[gui-talk] Fwd: National Federation of the Blind and Motorola toCooperate on Making Cell Phones Accessible to the Blind

[Joel Deutsch]

This is encouraging, although as someone who's been using an LG phone from 
Verizon offering most of these capabilities if you're given  clear 
instructions and are willing to put up with not being able to get more than 
one or two levels into most menus on the phone, I'd like to know more 
details. Like whether what Motorola plans to offer next calendar year will 
offer much more than this, which I hope, and also which carriers will market 
the phones in question. As is often the case, a press release from the NFB 
is encouraging news, but I also look  forward to more informative articles 
about this as time goes on.
Joel
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Pattison" <srp at internode.on.net>
To: "Access L" <access-l at access-l.com>; "VIP L" <vip-l at softspeak.com.au>
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2009 4:23 PM
Subject: [gui-talk] Fwd: National Federation of the Blind and Motorola 
toCooperate on Making Cell Phones Accessible to the Blind


From:    Freeh, Jessica JFreeh at nfb.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:

Chris Danielsen
Director of Public Relations
National Federation of the Blind
(410) 659-9314, extension 2330
(410) 262-1281 (Cell)
cdanielsen at nfb.org

Jennifer Erickson
Motorola, Inc.
(847) 435-5320
Jennifer.erickson at motorola.com

National Federation of the Blind and Motorola
  to Cooperate on Making Cell Phones Accessible to the Blind

Baltimore, Maryland and Libertyville, Illinois (September 14, 2009):
The National Federation of the Blind, the nation's oldest and largest
organization of blind people and the leading advocate for making
mainstream devices accessible to the blind, and Motorola Inc., a
leading manufacturer of cell phones and other mobile communications
devices, announced today that they have entered into a cooperation
agreement to promote technologies that improve the accessibility of
cell phones to blind consumers.

Certain future Motorola cell phones will provide verbal readouts of
information such as the time and date, battery level, signal
strength, user's phone number, caller ID information for incoming
calls, missed and received calls, and voice mail alerts.  Blind users
will also be able to take advantage of verbal readouts and
voice-command features for ring tone status, inputting and accessing
contacts, and various other settings.  Motorola expects these cell
phones to be available in 2010.  The parties have also agreed to work
together to make additional phones and features accessible to blind users.

Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind,
said: "In an age where productivity and success increasingly depend
on access to mobile technology such as cellular telephones, it is
critical that blind Americans have equal access to today's cell
phones through user interfaces that do not require vision.  The
National Federation of the Blind appreciates Motorola's commitment to
making the features of its cell phone products accessible to blind
users without the need for third-party software, and we look forward
to working together with Motorola to make future improvements to the
accessibility of telecommunication technology."

Regards Steve
Email:  srp at internode.on.net
MSN Messenger:  internetuser383 at hotmail.com
Skype:  steve1963
Twitter:  steve9782

_______________________________________________
gui-talk mailing list
gui-talk at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
gui-talk:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/jdeutsch%40dslextreme.com