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Sci Tech
Bridging the `disability divide'
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Many who have access to IT, face an additional hurdle — a physical impairment that makes it difficult to use computer tools. Anand Parthasarathy reviews recent efforts to build `assistive technologies' into mainstream IT products that could eventually help the blind see again.
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India's first specialised cyber café for the visually challenged was opened at NAB's Mumbai head office.
VISITORS TO the website of the National Association for the Blind (India) : www.nabindia.org , will be pleasantly surprised: the page starts `talking' as soon as you reach it.
A calm voice gives instructions on how to use the `return' key of the keyboard to enter the site. Spoken instructions then guide the visitor through the entire content of the website. The NAB site is an honourable exception — but if voluntary organizations around the world helping the physically challenged, have their way, sites like these will soon be the rule.
In the U.S., a historic new standard known as Section 508 of the 1998 Rehabilitation Act, became operational just over a year ago on June 25 2001: it required all arms of the American government to ensure that their Websites and Web-based services were configured to be accessible by the disabled. It was a daunting task: official websites account for over 26 million pages.
And while U.S. citizens are accustomed to downloading almost all the forms required to be filled by them, many were unreachable by the visually challenged or the physically handicapped.
But the push had come — and a year down the road, thousands of public services sites now include `talking' versions where instructions for filling forms or downloading documentation are available in a synthesized human voice. Speech recognition : the ability of software to translate spoken instructions into key strokes and commands, as well as speech synthesis: the translation of displayed text or output into computer-generated `voices', are two complementary technologies that have been around for over a decade, albeit at a price.
Within weeks of the 508 Rule coming into effect, Microsoft's latest version of its PC operating system software, Windows XP was unveiled and it turned out to be something of a watershed product for `assistive technologies' — special software tools that could be invoked to make the computing chores a little easier for those who faced impairments of some kind.
The biggest news for such users was that for the first time a mainstream software product came with speech recognition built into it. OfficeXP tools like Word and Excel accepted dictated text, while the main Windows XP system accepted a variety of spoken commands.
It is also possible to selectively enlarge portions of the screen — a boon for those with poor or partial sight who have difficulty reading `fine print'. The nes XP version also facilitated a number of improved accessibility tools developed by third-party hardware and software manufacturers: converting the screen into a `virtual' keyboard, single handed keyboards.
At the 17th International Conference on Assistive Technology, held in March this year at California State University, Northridge, US, some of these tools which rode piggy back on Windows XP were on display — including a comprehensive aid called Mercury developed by ATI by which a person suffering from cerebral palsy could use a single device like a wheelchair-mounted joystick for all tasks connected with using a PC and accessing the Internet. On May 2, NAB in India and Microsoft joined hands to create the country's first specialized cyber cafe for the visually challenged, at the former's Worli, Mumbai head office.
The café is equipped with 5 computers, all equipped with the best known software solution for the blind — JAWS (Job Access With Speech) — made by the U.S. developer, Freedom Scientific. The latest JAWS 4.02 version, includes a multilingual speech synthesizer which reads aloud the contents of a screen and is also compatible with standard versions of Braille which means those familiar with Braille can `read' the text with a suitable refreshable reader. JAWS costs the equivalent of Rs 40,000 and runs on Windows 95/98/Me/XP/2000/NT PCs with a sound card and 32 MB of RAM with 30 MB hard disk space; but short-duration trial versions can be downloaded freely from the manufacturer's website (www.freedomscientific.com) .
The NAB facility also provides a special scanner with `Kurzweil 1000', a software to convert printed documents into speech.
The `Persons With Disabilities' Act of 1995, promulgated in India has ensured that many visually challenged persons trained by the NAB at its various centres equipped with JAWS and other tools, have found employment against quotas in government departments.
But India has still to enact rules that will bridge the `disability divide' in other daily walks of life. The spurt of technology in the banking sector has seen Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) spring up in most metros; but none of them makes any special provision for the disabled.
Current ATM technology requires multiple visual interactions with the terminal to perform standard functions like withdrawing cash or making a deposit. The 1990 `Americans With Disabilities' Act makes it mandatory for all banks to eventually make their ATMs audio-driven. A detailed article on the technical challenges involved can be found in the April 11 2002 issue of BusinessWeek, entitled: `Money talks and so should ATMs'.
However progress while tardy is now palpable in the U.S. and banks particularly on the West Coast have launched hundreds of' talking ATMs where visually challenged customers can find a Braille-enhanced keypad as as well as a pair of headphones to access the spoken interactions.
Wells Fargo, a leading bank in and around San Francisco has converted over 800 ATMs in California to `talking' versions since 1999.
Towards a `silicon retina'
Beyond such affirmative action, the most exciting news for the visually impaired, may have come on May 8 from Fort Lauderdale, Florida (U.S.), at the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, when the results of trials conducted over the last 23months, by Dr Alan Chow and his team at Optobionics Inc., were presented.
Chow, a paediatric ophthalmologist, is the co-developer with his brother Vincent, of the Artificial Silicon Retina (ASR). This is a pin-head sized, solar-powered microchip which when surgically implanted behind the retina, converted light into electrical impulses and replaced the functions of damaged or weak photo-receptors, which had led to hitherto untreatable blindness.
Six patients who suffered from `retinal pigmentosa' or age-related macular degeneration, were implanted with the microchip since June 2000 and none has so far shown symptoms of rejection or infection.
In fact one patient could see his wife's face for the first time in many years, another saw his own face much aged since he last saw it 20 years ago.
Dr Chow did not claim that the chip restored perfect vision but these results seemed to show that it restored a measure of sight to those who had been sightless or minimally sighted for many years.
The company has provided a detailed FAQ for patients at its website (www.optobionics.com) and invites candidates for future clinical trials. But it stresses that no product is yet available. Industry watchers say a marketable ASR may be five years away.
Meanwhile, it is up to the rest of us to `lean' on government if necessary to ensure that in Information Technology at least, to be physically challenged is not to be deprived.
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