SK Telecom's Helper Phone hooks up the blind
By Ryan Block 
posted January 19th 2005 1:20PM
posted January 19th 2005 1:20PM
Korea's got 280,000 blind or otherwise visually handicapped people, and by god, they need cellphones too! So SK
Telekcom stepped up to the plate and served the Helper Phone. Basically a modded Samsung SGH-E580, the Helper Phone can
provide zoomed in menus, voice guidance and a voice helper mode, which can be activated simply by a long keypress of
the 5 key. Many common features can also be accessed by voice command, which is a big plus, too—maybe we'll all get
some of these so we can cut out some trivial reading from our workday day. But seriously, one wonders why they didn't
just forgo the screen entirely and just use that space to make the audio aspects of the phone 100% pro.
[Thanks, Jonah]
It's about time the cell phone industry starts thinking of visually impaired...
A (legally-)blind friend of mine, has a phone that has a display with EXTRA-LARGE CHARACTERS, if you get what I mean...
With that screen, his phone is actually quite usable for him. He can actually read the caller-id display, have a phonebook, see the time, etc, etc, etc. Previous phones he owned were almost unusuable for him, in this regard.