The Federal Communications Commission, getting ready to officially present its national broadband plan to Congress next week, is holding a conference in Washington, D.C. — live streamed with open captions — to discuss what needs to be in the plan in order to ensure equal access to high-speed Internet content for people with disabilities.

FCC chairman Julius Genachowski kicked off today’s meeting with a sober truth. “Historically, it has taken years for people with disabilities to get even close to acheiving equal access in communications,” Genachowski says.” This includes cell phones and computers — but the FCC is determined not to let such an event happen with high-speed Internet. Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, “we have a mandate to address the barriers of broadband for people with disabilities,” he adds.

Rosaline Crawford; Director of the Law and Advocacy Center, National Association of the Deaf

It’s not just web programming — it’s everything associated with broadband, including devices like cell phones, services and software. While some assistive technology exists to mitigate access issues for people with disabilities, “most assistive technology is too expensive or not operable with the latest technologies,” he says. Genachowski made a nod to insurance companies’ unwillingness to pay for gadgets like iPhones, where many specialized apps can help people with disabilities.

Genachowski did highlight some pioneers in the assistive technology field, including Apple’s iPhone — complete with screen reader and support for captions — and Windows 7 from Microsoft, which also has a basic built-in screen reader and a new text-to-speech engine. He gave props to Google’s decision last week to include voice-recognition-driven captions for all YouTube videos, and to ABC Disney’s decision to include captions in long-form programming on the web.

With a broadband plan, the FCC head is steadfast in his belief that the U.S. “can achieve the ambitious goal of delivering high-speed broadband connectivity to 90 percent of American homes by 2020.”

According to the American Association of People with Disabilities, one of the sponsors of today’s conference, the benefits of high-speed Internet for this group are far-ranging, and includes:

- Live streaming video and instant text communication, which helps people who are deaf, or hard of hearing, and those with speech disabilities reduce their dependency on the phone.

- New services that people with physical disabilities traditionally could not participate in, such as attending classes remotely, online medical consultations and applying for and securing jobs.

- Programs that read text and describe visual contents aloud in a synthetic voice or a Braille display enable people who are blind or visually impaired to search the Internet, understand videos, and communicate online.

- Video relay services, which require high speed Internet to run, allow people who are deaf to have phone conversations in their native sign language by means of an online interpreter.

Also speaking in today’s conference are members of the disability community, government officials and academics. Participants will discuss how and whether the recommendations in the plan will adequately address the accessibility and affordability barriers faced by people with disabilities.

The speaker list includes Kareem Dale, Special Assistant to President Obama for Disability Policy; Vint Cerf; VP & Chief Internet Evangelist at Google; Rosaline Crawford, Director of the Law and Advocacy Center, National Association of the Deaf; Susan Fox, Vice President of Government Relations for Disney.

WEe’ll also hear from Larry Goldberg, the Director of Media Access at WGBH; Link Hoewing, the Assistant VP of Internet and Technology Issues at Verizon; Fernando R. Laguarda; Vice President at Time Warner Cable; Laura Ruby, Director of Accessibility Policy & Standards for Trustworthy Computing at Microsoft; and Gregg Vanderheiden, Director of the Trace R&D Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Watch the FCC talk live at http://reboot.fcc.gov/live/

By Suzanne Robitaille

I recently did an interview for ABC news video. They asked me to come and talk about five new assistive technologies. I did the interview in their New York City studio, which presented somewhat of a difficult challenge as ABC News’ anchor is based in Washington, D.C. Which meant a remote feed — an earbud, which I couldn’t use in my ear because I have a cochlear implant.

Fortunately we arrived at a solution to tape the earbud as close as possible to my cochlear implant. So that’s why you can see a wire, and is also why I purposely move my head slowly when demonstrating the products. The sound technician said the next time I can buy a mono adapter for the awesome NoizFree headset that I use with my cochlear implant, which would have plugged nicely into ABC’s sound system.

In any event, the ABC News interview was excellent timing as I have recently returned from the 2010 Assistive Technology Industry Association conference. The products I chose to demo included those for a range of disabilities :

- Intel Reader, a camera and scan device that takes a high-resolution picture of a page and reads it aloud using text-to-speech technology. It is powered by Intel’s chips.

- Wacom Bamboo, a tablet, or trackpad, that offers both stylus and multi-touch for those with mobility or arthritis issues

- Livescribe Pulse Pen, a computer pen that can record the audio of lectures and sync it with your written word

- Wii modified remote for the head, for those who want to play video games but don’t have any arm mobility

Proloquo2Go – an iPhone app from AssistiveWare lets people communicate with others using text-to-speech software

- iSign, another iPhone application for learning sign language and helping the deaf communicate with hearing people

There were so many more I wanted to include but I only had five or so minutes. Check out the video to see the demonstrations.

By Suzanne Robitaille

Just in time for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards, comes an article in Huffington Post about Avatar and the lack of chatter around disability.

Despite all the excitement from people with disabilities last year at Comic Con, where director James Cameron unveiled Avatar footage for the first time, disability never emerged as a central theme in this sci-fi movie.

In Avatar, Corporal Jake Sully is a former Marine who lost the use of his legs while on duty. Sully, played by Sam Worthington, is recruited for a mission to the planet of Pandora where technology gives his mind access to a cloned body of one of the local humanoid aliens, the Na’vi.

The 3-D epic has been nominated for nine Academy awards, including Best Picture. If Cameron does win an Oscar, he should start a much needed public conversation on disabilities, writes HuffPo writer Anna Mail Bertelsen.

There has been very little chatter [about Avatar] — beyond the blogs targeting the disabled population. As a society, we have a de facto “don’t ask, don’t tell” disability policy. As children we are taught that it is impolite to look at, ask questions or acknowledge a person’s disability for fear we will hurt their feelings or make them feel uncomfortable. So, we don’t talk or look — at all. That silence and avoidance is worse than any hurt feelings or discomfort; it sidelines people with disabilities from social, economic and artistic opportunities.

I have another theory to add to Bertelsen’s — one that has been mirrored by many people in the disability community. I do not think Avatar confronts the issue of disability in a genuine way. Jake Sully is given an opportunity to leave his body at the beginning of the movie, which negates him from having to deal with his disability and the issues that arise from it.

A weak plot, coupled with fantastical 3-D graphics, were distractions. They failed to deliver the human story of a man struggling with the loss of his legs. Sully never went back home to deal with his disability, so viewers were spared what would probably have been a difficult yet remarkable life for Sully. In fact, many paraplegics gave Avatar mixed reviews.

From comic books to TV to blockbuster films, there are lots of characters with disabilities. What matters is how the medium chooses to portray their lives, to show how a disability can both humble and strengthen them. How it changes a family forever. How they overcome. Two great examples: Life Goes On, with Corky Thatcher played by Chris Burke, who had Down syndrome. And My Left Foot is an outstanding movie about a man with cerebral palsy, played by Daniel Day-Lewis.

Tonight we will see if Cameron and his crew have learned anything from Jake Sully. I don’t hold my breath, but I also don’t think Cameron ever wanted a movie about a disability to be his opus. Someone out there does, and I hope he or she surfaces soon. The disability community is waiting.

UPDATE: “Avatar” won only three trophies, all in technical categories. It won for visual effects for Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones. Art direction went to Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg and set decorator Kim Sinclair for the James Cameron blockbuster, which also won cinematography for Mauro Fiore.

By Suzanne Robitaille

At the start of every month, ReadHowYouWant, the company that translated my book into braille and audio formats, offers a free chapter download of 20 books. Since March is Women’s History Month and celebrates women authors, ReadHowYouWant is giving away a free chapter of my new book, The Illustrated Guide to Assistive Technology!

Australian-based ReadHowYouWant partners with leading publishers to make their content accessible at the time of publication. It has a small collection of 3,500 titles but they are adding 200 new titles every month. Braille and DAISY titles range in price from $4.99 to $12.99.

The free chapter download program is a joint project between ReadHowYouWant and Humanware, an assistive technology company that makes accessible digital book readers for the blind such as the VictorReader Stream. The chapters are available in digital braille (which can be read on a braille display) as well as two audio types: regular MP3 and DAISY — a format that’s designed for those with print challenges and lets readers navigate, skip and bookmark sections.

You can also read a print excerpt of my book, or check out the traditional format at Amazon.com.

In March there are other titles available as well, including five books from ReadHowYouWant’s Classics Collection: Candide by Voltaire, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain, and The Awakening by Kate Chopin.

While I don’t pretend to put myself in the esteemed company of these authors, I’m glad to see rich literature is being made accessible along with non-fiction titles like mine.

I’m watching the healthcare debate on T.V., with President Obama taking a very CEO-roundtable-like style to try to bring together a roomful of lawmakers to agree on a comprehensive $950 billion healthcare bill.

Obama sits at the head of a square conference table, flanked by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Lamar Alexander, John McCain and other Republican senators sit to Obama’s left. “We want a discussion, not talking points,” Obama says.

The GOP discussion is namely centered on reducing costs through program spending cuts and holding more doctors and hospitals accountable. The Democrats talk about expanding the system to cover all Americans, including low-income families and people with disabilities.

Also in the room is Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, who leads the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee and is an ardent supporter of people with disabilities. Harkin, a Democrat, is working to pass the Community Choice Act, which would give people with long-term disabilities the opportunity to remain in their homes and communities rather than have to go into a nursing home.

As it stands now, state Medicaid programs (designed for low-income and people with disabilities) will pay for nursing home but not in-home personal care. Currently, individuals seeking in-home care must apply through a waiver program — but there’s a long waiting line.

Ultimately, a Community Choice Act law is probably too expensive to pass given the need to appease Republican’s cries on holding down costs. The Act is estimated to cost between $2 billion to $4 billion a year. Nor was disability even mentioned in Obama’s recent State of the Union speech.

However, Harkin is working on an other bill that does have a chance, even if cloudy: The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, which was sponsored by the late Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.

The CLASS Act would create a new, nationwide disability insurance program, financed through payroll deductions, with opt-out enrollment at a cost of around $65 a month for most Americans. Democrats see this as a way for middle-class families to plan ahead for a disability or a chronic illness, like cancer.

All of the above is just gravy, really, because without overarching healthcare reform then million of Americans, including those with disabilities and pre-existing conditions like cancer, epilepsy or diabetes, may be turned away by insurance companies. And that’s a fact, not a talking point.