"Comcast" - Google News - Wednesday, December 25, 2019 at 5:04 AM
Americans with disabilities have $200 billion in spending power. Comcast isn’t
leaving them behind. - The Philadelphia Inquirer
James Baldwin thought he’d never see his granddaughter’s face again.
The 18-year Army veteran started to lose his vision three years ago from an
injury he suffered in the Gulf War. He lost his left eye and was left with
limited vision in his right, reducing his sight to light and shadows. He can
see shapes but not faces.
That was until October, when Baldwin put on a pair of NuEyes electronic
glasses, which enhance the vision of visually impaired people. Suddenly, he
could clearly see his wife sitting beside him. Leaves on trees. A picture of
his granddaughter in her basketball uniform.
“She loves basketball, she loves softball, and being able to see her like that,
it meant a lot‚” Baldwin, 58, of Alexandria, Va., said last week. “I can be
standing right next to her and wouldn’t really see her, but being able to see
her face, what a beautiful young lady she’s turned into, it was amazing.”
Baldwin received the “early Christmas present” from Comcast and NuEyes, a
wearable technology start-up. NuEyes customers can now watch live TV and
on-demand content through the smart glasses and virtual reality headset with
the Xfinity Stream app, Comcast said this month.
The partnership was the latest announcement from Comcast this year about new
programs, products, and services for people with disabilities. Earlier this
month, Comcast said it was the first in the cable industry to offer customer
service in American Sign Language. In June, the company unveiled a web-based
remote allowing people with physical disabilities to control their televisions
with their eyes. And in August, Comcast expanded its low-cost broadband program
to low-income households that have people with disabilities.
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Comcast is among major companies using new technology to design products that
are more inclusive. Microsoft, for example, sells an adaptive Xbox video game
controller with large buttons for gamers with limited mobility. For blind
consumers, Apple’s devices include screen reading technology that reads web
content aloud. Products that aren’t tailored for people with disabilities, such
as Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, have helped too, experts said.
“Accessibility is not a feature. Accessibility really is the measure of how
effective or how inclusive your product is,” said Tom Wlodkowski, Comcast’s
vice president for accessibility. “The idea was, let’s build products that work
for everyone. And let’s open up our products to the widest possible audience
inclusive of people with disabilities.”
He joined Comcast in 2012 and oversees a dozen people focused on accessibility
while working with the company’s product teams. Comcast has developed features
in recent years such as “voice guidance,” which helps low-vision consumers
navigate the TV by reading what’s on screen aloud, and “video description,”
which is extra narration during pauses in dialogue in a movie or show.
Comcast now has four customer-service employees trained to communicate to deaf
customers in American Sign Language. The program is in a pilot phase, but the
company said it will evaluate and adapt in the future. It is expected to reduce
average call times by up to 40%. Comcast announced the program in December at
the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, where it gave 90 students free tablets
and six months of internet service.
Comcast’s eye-control remote was recently named one of 100 “Best Inventions" of
2019 by Time magazine. Customers can change channels and record and search for
shows on a tablet or computer screen using eye-tracking technology. Comcast
said it isn’t measuring how many customers are using the remote right now.
For customers such as Jimmy Curran, 30, a Philly resident with spinal muscular
atrophy, the eye control remote means he no longer needs others to operate the
TV. Before, he was sometimes stuck on the same channel for a long time, missing
out on college football games he wanted to watch.
“Saturdays are typically times when I spend time alone without an aide or
company," he said. “So it’s enabled me to have the ability to change the
channel.”
While Comcast’s eye remote is available for free online, consumers still need
compatible equipment that can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
Smartglasses such as NuEyes can cost thousands of dollars, too. And many people
with significant disabilities are on limited incomes, experts said.
“I think anything that enables people to manage their own environment on their
own terms is worthwhile,” said Dyann Roth, the CEO of Inglis, the largest
private provider of affordable accessible housing in the Philadelphia region.
“The challenge, I think, and not from the technical standpoint ... is it has to
be affordable.”
There are still some gaps in the technology. Comcast’s voice remote, for
example, helps people with disabilities by letting them change channels without
pushing several buttons or seeing what’s on screen. But it still requires
consumers to press one button before speaking, limiting those with physical
disabilities.
“In general, I think there is definitely a large need for some type of
hands-free remote system for people to be able to control their TVs, which has
been an ongoing need for a long time," said Jessica Doran, therapy supervisor
in the spinal cord injury program at Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in
Philadelphia.
https://www.inquirer.com/news/comcast-eye-remote-disability-features-nu-eyes-20191225.html
David Goldfield
Assistive Technology Specialist
Feel free to visit my Web site
WWW.DavidGoldfield.info
