For a while now, I’ve been supporting the British Wireless for the Blind Fund; so it was a nice surprise to be invited to the launch of a new ‘product’ of theirs yesterday in Maidstone.

The point of the British Wireless for the Blind Fund is that it provides radio sets to registered visually-impaired people in the UK. They’re supplied free of charge to those with a means-tested benefit; or are available to purchase by people who don’t qualify for a free set. As someone who’s been involved with radio for over twenty years, it’s always a pleasure to hear from people who are blind, and for whom radio gives them their best contact.

This set is rather fine. It contains radio stations (local and international); podcasts; audio books, talking newspapers and even audio catalogues from bright retailers like M&S and Argos. (I had no idea such things existed). And the clever bit – you can control it completely using the ‘OK’ button and listening to the prompts (though there are a few more to speed the process up a little). The video above with John Mills, the Technology Manager of the Fund, shows the unit in operation – and you’ll note that it’s simpler than anything you’ll have seen before.

This obviously replaces spoken-word cassettes (which are still used for distribution of talking newspapers), as well as opening up a much larger amount of audio for listeners. In case you wondered, the pre-programmed list of stations can be set on the listeners’ behalf (and changed just by picking up the phone and asking nicely). It can also be set to receive audio messages from others – perhaps if you’re part of a group.

For the more technical: currently, the radio station list is programmed by the Dutch company behind the unit. It would help, immeasurably, if broadcasters produced XML files with details of the radio stations: particularly, XML files with information on how to pronounce the names of the radio stations. (“WINS 1010″ could be pronounced “double-yew eye enn ess one oh one oh” otherwise, which would be entirely wrong – the correct pronunciation is “Winns ten-ten”.) Hopefully the IMDA can assist. And, secondly, this unit would be also good if it recognised when stations were also available on local broadcast platforms rather than the internet, and thus switch to conserve bandwidth for the user and the broadcaster accordingly. The technology behind that, naturally, is already being worked on separately).

It’s a very impressive unit: for a very deserving part of the population. If you’d like one, it’s available for purchase, but if you like the idea of making this available, free of charge, to those it would really benefit, it would be great if you, like me, could donate to the British Wireless for the Blind fund. You can do so via PayPal – and your money’s worth more if you are a UK taxpayer.

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Here’s a transcript of the video, because it’s a good idea; and I’ve just added subtitles to the video as well (for similar reasons).

Interviewer: I’m with John Mills, who’s the Technology Manager for the British Wireless for the Blind Fund. What is this piece of technology?

John: This is British Wireless for the Blind Fund’s latest rendition of radio: It’s called a Sonata. It’s actually an internet radio. It’s capable of accessing any radio station anywhere on the planet but it’s very unique because it will also access other forms of audio such as audio books, audio catalogues local and national talking newspapers, that kind of thing.

Interviewer: And it’s specifically built for people with poor vision, isn’t it?

John: This was originally designed in Holland for people who were homeridden stuck at home and weren’t able to get to church, and it progressed from there. It’s now being completely redone for people who are visually impaired to make it as easy as possible to access the programming or the news about their local area that they need.

Interviewer: It’s wired up to the internet now, so shall we try tuning in to Radio 2 on it and see if we can get the delightful tones of Chris Evans?

John: #laughter Well, let’s see if we can get there!

John: It’s as simple as this – we switch on… and it connects to the server in Holland. You will then hear a voice

Radio: “Welcome to the Wireless Fund Internet Audio Service. Press the OK button when you hear the subject of your choice”

John: Now it reads out a list

Radio: “Radio Stations and Podcasts”

John: …which we go into

Radio: “You have chosen: Radio Stations and Podcasts.”
“You can choose from the following.”
“Radio Stations”
#click

John: Now we’ll hear an electronic voice…

“This list contains 9 items.”
“BBC Radio Kent.”
“CNN Radio (News)”
“FOX News Talk (News)”
“BBC Radio 1″
“BBC Radio 2″
#click

John: And it’s now going to buffer for some seconds… …and that’s done.

#music plays

…and it really is that simple.

Interviewer: That’s really nice: John, thank you very much.

John: You’re more than welcome: hope you’ve enjoyed it!

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