WASHINGTON--At the moment, most TVs and telephones must be outfitted with special features for people with hearing, vision, and speech impairments under U.S. law. Now an influential Democratic congressman wants to expand those requirements to their Internet counterparts.
The bill (PDF) being drafted by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) would require, at least in some cases, dramatic changes in the way Internet phone- and video-related products are designed, while making it more difficult than under existing law for companies to claim exemptions from those requirements.
"The wizardry of the wires and the sophistication of the software programs do little for those who cannot affordably access or effectively use them," Markey said at a hearing here Thursday convened by the House of Representatives telecommunications and Internet panel he leads. "Our job as policymakers is to help ensure such affordable access and utilization, and this is what the draft legislation I have circulated is intended to do."
In some ways, the effort would simply build upon steps already taken by policymakers in recent years. Last summer, for instance, the Federal Communications Commission decided that voice-over Internet protocol providers whose services connect to the public-switched telephone network, such as Vonage, would be required to make their services compatible with hearing aids and telecommunications relay services, just as traditional phone operators do.
The Markey bill would extend those obligations to Skype-like equipment that allows users to swap voice, text, or video communications via Internet protocol technology. It would also go a step further, requiring them to support standard
The bill also contains new rules for manufacturers of any gadget designed to receive or display video programming, be it Internet-based or otherwise. They would generally be required to equip those devices with the ability to decode and display closed captions, to deliver "video description" services (that is, oral narration designed for the blind and visually-impaired), and to present typical ticker-style emergency messages in a way that's accessible to the blind and visually impaired.
Furthermore, the devices would have to be designed so that on-screen menus are accessible in real-time to individuals with disabilities, and all remote controls would have to contain a "conspicuous" buttons for activating closed captioning.
Disabilities community weighs in
A variety of disabilities advocates voiced support for the bill at Thursday's hearing. (Its working title is the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, although it has not yet been formally introduced.)
At the moment, federal rules require all TVs with screens larger than 13 inches to contain chips to display closed captions. But that's no longer sufficiently stringent as the popularity of videos delivered via cell phones, laptops, and MP3 players surges, said Russell Harvard, a deaf actor who played Daniel Day Lewis' adult-age son in the Oscar-nominated film There Will Be Blood.
"I and others who cannot hear are left out of this whirlwind of technological change (because) hardly any of these smaller devices display closed captions," Harvard said, urging Congress to take closed captioning law "to its next level."
Jamaal Anderson, an Atlanta Falcons defensive end, recalled that at draft time last year, his mother was forced to "interpret" video clips of him that appeared on Web sites of National Football League teams and news organizations for the benefit of his father, Glenn, who holds the distinction of being the first PhD recipient to be deaf and black.
U.S. Army Sgt. Major Jesse Acosta, a longtime soldier who lost his right eye and vision in his left eye during a mortar explosion in Iraq two years ago, said it's not acceptable that of his three favorite television shows--CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, and CSI: Las Vegas--only one of them has descriptive audio. The Southern California resident, who spoke on behalf of the American Council of the Blind, said he was also dismayed that crawling alerts on his TV screen about potential emergencies, like earthquakes or mudslides, went by unbeknownst to him unless a family member of friend happened to be there to relay the message.
In 2002, the Federal Communications Commission set rules that required video operators to provide that video description service, but a court overturned those rules, arguing that they were contrary to Congress's intent. Part of Markey's bill attempts to restore those rules, which Acosta, who spoke on behalf of the American Council of the Blind, applauded.
New regulations: Necessary or not?
Democrats on the committee generally seemed to support Markey's plans, voicing concern about excluding people with disabilities from new technologies. Some Republicans, however, said that although they shared Markey's goals, they were skeptical about the need for new legislation.
"New regulations may not be needed because the technology and wireless industries are already taking the necessary steps to make sure their products and applications are indeed accessible to all people," said Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), the panel's ranking member.
Some Internet video providers, including NBC and Fox's joint Hulu.com venture and Apple's iTunes store, already offer captioned programming. Last fall, AOL, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo formed a coalition called the Internet Captioning Forum, coordinated by public broadcasting station WGBH in Boston, that's designed to standardize captioning practices for Web hosts and content providers.
"I think they have figured it out," Larry Goldberg, WGBH's director of media access, said of that effort at Thursday's hearing. "What they need to figure out is how to make it pervasive," and Markey's legislation should help "light that fire" under those companies.
Wireless companies, for their part, already make phones that use voice recognition, software that will "read out" or magnify screen information, and other features designed to help sensory-impaired users, said Dane Snowden, vice president of external and state affairs for CTIA-The Wireless Association. All cell phones are compatible with TTY, also known as Text Telephone Device, which allows deaf or hard-of-hearing people to communicate through text, and about 40 phone models are compatible with hearing aids, he added.
"If we can sell products that are more accessible, we sell more products," Snowden told the committee. "We have a vested interest in this and a proven track record."
His group, which represents major wireless carriers and manufacturers, supports the concept of Markey's legislation but believes the current draft would "unnecessarily burden the industry with little countervailing benefit to the disability community," Snowden said.
Another potential problem with the bill is that it allows unhappy customers to file private lawsuits alleging violations of the disability requirements, said Ken Nakata, a former U.S. Department of Justice civil rights attorney who now works for the consulting firm BayFirst Solutions in Seattle.
Such a policy could actually undermine the rights of people with disabilities, he argued. It was, after all, private litigation that led to what he called a "disaster for the disability rights movement"--a court opinion in a case involving Southwest Airlines' Web site that essentially found the Americans with Disabilities Act applies only to physical spaces, not businesses on the Web.
Markey indicated he would consider the suggestions as the bill is finalized and said he hoped legislation could be passed by year's end. A committee aide told CNET News.com that he expects the bill to be introduced formally before Congress' Memorial Day recess.
Microsoft and open-source site SourceForge plan to offer a free plug-in early next year that will convert Office 2007 files to the Daisy format, which translates text to speech.
The free tool will add a "Save as Daisy" option within Word 2007 and 2003. Daisy, or Digital Accessible Information System, XML files can be "read" aloud by speech synthesizers, paired with audio narration, and used to create electronic Braille. Users can navigate open-standard Daisy documents quickly by jumping between page elements such as headers and indexes.
The Daisy Consortium of 70 nonprofits has aimed since 1996 to make all published information available to people with visual impairments and learning disabilities.
Digital narration serves computer users with visual impairments, people with learning challenges like dyslexia, as well as those with Parkinson's disease and other conditions that make it hard to type or hold a book.
With the release of the Office 2007 suite in January, Microsoft shunned the popular, XML-based OpenDocument Format for its own, new Office Open XML format. The OOXML documents, which include Word files with the DOCX extension, are easier to retrieve, if corrupted, than older DOC files.
Versions of Word prior to 2007 can open OOXML documents after a one-time download of a free converter from Microsoft. However, critics gripe that Microsoft's format change was unnecessary and clumsy. Microsoft maintains that the new format enables greater flexibility, such as accessibility features.
(See also accessibility in Mac OS 10.5 Leopard.)
Leopard is Apple's best-looking operating system yet, from its breezy Cover Flow file browsing to the starry-looking Time Machine backup. It's no wonder visual artists love Macs.
But how well does Leopard work for blind users?
"[Vision-impaired] people who use Macs are mostly in the category of, "My boss says we have to use Macs," or "I'm a teacher and that's what I'm stuck with,"" said Crista Earl, director of Web operations at the American Foundation for the Blind.
Among 10 million visually impaired people in the United States, at least 1.5 million use computers, according to the American Foundation for the Blind. To serve this population, Windows machines have traditionally offered more baked-in features and compatibility with third-party software and devices than Macs.
Earl, who is blind, only uses computers running Microsoft Windows. She edits documents in braille and relies upon a screen-reader application to "read" text and links aloud in Internet Explorer and other programs.
However, to serve users such as Earl, Apple has made 17 Universal Access enhancements within Leopard.
Leopard is the first operating system that can be installed using a braille display. It also supports the forms of braille used both for reading and editing. There are enhancements to the VoiceOver tool, which reads aloud text on a page in a male or female voice. Users can now move VoiceOver's preferences from one Mac to another, so they don't have to waste time configuring each new machine. In addition, VoiceOver can recognize misspelled words and jump to chunks of a Web page instead of forcing a user to wait while it reads one word at a time.
Earl said these changes are a step in the right direction, and she hopes to check them out on a friend's Mac. Mac OS X also offers some advantages over Windows for people with limited vision, such as the capability to display the screen in black and white.
"I don't mean I'd give up my Windows computer," she said. "I have work to do. It's gonna take a lot from the last time I saw VoiceOver."
Accessibility features from any vendor are usually more frustrating to use than advertised, Earl added. Part of the problem is that instead of integrating essential tools within their operating systems, Microsoft and Apple have left it up to third parties to fill in the gaps with extra, paid software.
For example, the screen readers within Windows and Mac OS X pale next to applications like JAWS or Window-Eyes. Earl wonders why the tech giants don't just buy one of the better tools, then weave it into their operating systems.
"One of the reasons things haven't gotten very far is that the companies making screen readers are constantly fighting the next battle," Earl said.
Blame the ever-evolving nature of Web site designs. Once screen-reader makers figured out how to make Adobe Acrobat accessible, for instance, Adobe Flash rendered Web pages mute to blind users. Now that more Flash sites work with screen readers, the AJAX coding of the Web 2.0 era poses new challenges.
Both the challenges in making accessibility tools and the market for them are poised to expand. More young people are suffering repetitive stress disorders such as carpal tunnel syndrome, while aging Baby Boomers grapple with diminished vision, hearing, and mobility.
People whose hands and arms suffer keyboard fatigue, or worse, can use speech-to-text software that types what they speak. For them, Windows builds in voice-activated dictation and commands. Leopard enables voice-activated commands only. The rich Dragon NaturallySpeaking from Nuance runs only on Windows. For Macs, the equivalent ViaVoice (or iListen, which I haven't tested) are considered less robust.
I find each of these dictation applications awkward to use. Just spend an hour with one for a few laughs as it garbles your speech.
Nevertheless, hardware and software manufacturers appear to be paying more attention to the needs of an affluent, aging population.
"A newcomer to visual impairment tends to expect, rightly, for things to be a whole lot easier than they are," Earl said. "That pressure of lots of disappointed users might make things better for everybody."
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