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The Wireless Age Adapts to Aging
By:
Brian Bergstein,
The
Associated Press
March 13, 2003
Annemarie Cooke was a newspaper reporter when her vision
began to fail 25 years ago. Then, she had few options for adjusting at
work beyond making text on her computer appear larger.
Now,
using software that reads aloud what's on the screen, Cooke, 50, is an
executive at a nonprofit for the blind and dyslexic.
"All
you have to do is breathe or blink and you can use technology
effectively," Cooke said. But it's not all easy -- cell phones and
their tiny controls "are a nightmare."
Cooke's
experience illustrates that while specialized devices offer assistance in
dazzling ways, technology companies are just beginning to work harder at
making all computers, gadgets and Web sites better accommodate people with
disabilities.
Government
regulations are largely forcing the industry's awakening, but so is a
basic quest for profits. High-tech companies say that as the massive baby
boomer generation ages, business will suffer if computers and other
devices befuddle declining eyes, ears and fingers.
"If
a boomer goes blind at 50, they're probably going to be far more motivated
to have their PC remain a part of their life" than an older person
today, said Madelyn Bryant McIntire, Microsoft's director of accessible
technologies.
Telecommunications
companies are closely examining services proving popular among deaf and
hearing impaired people of all ages, such as instant messaging over
computers and two-way pagers.
AT&T
and Sprint recently started offering video relay, in which a deaf person
sets up a Web camera on his computer and uses sign language to address an
operator, who in turn translates to the hearing party on the other end.
Users
say video relay is faster and conveys more emotion than the traditional
TTY system, in which a deaf person types his or her end of the
conversation and an operator reads it to the hearing person and then types
back responses.
Even
baby boomers who develop hearing loss but don't know sign language
software developed in Israel that gathers the individual sounds in a phone
conversation and displays a computer-animated face that appears to speak
what the person on the other end of the line is saying. Northview
Enterprises of Clearwater, plans to adapt the Lip-C Cell software soon for
American English.
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