National Federation of the Blind and Motorola to Cooperate on Making Cell Phones Accessible to the Blind

BALTIMORE, and LIBERTYVILLE, Ill., -- The National Federation of the Blind, the nation's oldest and largest organization of blind people and the leading advocate for making mainstream devices accessible to the blind, and Motorola Inc., a leading manufacturer of cell phones and other mobile communications devices, announced today that they have entered into a cooperation agreement to promote technologies that improve the accessibility of cell phones to blind consumers.

Certain future Motorola cell phones will provide verbal readouts of information such as the time and date, battery level, signal strength, user's phone number, caller ID information for incoming calls, missed and received calls, and voice mail alerts. Blind users will also be able to take advantage of verbal readouts and voice-command features for ring tone status, inputting and accessing contacts, and various other settings. Motorola expects these cell phones to be available in 2010. The parties have also agreed to work together to make additional phones and features accessible to blind users.

Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: "In an age where productivity and success increasingly depend on access to mobile technology such as cellular telephones, it is critical that blind Americans have equal access to today's cell phones through user interfaces that do not require vision. The National Federation of the Blind appreciates Motorola's commitment to making the features of its cell phone products accessible to blind users without the need for third-party software, and we look forward to working together with Motorola to make future improvements to the accessibility of telecommunication technology."