me here today and for the kind 
attention that you have afforded me.
     
     
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Marc Maurer]
     Accessibility for the Blind:
     The Necessity for Coordination and Joint Action
     by Marc Maurer
     
     Technology for the blind has been the hope and the 
frustration of blind people for as long as technology has 
existed. Even Braille, which was invented more than a hundred and 
fifty years ago and which has provided literacy to many blind 
people, has often been more of a promise of hope than a reality 
of achievement. This is so because many blind people never had 
competent Braille instruction available to them, and sometimes 
administrators of programs for the blind failed to believe in 
their own clients and ignored the skills and techniques that are 
used by the blind.
     In the 1960's the portable tape recorder became generally 
available, and a number of people said that this new technology 
would (at long last) make the world of literary works available 
to the blind for the first time. Braille (it was said), though 
effective for many, was difficult to learn, was bulky, and would 
forever be in short supply. The tape recorder--especially the 
cassette recorder--would open literacy for the blind.
     In the 1970's a number of new products for the blind were 
being developed--many of which used the computer as the framework 
for managing information. As the '70's dissolved into the '80's, 
specialized technological adaptations of the computer 
proliferated. The Reading Machine developed by Dr. Kurzweil in 
the mid 1970's became less expensive and more efficient. Braille 
printers increased in speed and accuracy. The Port-a-Braille was 
invented by Dr. Cranmer, and this invention was modified, 
enhanced, and streamlined by Deane Blazie to become the Braille 
'n Speak, which has altered learning methods for blind students 
and note-taking for blind adults.
     In the 1980's, with the advent of access technology using 
the disk operating system, obtaining information from the 
computer began to be manageable. Then the graphical user 
interface became a part of the computer scene, and access by the 
blind to computer information deteriorated. There were those who 
said that making information on the computer screen into speech 
or Braille could never happen. Some blind people met this 
announcement with despair, and others greeted it with anger or a 
determination to make things different. A number of sighted 
technicians told the blind that presenting information visually 
was fundamentally different from presenting it in audio form or 
in Braille. They said that access to information from a computer 
would always be more limited and circumscribed for the blind than 
the same access for the sighted. What had been available to the 
blind in the DOS environment could not be replicated with the 
graphical user interface.
     Blind people responded by telling the manufacturers that our 
lives are being crippled, that our jobs are being taken, that we 
are being prevented from participating in the eerie world of the 
Internet, and that with the increasing use of computers in the 
schools even our opportunities for education are being 
diminished. The systematic exclusion of the blind from the world 
of technology could not be permitted to continue.
     We let it be known that we would fight for the right to be a 
part of the technological world. We would urge our cause on the 
public platforms, in the governmental offices of regulatory 
agencies, in the halls of Congress, in the academic arenas, and 
in the public mind. If necessary, we would take to the streets 
and make a public demonstration of the urgency that faced us in 
the information age. We would never be satisfied until the blind 
had the same opportunities for participation that were available 
to everybody else.
     In the midst of the effort to bring public attention to the 
changing environment in the technological world, we asked the 
experts what had happened. What was there about the graphical 
user interface that made the information presented through it so 
difficult to interpret? It seemed particularly ironic that, as 
computers became more powerful, the blind had less access to the 
information that was in them. What appeared to have happened was 
that the increasing power of the computers offered more 
opportunities for visual presentation, and these became so 
numerous that interpretation for an alternate presentation in 
speech and Braille was difficult.
     In the DOS environment the number of windows available was 
usually one, the screen of the computer. The number of characters 
used for presenting information was limited to two hundred and 
fifty-five. With the graphical user interface, the number of 
windows for presentation increased to whatever the eye could 
interpret, and the character set became essentially unlimited. In 
the DOS medium most things were presented using text. With 
Windows, text and other representations were used together. The 
DOS computer manipulated pages of print. Windows computers 
manipulated information that looks much more like what an 
individual might find along a street. There are storefront 
windows with displays, streetlights, signs on buildings or 
lampposts, and other images such as a raised hand in red light to 
indicate don't walk. Interpreting the jumble of text, icons, 
decorations, and other symbols requires a level of sophisticated 
knowledge unlike anything previously presented in the computer 
environment. The job of transforming this mixture into 
intelligible speech or readable Braille is daunting, but it must 
be done.
     What began with the computer has in many respects occurred 
with other machines. Many devices have visual display panels and 
a set of operating symbols that demand interaction with them. 
Microwaves, bread machines, televisions, stereos, and a host of 
other devices have interactive visual displays. In an increasing 
number of cases even the knobs and buttons have disappeared. When 
I was a boy at the school for the blind, operating a radio was 
easy. One knob turned it on and set the volume. The other knob 
selected the frequency. Occasionally, radios like my old friend 
at the school for the blind can still be found. However, radios 
now often have arrow buttons and a mode selector. It is essential 
to see the screen to get the frequency you want, and independent 
operation for the blind is completely impractical.
     The frustrations in achieving access to technology for the 
blind are well known to us all. We have tried individually to 
solve them, and sometimes we have had substantial success in 
doing so. However, we have frequently discovered that the talent 
and power we possess individually are insufficient to address the 
universe of needs.
     To meet the objectives of full access to technology for the 
blind, we need coordinated action. I suggest that we establish a 
board to review technology for the blind. We might call it the 
National Information Access Board for the Blind. This board would 
pool resources from its participating members, and it would 
establish standards to determine whether products are accessible 
to the blind. Such a board would encourage manufacturers to 
submit products and programs for technology-access review. It 
would provide feedback regarding the characteristics essential 
for accessibility to the blind. Organizations of consumers should 
be a central part of such a review board because the users of the 
products are those who will be most dramatically affected. 
However, the manufacturers will also have much to provide in 
judging products produced by others.
     The standards for accessibility should provide that no 
organization is permitted to determine whether its product meets 
the guidelines. Each organization that wants to be a part of the 
board must commit resources to make such an enterprise practical, 
and all organizations participating will have an equal voice in 
decision-making. Each organization should be prepared to 
contribute both funding to meet the ongoing expenses of the board 
and personnel who are technically competent. Each participating 
organization should contribute $25,000 a year for the initial 
costs of operating the board. If this sum is insufficient to meet 
the on-going expenses, each should share the expense of the 
shortfall. The National Federation of the Blind will pledge to 
put $25,000 aside for this purpose, and we urge others to join us 
in creating the National Information Access Board for the Blind.
     Can a particular device be operated by a blind person? Can 
it be used by a blind person to get data from the Internet? Is it 
effective in assisting a blind person to retrieve information 
from a device that would ordinarily provide it only visually? 
These are fundamental questions to be answered by the board. 
Everybody is invited to be a part of it. Today many of the 
answers would necessarily be "no." We must combine our energies 
to open the doors for the blind to enter the information age. 
When the answers are "yes," our joint efforts to promote 
accessibility will have been a success, and I think we should do 
it.
     I offer that suggestion for thought and discussion during 
the remainder of this conference. We have some other 
presentations this afternoon. We will take those up first thing 
after lunch, but it seems to me that joint effort and combined 
action to promote accessibility is as important as anything we 
can set our minds to doing. I urge that we set up a system to do 
exactly that.
     
     
[PHOTO/CAPTION: David Andrews]
     Consumers and Vendors of Technology for the Blind:
     an Underserved Multi-Million-Dollar Market
     by David Andrews
     
     From the Editor: David Andrews served for several years as 
Director of the NFB's International Braille and Technology Center 
for the Blind. He is currently Director of the Communications 
Center at the Minnesota State Services for the Blind.
     
     With the decrease in prices of computers and access 
technology, the growth of the Internet, the increased use of 
computers at work and at home, and other factors, we are seeing 
more and more blind and visually impaired persons becoming 
involved with computers. Further, many blind people still wish to 
get on the Internet. This represents a large, untapped, multi-
million-dollar market for developers and vendors of assistive 
technology for the blind. However, in order to tap into this 
potential market, companies will have to do a better job of 
communication, product development, technical support, and 
training. It seems to me that, as things currently stand, some 
customers of assistive technology are becoming increasingly 
dissatisfied with the products and support they are getting.
     To explore this thesis, I first did what any good Net-savvy 
user would do, I went to the Internet itself. I posted a message 
seeking input to some two dozen listservs or Internet mailing 
lists. I also talked to many of my long-time contacts in the 
assistive-technology field.
     While I received many thoughtful and useful messages, there 
were also quite a number of responses which either didn't say 
much that was useful or that weren't well thought out. This may 
be representative of part of the problem: it is easy just to dash 
off a response to something you read on an e-mail list without 
thinking it through or considering the consequences. People write 
things that they wouldn't say in person or over the telephone, 
make accusations, spread rumors, say silly things, jump to 
conclusions, call each other names, question motives, etc. All of 
this noise effectively widens the gap between consumers and 
vendors of technology. The Internet represents a vehicle for two-
way communications flow, and we are still learning how to use it 
and integrate it into our lives.
     One developer said that he thought that all the Internet 
ruckus might be a tempest in a teapot. I don't think that is 
true; I see a lot of pent-up frustration on the part of some 
users. Yes, there is some product- and company-bashing, and there 
are some people who need to get a life and not pick apart every 
statement made by every company, but the level of Internet noise 
also represents some genuine problems. Yet another developer of 
adaptive software products called for cooler heads, particularly 
on the Internet. He suggested, with some merit, that consumers 
need not engage in personal attacks or name-calling when 
disagreeing with a company. He further suggested that it would be 
constructive for people not to engage in rumors, speculate about 
motives, question people's lineage or intelligence, and the like, 
when discussing issues or problems.
     After conducting my informal survey and talking to many 
people, I am convinced that there is a wide gap between consumer 
expectation and what is delivered to us by developers and 
vendors. It could well be that this gap has always existed; 
however, I think that improved communication offered by the 
Internet, increased media hype, elevated expectations on the part 
of employers and individual users, and the increased use of 
technology by everyone have inflated expectations and increased 
this gap.
     First, vendor sales personnel have the most power to affect 
and change perceptions. There is a good deal of overselling, both 
in the general marketplace and in the adaptive-technology field. 
Many people now have the notion that technology will solve all 
the problems of blind and visually impaired people. Sales people 
anxious to close the sale may consciously or unconsciously feed 
those inflated expectations. The media have also created the 
impression that technology has knocked down many barriers to 
employment and personal independence.

     A number of respondents said to me that adaptive computer 
software should work with all applications used by sighted 
persons, should be inexpensive, should have unlimited 24-hour-a-
day technical support, should have free or cheap upgrades and 
more. Some people also stated that companies should reduce prices 
dramatically; offer unlimited toll-free support; buy back old 
hardware and software; offer grants, payment plans, and rentals; 
offer money-back guarantees, etc. While all of this would be 
desirable in an ideal world, it is not economically feasible in 
today's marketplace. Further, these inflated expectations came 
from somewhere; they did not emerge in a vacuum; they were fueled 
by something. That something, in part, comes from developers and 
vendors. You need to temper the marketing hype some of you 
generate in order to decrease people's frustration with you and 
your products when they don't work as expected.
     Many rehab agencies, employers, and reporters seem to think 
that, if you give a blind person a computer, he or she can do 
anything, and there are any number of vendors who are willing to 
sell us that computer and software, whether or not it is 
appropriate for a given task. We have seen, time and time again, 
that mastery of basic skills, like the use of Braille and a long 
white cane, is the most important factor in coming to work 
competitively and living independently. People also need to 
understand that not all assistive technology works with all 
software applications and that, to use it optimally, a person is 
going to have to make an effort to learn about the technology he 
or she has obtained. Further users will have to keep updating 
their skills, knowledge, hardware, and software. Vendors can help 
by being more realistic about how they portray their products and 
their benefits.
     While a majority of blind and visually impaired people don't 
want something for nothing, I think there is still a sizable 
minority that do. They seem to have a chip on their shoulders 
about being blind and expect to get reduced-cost or free products 
and services simply because they are blind. Ultimately we must 
pay for what we get, or we will get nothing.
     In the beginning, or at least in the 1970's, adaptive 
technology companies tended to hire their own sales staffs. Many 
of them also tried to offer a range of products so that any 
customer could meet a variety of needs with that one company. 
With some exceptions this model held true until the mid 1980's. 
It is generally accepted in the adaptive-technology industry that 
the cost of selling and marketing a product is 15 percent of the 
retail price. This percentage includes the support of an internal 
sales staff. If a company finds itself spending more than this 
percentage, drastic action is usually taken.
     In today's world we generally have fewer in-house sales 
staff; companies now use independent dealers. These dealers 
represent a wide variety of products, often competing product 
lines. The industry standard for dealer discounts is 25 percent 
for hardware and 30 percent for software. So you can see that, in 
theory at least, the current system has added 10 to 15 percent to 
the prices we pay.
     In its favor, however, the system does allow a consumer to 
purchase a wide range of products from a single dealer, a 
convenient enticement for many. But what are we getting for this 
extra money? A number of consumers and vendors have raised the 
question: does this price difference represent a commission for 
sales or the cost of after-sales support? The developers of 
technology would hope the latter, but this is not always the 
case. We often go back to the developer for technical support 
because the dealer can't or won't offer it. This then drives up 
the price yet again. While some companies would like to have a 
two-tiered dealer system with larger discounts for those who 
offer good technical support, the effort and cost of setting up 
such a system and policing it make this an unlikely model.
     Another disadvantage of the current system arises from the 
fact that a vendor may offer one or more products that compete 
with each other. For example, it is not unusual for a dealer to 
sell three or four different screen-review programs. How good 
will his or her support for all these products be? No one can be 
an expert in everything. Developers should consider being more 
selective about their dealers.
     State rehab agencies and other large purchasers of adaptive 
technology often exacerbate the dealer technical support problem 
by buying from the low bidder to save a dollar or two. They often 
don't go with vendors local to their areas or vendors known to 
provide good after-sales support. This is short-sighted because 
their customers will turn to the agencies themselves when they 
cannot get adequate support from their dealers.
     Rehab agencies and other funders of technology should also 
be willing to purchase training courses and materials for their 
customers. Lack of training and unwillingness to pay for it is a 
major problem in the assistive-technology field today. This lack 
of training is a major contributor to the expectations-versus-
reality gap. People think it will be easy to use their new 
systems, and when it isn't, they get frustrated.
     As consumers we should take some responsibility to minimize 
technical support costs and efforts. We should first seek support 
from our dealers and patronize those dealers who are able to 
help. We should be familiar with our products prior to calling 
for help and eliminate as many possible problems prior to 
calling. Is that computer really plugged in? We should not ask a 
company for help with another company's products.
     Further, consumers will have to make some ongoing efforts 
with their technology. It is generally a good idea to upgrade 
software, both screen-review programs and general applications. 
The technology does improve, and developers can't support legacy 
systems forever; such support will drive up their costs. On the 
other hand, companies should respond to requests for assistance 
promptly and politely, should return phone calls within a 
reasonable amount of time, and shouldn't automatically point the 
finger at other companies.
     The overselling of adaptive technology raises another issue. 
Simply put, all of this stuff is extremely complicated. Barbara 
Pierce, editor of the Braille Monitor, propounded a good analogy 
to me. In the early 1900's people who drove cars always took a 
tool kit with them, knew something about how their cars worked, 
dressed appropriately, and expected to have to do some work on 
their cars on occasion. Now things have progressed with cars to 
the point where a driver doesn't have to know anything about how 
the car works. As a friend once told me, "I just put gas in it, 
and it goes!" Computers will get to this point, but they are not 
there yet.
     The overselling of technology has convinced us that 
computers will solve all our problems with little or no effort on 
our part. Unfortunately, this isn't true. It will take a good 
deal of effort on our part, and some knowledge of the computer 
and its software will also be useful. Few systems are automatic; 
things don't always work as expected or may not work at all. We 
should be prepared either to do some learning or to have a techie 
available to us on occasion. This stuff is quite complicated, and 
it is probably a miracle that it works as well as it does. Some 
day computers will be powerful enough that we can just 
concentrate on the task, not the process. However, until then we 
will have to become somewhat involved in the process.
     It seems to me, and to many of you out there as well, that 
there are some basic things which consumers of technology should 
expect and which developers and vendors of this technology should 
provide as a matter of course. First, all representations of a 
product, whether in writing or orally, should be honest and 
truthful. The vendor should talk about what he or she can deliver 
now or in the next version--as long as that version is due in the 
near future. Promises shouldn't be made unless they can be 
delivered. If a vendor doesn't know whether his or her screen-
review program works with a certain application, for example, he 
or she should say so and not assume that it will work.
     Documentation should be provided in a number of formats, 
including Braille, regular or large-print, cassette tape, and 
computer disk. Vendors, you are serving the blind and visually 
impaired market; accessible documentation is part of the price of 
doing business with us. Clear, easy-to-follow instructions must 
be available in a variety of formats on how to get the software 
or device in question installed and working. The user shouldn't 
have to use the software or device in question to read the 
installation instructions or manual.
     An easy-to-use installation program or routine must be 
available. A blind user shouldn't need sighted assistance to 
install software or devices on the computer, unless unaided 
installation just isn't technically feasible. Although 
installation routines are getting better, we still have a way to 
go in this area. Remember, provide instructions, don't require 
sighted assistance, and make it bulletproof.
     Companies should offer reasonable warranties and a money-
back guarantee when a product does not work as advertised or when 
it just doesn't work in a given situation for a specific user. If 
things go the way they have in the general computer market, we 
are likely to have to pay for technical support after an initial 
period. I hope this isn't so, but it probably is.
     As computers become more powerful, they are likely to blur 
the line between assistive technology and the applications that 
others use. We are likely to talk to our computers, and they will 
talk back. In this case specialized developers and vendors who 
serve us now will have to do things to differentiate their 
products and services. This could include tutorials, training, 
and more substantial technical support.
     Vendors and developers should get involved with the 
blindness community. If we are good enough to sell to, we are 
good enough to associate with. Quite a number of people who 
responded to my survey commented that developers should use blind 
persons when designing and testing their products. While this 
doesn't always happen, I believe that it does for the most part. 
However, the view that it doesn't happen seems to be fairly 
widespread. So developers need to be more public about seeking 
and using feedback from customers.
     A couple of people commented that some vendors seem to 
attend professional conferences but not state and local 
conventions of organizations of and for the blind. I would urge 
you to become involved with us. Look at Deane Blazie and Blazie 
Engineering. He has publicly supported the National Federation of 
the Blind for many years, and it seems to have helped his 
business. Vendors have often told me that they don't want to 
become involved in politics. However, ultimately most things 
eventually boil down to politics and relationships, so get 
involved.
     Developers don't always do a good job of testing their 
products with other assistive-technology products or with 
general-market products for that matter. While it has gotten much 
better recently, most of us have watched screen readers fight for 
control with self-voicing applications like PW Web Speak, An Open 
Book, or the Kurzweil K1000. In addition, people with multiple 
disabilities often have problems getting products such as speech-
recognition packages and screen readers to work together.
     Judged by many of the responses I received, a lot of 
consumers underestimate the work involved in developing and 
supporting adaptive technology. This is particularly true for 
screen-review programs. People glibly ask for these programs to 
work with all software on the market, to include more 
configurations or scripts, not to require configurations or 
scripts, to work on all possible platforms, and more. The days 
when one guy, working in his basement or garage, could write a 
screen reader are over. Today it takes lots of effort and a 
sizable staff. This means that we are starting to see a few 
strong products in the market, supported by companies that have 
the necessary resources, followed by a number of also-rans. I 
expect that we will see several products drop out of the race in 
the next couple of years.
     Unfortunately, this diminished competition will not benefit 
consumers. Microsoft and other major companies can help out here. 
Now developers must do a lot of work to make their products work 
with standard operating systems and applications. Microsoft 
could, and is trying to, do some of this under-the-hood work to 
relieve developers of doing it. Why should every company have to 
develop its own off-screen model?
     On the other hand, developers have to be willing to use the 
tools created by Microsoft and others. They haven't always been. 
They believe that their main advantage over their competition is 
their proprietary technology. Hopefully common sense and service 
to customers will prevail, and everyone will work together to 
improve products and increase competition.
     From the people I talk to, I would say that very few 
developers and vendors of assistive technology are getting really 
rich, although some are making a good living. As consumers it is 
in our interest for everyone to make good money so that they can 
develop new products, improve the existing ones, and be around 
tomorrow to support us. If consumers, developers, and vendors of 
assistive technology will take some of the steps I have just 
outlined, it will improve the marketplace and general environment 
for all of us. These improvements will lead to stronger 
companies, better products, and happier, more productive 
customers.
     
     
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Paul Mitten]
     Nonvisual Access to Electronic Print Displays
     by Paul Mitten
     
     From the Editor: Paul Mitten is Vice President of Compusult 
Limited, of Canada.
     
     Good afternoon and thank you for inviting me to this 
conference and for the opportunity to make a presentation 
regarding Compusult Limited's work in assistive technology, 
especially as it relates to nonvisual access to electronic print 
displays. I would also like to touch upon nonvisual access to 
electronic displays in general, especially with respect to 
workplace adaptation.
     I would like to start with a little background overview, 
which, of course, must begin in the seventeenth century. Our 
company, Compusult Limited, is located in Newfoundland, and there 
is an interesting historical connection between Newfoundland and 
the state of Maryland, as well as the city of Baltimore, which I 
would like to relate to you.
     In 1620 Sir George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, 
purchased a parcel of land called Ferryland in Newfoundland from 
Sir William Vaughan. The records do not state whether Mr. Vaughan 
was heard to laugh upon conclusion of his latest real estate 
deal.
     In any event, in the following year--1621--Calvert's merry 
band of colonists set off from England for Ferryland. Calvert 
himself resided at Ferryland for less than two years, from the 
summer of 1627 until the winter of 1628-29. The diaries of Lady 
Baltimore include a comment essentially stating that she "could 
not spend another winter in this Godforsaken place." This 
excerpt, by the way, is proudly displayed in the Ferryland 
Museum.
     Therefore, by 1629 George Calvert was determined to obtain 
lands in a friendlier climate. His petition for a large colonial 
grant located north of the Potomac River was agreed to by King 
Charles I, but Calvert died almost two months to the day before 
the charter for Maryland was officially granted, possibly from a 
cold acquired in Newfoundland. Cecil or Cecilius Calvert, the 
Second Lord Baltimore and the first son and heir of George 
Calvert, inherited the title and the 10 to 12 million acres of 
American land in what became Maryland from his father and served 
as the designer and first Lord Proprietor of that colony from 
1632 to 1675. The first settlers landed on Saint Clement Island 
(Clement possibly being chosen in reference to the milder 
climate). Maryland became the fourth English colony and the 
second plantation colony. This colony, with the Second Lord 
Baltimore as proprietor, was the first enduring proprietorship in 
the New World.
     If I might engage in some creative hindcasting, as opposed 
to the creative forecasting undertaken by some of the other 
presenters during these past two days, I would posit that, 
without the enduring influence of Newfoundland on Lady Baltimore 
and hence the First Lord Baltimore, the history of Maryland and 
this city would be radically different, leading to the distinct 
possibility that the NFB might not be located in Baltimore, nor 
would we be here today.
     By the way, Ferryland is actually a pretty and friendly 
little place that holds the Ferryland-Maryland days each summer 
to celebrate the historic connection. There is also an 
interesting long-term archeological dig underway to document and 
recreate Lord Baltimore's Colony of Avalon in Ferryland.
     But I digress. Hopefully, Newfoundland will continue to have 
an enduring influence, especially in the area of Assistive 
Technology. Compusult has been involved in assistive technology 
development since 1993, focusing primarily on workplace 
adaptation to meet the needs of blind and low-vision employees. 
Compusult's introduction into this world was prompted by the 
Assistive Devices Industry Office of Industry Canada, which is 
directed by Mary Frances Laughton. The ADIO previously 
coordinated a program that provided seed funding for the 
development of assistive technology intended for commercial use. 
This program helped build the AT industry in Canada and brought 
several new products and technologies to the AT marketplace.
     
     The DigiCite Technology
     
     In 1994 Compusult proposed to the ADIO development of a 
device that would speech-enable LED and LCD displays. We also 
proposed that this device would be a handheld, battery-powered, 
portable unit ready for market in less than twelve months. We 
later learned that our plans rapidly outpaced reality. Despite 
this concern, we successfully developed the base technology for 
reading LED displays using a fixed, dedicated system called 
DigiCite.
     In 1997 the National Industries for the Blind (NIB) 
contacted us regarding our DigiCite technology, which they 
required to create and maintain jobs for blind and low-vision 
switchboard operators in VA medical centers and Air Force bases. 
We conducted feasibility studies at two VA's in 1998 with the 
assistance of the NIB and their associate agencies. We then began 
installation of the first systems at these facilities in late 
1998 and have continued with new installations since that time. 
To date DigiCite systems have been used to read LED and VFD 
displays of various physical sizes and colors in lengths of four, 
eight, sixteen, and forty characters.
     The DigiCite systems take a different approach to speech-
enabling electronic equipment. In the past the NIB had sought 
solutions designed specifically for a given manufacturer's 
product or product line. However, few manufacturers or third 
parties offered speech-enabling solutions for much of the 
equipment concerned. Despite the ADA and other legislation and 
initiatives, this has not yet changed to a great degree. Many of 
the new systems, as well as legacy systems, still offer no 
straightforward means of providing nonvisual access to electronic 
displays and indicators.
     Our approach incorporates an image-acquisition device, i.e., 
a digital CCD camera mounted on the electronic equipment which is 
interfaced to a small footprint computer system. Images of the 
electronic display are captured continuously. The image is 
analyzed to identify the presence of characters. If the displayed 
characters are deemed to have changed, a corresponding message is 
output using digitized speech. Character identification is 
achieved using custom Optical Character Recognition (OCR) 
techniques. A DigiCite system must be trained to work with the 
characters seen on a given display and must usually be trained 
across multiple units of the same type to ensure the highest 
level of accuracy.
     All processing is carried out on a Corel NetWinder computer 
system, which is also manufactured in Canada. It uses the Linux 
operating system on a StrongARM processor, thus providing a very 
fast, cost-effective, reliable, and stable operating environment 
for our DigiCite software, which must run twenty-four hours per 
day, seven days per week at each location. The NetWinder also 
offers integrated video capture and audio output in its compact 
package, ideally suited to the DigiCite system requirements.
     The DigiCite approach offers the following advantages:
     *It has generic application and will work with practically 
any equipment with an electronic LED or VFD display.
     *There are no liability concerns, since all DigiCite 
equipment is externally mounted and no access to the internals of 
the equipment is required. When a burly technical sergeant stomps 
up to you at an Air Force base and asks what you are going to do 
to his telecomm equipment (which is rather important to base 
operations and also handles the occasional call from the White 
House), it is reassuring to say "nothing at all; all of our 
equipment is external to the consoles and won't impact anything." 
With that the sergeant tends to leave us alone and let us 
complete the installation work.
     *It accommodates all users; the image acquisition device is 
mounted to allow easy repositioning for non-blind users whenever 
required.
     *It accommodates equipment replacement and transfer. For 
example, a switchboard console is replaced in its entirety when 
considered defective or problematic; the DigiCite arrangement 
allows for immediate transfer to another unit with relative ease. 
This transfer has been performed by switchboard staff.
     *It allows for external technical support and updates. 
Remote dial-in access to the DigiCite computer systems allows 
Compusult to perform troubleshooting, software and configuration 
updates, etc. all via remote dial-up sessions.
     The DigiCite approach currently has the following drawbacks:
     *A system is relatively labor-intensive to deliver. All 
equipment has to be installed and configured by highly-trained 
personnel with experience and expertise in optics, electronics, 
digital camera technology, and the related computer systems and 
software. It is not end-user installable.
     *External lighting has an adverse effect. When using a 
digital camera as the image-acquisition device, there are 
sometimes undesirable effects on the imagery imposed by the 
working environment, ambient lighting conditions (and variations 
thereof), lens and camera performance and occasional variation, 
variability between LED or VFD displays even on the same models 
of a manufacturer's equipment. However, we have often overcome 
these problems using a camera hood to block out external lighting 
effects.
     *There is a short delay (typically one to two seconds) 
between when an LED display changes and when DigiCite begins 
speaking. For most situations this is acceptable. However, in an 
operational switchboard environment all operators are under 
pressure to respond to incoming calls and callbacks as quickly as 
possible. Hence, even a brief delay may cause some concern.
     *The system will occasionally make mistakes in character 
recognition but will normally correct itself in subsequent image 
capture/analysis. This, however, degrades response time and can 
make for annoying repetition. We have incorporated various 
techniques in the software that can improve recognition accuracy 
and reliability, but these can slightly degrade performance.
     We have been able to overcome these problems at all sites, 
although in some cases this has necessitated modifications to the 
software, mounting arrangements, cameras and lens systems, etc., 
to achieve consistent operations. Each new site presents a 
different set of conditions which have ultimately led to 
improvements in the DigiCite system and have reduced the 
implementation time and costs, while providing greater 
flexibility and performance.
     
     Other Compusult Systems
     
     While DigiCite provides nonvisual access to electronic print 
displays, this is not the only factor that must be considered in 
the typical working environment for a blind employee. Most 
electronic equipment, including telephone consoles, has 
electronic indicators (LED, VFD, and LCD) that provide on/off 
status information. Compusult's Vindicator system provides the 
means of speech-enabling these indicators and can work as a 
completely stand-alone device or with DigiCite to provide a 
complete solution for a given type of equipment.
     In many VA medical centers the switchboard operators are 
also responsible for monitoring the status of alarms throughout 
the facility. These alarm panels are all installed in the 
switchboard rooms, and, although they provide audible output, 
they do not identify the exact nature of a given alarm. Since 
many of these alarms signal potential life or death situations, 
e.g., cardiac arrest, the operator must be able to react 
immediately to them and follow the correct procedures for each 
situation.
     Compusult's Responder is a machine-vision-based system that 
provides a continuous watch on alarm panels and other electronic 
equipment. Whenever an event such as an alarm occurs, Responder 
acknowledges this and generates a corresponding synthetic- or 
digitized-speech message to notify the operators. We have been 
informed that a blind operator can, in fact, respond more quickly 
than a sighted operator when using Responder, since the sighted 
operator would normally have to identify the alarm panel and the 
specific alarm on that panel by sight before taking action. The 
blind operator can remain in position and wait for the verbal 
message.
     
     Future Directions
     
     Compusult continues to develop and enhance the DigiCite 
technology. The primary aims are to incorporate the ability to 
read LCD and other displays, improve generic applicability 
through improved image processing and OCR technology, reduce size 
and cost, and ultimately achieve our original 1996 goal of a 
handheld device. In this regard we have also been involved in 
collaborative proposals to expedite development and broaden the 
reach of the system. We are part of a proposal to the European 
Commission, in cooperation with organizations from Germany, 
France, and the U.K., to develop a portable, handheld device that 
reads electronic displays as well as printed text, including 
labels on three-dimensional packaging such as retail goods. We 
expect to hear a decision on this proposal possibly in November 
of 1999. This would be a three-year development project, with a 
ready-to-manufacture product upon its conclusion.
     We recently completed a grant funding proposal with the NIB 
to make the current technology more generic in its applicability 
to various types of displays including LCD and to reduce the 
overall implementation costs, especially the labor-intensive 
installation and configuration process. The ultimate goal is to 
achieve portability for use with various types of equipment at a 
work site, and ideally, when we deliver a DigiCite system to 
clients, they will be able to install it themselves.
     The NIB also continues to support us in working with a 
variety of agencies and companies that want to use DigiCite to 
make legacy and even new telecommunications equipment accessible 
to blind workers. Each new contract helps to advance the 
technology.
     I must also note that the NFB, which has a demonstration 
version of DigiCite in its technology center, has passed along 
information on our systems to other prospective clients.
     And, to conclude, coming full circle to Lady Baltimore, I 
don't think she gave Newfoundland enough of a chance. My wife 
took a mere twelve years to get used to the weather and appears 
to enjoy it now. However, she does find an excuse to leave for 
two to three weeks each February, I have noticed.
     
     
     Final Discussion Summary
     
     Jim Fruchterman: Our field tends to follow trends in the 
larger technology field with a lag of a few years. The general 
technology field is shifting to purchase over the Internet rather 
than through dealers. How will we deal with that change and with 
training and other things that are hard to do over the Internet? 
Some users are moving their software off the PC and onto a 
server. The local PC becomes a simple device that doesn't break 
as often, and an expert takes responsibility for running all 
software at serverside. This could be a solution or lead to a 
whole new set of problems.
     The issue of open source code available over the Internet is 
increasingly important. In the next year or two this will become 
common in our field; open-source projects already exist in text-
to-speech code. Ray Kurzweil talked very well about what will 
happen ten to twenty years out, but we will see some wild times 
between here and there.
     Marc Maurer: There's been lots of conversation about MSAM 
(Microsoft Screen Access Model). Microsoft worked with O.N.C.E., 
EuroBraille, and Baum to develop MSAM, and there was talk about 
making it open source. The NFB was approached about setting up a 
company to manage this code in the open-source market, 
stipulating that anyone who updated the code must provide it to 
the company for general use. It now appears that MSAM is not 
being released for general use, so that particular project does 
not have a future, but the concept does, providing that everyone 
plays by the rules of the game and gives updates to the managing 
company to incorporate for general use and that the market is 
open enough to stimulate new products and enhancements to be 
managed. Who knows what proprietary or nonproprietary products 
may be developed that should be handled in this way, but it is an 
intriguing idea. The notion that, if we work together, we will 
all have more than we would if we do not is tempting to think 
about.
     Brian Buhrow: This model is close to the Linux system, in 
which the operating system and most of the software are free, and 
companies find their niche in providing technical support and 
packaging. The question for us is whether consumers in our field 
are willing to pay for technical support. Now support is mostly 
free, at least for a period of time. Will users and 
rehabilitation agencies begin paying for support, and do vendors 
think there is money to be made developing training and support 
packages for systems they have not created?
     Richard Ring: I don't know if consumers would pay for 
support; I think some would. But if they do buy it, it had better 
improve drastically from what is often now provided. Calling a 
customer back the next day or giving unsatisfactory answers will 
not do when people are paying. I can talk to two technical 
support people from the same company and be given two completely 
different answers, neither of which is right.
     David Andrews: An example of a successful release of source 
code and development of it in the public domain is NFBTrans, 
which we released in 1992. Originally written in Pascal, it was 
converted to C by a blind person who continued to upgrade it and 
add features and capabilities. Then two years ago Kurzweil made 
it a 32-bit program and incorporated it into the K1000. Just last 
week Larry Skutchan talked with me about incorporating it into an 
APH product. It seems clear that this approach has some merit for 
this field.
     Oscar Fern`andez: [He spoke briefly about O.N.C.E.'s efforts 
to make Microsoft Windows more accessible.]
     Larry Skutchan: The open-source model is certainly useful in 
many situations. Microsoft may not be happy with this statement, 
but it is absolutely essential for the operating system to 
support the screen-access model directly because MSAM, and all 
the work done by O.N.C.E. and the others, will be worthless to us 
in two years when a 64- or 128-bit version of NT comes out. We 
will have to start over from the ground up. If the operating 
system supported this natively, blind computer users would be 
able to use the technology as soon as it hits the street, and 
every vendor wouldn't have to start over every time there was a 
change in the operating system.
     After a break the group gathered for some discussion of ways 
in which the group might engage in cooperative activities between 
conferences.
     Marc Maurer: A technology review board to assess the 
accessibility of products might be a place to begin. It would be 
educational at first since no one would know what it was. But the 
models of Underwriters Laboratory and Consumers Union show the 
way. Already a group is assessing the quality of access to Web 
sites for disabled users. This board could be something like 
that.
     David Andrews: There is a crying need for such a board to 
set standards and apply them. We could establish a private e-mail 
discussion group to continue this discussion if that would be 
helpful.
     Marc Maurer: This is an idea worth pursuing though some who 
are not present today might be part of such a listserv as well.
     Michelle Brul`e: I would like to see any forum or board 
serve both the U.S. and Canada.
     Marc Maurer: If we limit it to one country, we won't get the 
broadest result we could hope to achieve.
     Jim Fruchterman: Is this board concept aimed primarily at 
adaptive technology or mainstream organizations and products? We 
are entering an era when mainstream products are having to meet a 
higher standard of accessibility, and I would rather see them 
paying this kind of money and meeting the standards set. For 
small companies in the adaptive corner of the market, $25,000 is 
a lot of money.
     Marc Maurer: Twenty-five thousand is a lot of money, but we 
want people who are genuinely interested in this idea and are 
willing to commit to it. Participating will be important enough 
to pay this kind of money only for those who are really 
committed. The figure would keep those who are peripheral to the 
process out of it. 
     Curtis Chong: Such a board is a good idea, but not for 
assistive technology developed specifically for the blind. More 
than ever before blind people face application programs, set-top 
boxes, small appliances with flat control panels, and so on, and 
nobody is dealing with these access problems. We have to find a 
way to expose the fact that these things don't work for blind 
people and publicize the fact. If this board works, after a while 
producers will feel some shame and eventually will look to the 
board for indication that their products are accessible.
David Andrews: I think the blindness organizations like the NFB, 
ACB, and AFB might put up their contributions as seed money to 
hire staff and whatever is needed to begin because our 
constituencies give us a vested interest. The group would 
establish standards for the products Curtis was talking about to 
be usable by blind people. Then producers would pay a fee to have 
products--software or appliances--tested. With state laws about 
nonvisual access being passed and Section 508 requiring genuine 
accessibility, we might get laws changed to say that a seal from 
this board would demonstrate accessibility. The fees paid by the 
producers would then make the system self-supporting.
     David Pillisher: The Underwriters Laboratory (UL) seal stays 
with a product even when it undergoes changes that perhaps make 
it less safe than the original one that was tested. Computer 
products are changed even more frequently and could lose their 
accessibility without losing the seal.
     David Andrews: The board would approve major version 
changes.
     Marc Maurer: These are logistical details that can be worked 
out. But you get what you pay for, so we wouldn't give away the 
seal.
     George Kerscher: We want to encourage universal design, and 
I am always the first one to point out that the blind have been 
left out. Would this system include multi-media educational tools 
entering schools?
     Marc Maurer: It would if we can find a way conveniently to 
make it do so. We still have to write the standards. Does anybody 
now know what a company has to do to make its products 
accessible? We have ideas, but they may not be consistent. Even 
those who have thought a lot about the problem don't have all the 
ideas. We will have to pool our ideas, but there should be a 
place people can go to find out what they have to do to make 
their products accessible.
     Paul Schroeder: I like the direction we are going in trying 
to bring us together to focus on access to mainstream products 
and setting standards. Money is going to be the rub, and I would 
like to begin the process and avoid the money question for a 
while. Deciding the scope of products to be evaluated by such a 
board and beginning to develop the standards for doing so could 
be done by the organizations in this field before worrying about 
the financial structure and who controls it.
     Jim Fruchterman: There are places to begin: Section 508, 
Section 255 of the Telecom Act, the Web Accessibility Initiative. 
What's missing is someone to interpret those who know something 
about the needs of blind people. The organizations of and for the 
blind have a significant stake in that, and the technology 
producers can make a significant contribution because of our 
expertise. The most valuable thing we producers could contribute 
would be our time and knowledge.
     Deane Blazie: In the early eighties the Assistive Technology 
Division of the Electronic Industries Association was started by 
some of us vendors. It provided a little seal to say how 
accessible a product was for people with disabilities. If you 
went to the Electronic Industries Association, and particularly 
to CEMA (Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association), they 
would be very interested in supporting such an organization and 
working with you to set standards. They could let member 
organizations come to the board with cell phones and learn how to 
make them accessible. They have a lot of money. If you go to them 
with the idea that you will help them if they will just support 
your organization, I think you will get a lot of cooperation. We 
did when we had this Assistive Device Division.
 

 
 
