Harris Corp. joins effort to develop radio that is accessible for the
hearing, vision impaired
Etan Horowitz
Sentinel Staff Writer
LAS VEGAS
Against a backdrop of cell phones that play live TV and computers
that fit in the palm of your hard, the announcement that Harris Corp.
of Melbourne made at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show
here on Tuesday stood out for its simplicity.
The defense contractor has joined with National Public Radio and
Towson University to create the International Center for Accessible
Radio Technology, in an attempt to bring the enjoyment of radio to
those with hearing or vision impairments.
“We are going to use the tools available to us to reach this audience
that largely today is being underserved,” said Howard Lance, the chief
executive officer, chairman and president of Harris Corp.
Harris is donating equipment and $50,000 in seed money toward the
research and development of the accessible radios. Accessible radio
will utilize HD Radio, a higher quality radio-broadcasting technology
that allows a station to have several channels broadcasting different
content. Harris’ Broadcast Communications Division, based in Ohio,
helped with the development of HD Radio technology.
At Tuesday’s news conference, officials showed off a prototype of a
car dashboard with an accessible radio. The dashboard had a video
screen, but it displayed different images to the driver and
passenger. The driver sees GPS-navigation data and hears the radio
broadcast from the car’s speakers while the passenger sees a screen
with closed captioning of the same radio broadcast.
Cheryl Heppner, the executive director of the Northern Virginia
Resource Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Persons, said this
technology will finally allow her to understand why her husband
laughs so uproariously when he listens to Car Talk on National Public
Radio.
“And I could annoy him by singing along badly to the lyrics of his
favorite song,” Heppner said. “Captioned radio could open up a world
I’ve never had.”
Heppner said captioned radio is particularly important during
emergency situations.
“After Katrina, making captioned radio a reality became far more
important to me,” she said. “When every other communication failed,
that battery-powered radio helped people stay in touch, but only if
they could hear.”
Harris officials said they expect radios with large screens that can
display the captioning to be available for sale by the end of this
year.
Besides bringing radio to deaf people, Harris and its partners are
also working to improve the experience of listening for the blind.
Unlike old-time radio dials, there is no static when switching
between digital radio stations.
The newly formed International Center for Accessible Radio Technology
will develop audio cues for blind people as they switch between
channels. The center will also work to expand the number of offerings
that radio reading services provide, such as the local newspaper.
Those two initiatives will take longer to materialize.
Officials said there are about 650 million hearing- and
vision-impaired people worldwide who could benefit from the new
technology.
Bill Pasco, the director of Sun Sounds of Arizona, which operates a
network of four radio reading services, said the two most popular
features are the grocery-store ads, including the coupons, and the
death notices and obituaries.
“Digital radio reading services have the power to overcome all the
disadvantages of conventional radio,” Pasco said. ” . . . All the
potential, all that promise, all that lovely information won’t mean a
thing if the darn radio is not accessible to me. Unfortunately, that
has been the trend in consumer electronics for quite a while now. . .
. Older people, people with low or no vision, a rapidly growing group,
are getting really tired of being handed just one more box which
excludes them from the mainstream. . . . It is critical that the
consumer manufacturers wake up and recognize that making radios and
other consumer products which are inclusive is not only the right
thing to do, but the path to financial success and ultimately their
survival as a company.”
Etan Horowitz can be reached at [email protected]
or 407-420-5447.
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