Re: Assistive technology research and development
JM Casey
I just came to this thread now because I’m one of the idiots who reads the messages in his inbox backwards, but that was a pretty interesting post. I understand the anger but the “log of misbegotten technologies” has gotten me pretty interested. Is this thing available for public browsing? Lol The world is full of such things, and not just for blind folks – always interesting to see the roads not (generally) taken.
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of erik burggraaf
Sent: April 4, 2019 10:08 AM To: nvda@nvda.groups.io Subject: Re: [nvda] Assistive technology research and development
Foundation fighting blindness is doing essentially that. Fighting blindness. They have no interest in improving quality of life for blind people and they make me seriously angry. They do good research in vision health and they make money exploiting blind people doing so. A win win for them. NFB ocasionally funds a project. AFB, CNIB and other agencies sometimes fund things, but primarily with an eye towards direct sales for recovering investment. Some of the most interesting stuff on the market right now such as sunu, dotwatch and brailleme don't say where their funding came from, but I suspect the sources are as diverse as the companies and products. The nfb keeps a log of misbegotten technologies built to help the blind. White canes that deliver electric shock, wayfinding devices that clap loudly so blind people can walk towards a sound. That sort of nonsense. So much of the stuff that gets built to help us gets nearly to production before any one asks whether it would be useful to the blind. A world wide funding agency for blindness technology research could be either a godsend if it is run by the blind and keeps out the sensation mongers, or an atrocity if it uses fear of blindness to raise money and throws dollars at every shambling frankenstein cooked up in the basement of every dgooder who wants to help the blind but doesn't really want anything to do with blindness or blind people. Best, Erik On April 3, 2019 8:54:44 PM "Jeffrey McFarland" <jmcfarland86@...> wrote:
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