CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SUCCESS STORY ON THE 20^TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ADA

By John I. Taylor, Vice President, Government Relations, LG Electronics USA

Today marks the 20^th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) being signed into law. This major civil rights legislation has created new opportunities and access to services for more than 54 million Americans with hearing, sight, speech or physical disabilities.

Technology firms have led the way. And that leadership was underscored last week when CEA member companies joined the White House, the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Department of Commerce for a 20th Anniversary ADA celebration in the Nation’s Capital.

From text-to-speech technologies and hearing-aid compatible mobile phones to relay services and digital closed captioning, companies like Motorola, Verizon Wireless, Google, Blackberry and Microsoft were among the more than 40 exhibitors at the day-long “Empowering People with Disabilities through Technology” Conference held at the Commerce Department.

For its part, my company showed a retrospective of closed caption technology, beginning with the first analog Zenith TV introduced with line-21 closed caption capability in 1991 (a year before the Decoder Circuitry Act of 1992), based on the core technology for which CEA earned a technical Emmy. Showing the evolution of technology, we demonstrated the first HDTVs introduced in 1999 with the new digital CEA-708 closed captions, as well as the first digital-to-analog converter box certified by the Commerce Department in 2008, a box that included both CEA-708 digital captions and pass-through of CEA-608 analog captions.

Most significantly, we offered an exciting look at the future – mobile broadcast digital television, showing LG’s new mobile DTV-portable DVD player and LG mobile DTV-equipped cell phone, both receiving live over-the-air broadcasts, including closed captions, using the new A/153 ATSC Mobile DTV Standard.

Long-time accessibility advocate FCC Commissioner Mike Copps remarked: “We’ve come a long, long way in 20 years (since ADA enactment). The march of technology has made a marked difference in the lives of millions of Americans. Yet there are still new opportunities ahead.” Indeed, pending legislation — the “Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009” – addresses many of those opportunities.

We applaud CEA for its strong role in working on the House bill that provides individuals with disabilities access to technology and allows innovators more flexibility than the bill as originally introduced.  As CEA President Gary Shapiro stated last week, the amended bill sets goals for accessibility; bars mandating proprietary technology; creates allowance for a small business exemption; no longer requires all manufacturers’ products to be accessible if products in the product line are accessible; creates an achievable standard for most requirements; and relies on industry input and expertise for standards.”

Among the government officials attending the ADA celebration were FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Commissioner Copps, Assistant Commerce Secretary Larry Strickling and the CTO of the United States, Dr. Aneesh Chopra. The FCC Chairman saluted technology companies for “showing how today’s communications technology transforms lives for the better, and gives people with disabilities new opportunities undreamed of two decades ago.” Here’s to the next 20 years.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 1:18 pm and is filed under Guest Bloggers, HDTV, Home Technologies, In Vehicle Electronics, Portable Electronics, Wireless Communications, video. Reply to this post, or trackback from your own site. Follow responses to this entry through the comments RSS feed.