Cingular offers handset for blind
In a first for the US cellphone industry, Cingular Wireless LLC yesterday began offering a handset specially designed for blind and vision-impaired people, with software that can convert virtually everything on the phone screen -- including text messages -- to synthesized speech.
Through a partnership with ScanSoft Inc., a Peabody speech technology company, Cingular is the first carrier to directly promote a text-to-speech-enabled phone. The Nokia 6620 unit with the ''TALKS" software costs $300 with a two-year contract, based on a current promotion that gives subscribers a $199 wireless service credit when they buy the speech software, which costs $199.
''The most important thing that the Cingular phone does is it actually makes every single thing on the phone menu accessible to someone who is blind or has low vision," said Kelly M. Parisi, communications vice president of the American Foundation for the Blind. As users push buttons to scroll through the handset menu, they will hear every category -- such as ''call log" and ''profiles" -- spoken aloud, and can also hear the phone numbers of incoming and missed calls.
Parisi said the phone could also help people with other conditions, as well as people without disabilities who would like hands-free convenience.
The TALKS system is made by a German software company, Brand & Grober Communications GbR, which ScanSoft bought this week. It has been available for several months as a $395 stand-alone product that works on certain high-end Nokia phones that operate on AT&T Wireless, T-Mobile, and some other carriers.
However, the Cingular plan cuts the total cost by roughly half. Also,a small memory card inserted in the phone eliminates the need for what Foundation for the Blind researcher Darren Burton called a ''fairly difficult" process of loading the speech software on the phone from a computer.
While computer makers have introduced a range of text-to-speech systems to aid blind users since the 1990s, organizations representing the 10 million Americans who are blind or have limited vision have for years criticized wireless carriers for falling short. They point to provisions of the 1996 federal telecommunications act requiring cellphones and services to be accessible to people with limited or no vision.
Last month, Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest carrier with over 40 million subscribers, settled a lawsuit over the issue . Verizon said it will introduce a ''moderately priced" handset with features to help blind users later this year. Verizon now sells a phone that enables dialing calls by saying a name and offers spoken caller ID.
Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com.
