A nice touch

Technology is my friend - and tormentor. I have been visually impaired all my life and blind for the past decade. Without digital recorders, screen-reading software and speaking gizmos, my world would be bleak or, dare I say, black. But while the electronics industry has kept me informed, educated, entertained, amused and employed, it also has the nasty habit of regularly frustrating the heck out of me.

This is, obviously, the opposite of what should be expected. Advances in integrated circuit technology mean that what was not possible yesterday now is - and increasingly so. Independence and a good job were once only a dream for most blind people. Computers have opened the door to all manner of possibilities.

Daily newspaper journalism is not a place a person without sight would probably be found. Adaptive technologies like braille keyboards, computer audio programmes that read out the contents of a screen and voice recorders make doing the job possible. As microchips get smaller and more powerful, what I do as a journalist and in everyday life should, presumably, get easier.

Alas, this is not necessarily the case. Laws that guarantee all people are treated equally, no matter what their circumstances, often have more meaning on paper than in reality. For the visually impaired, that is, unfortunately, to be expected: we live in a visual world. I am forever battling technological developments that have me going from being on an equal footing to playing catch-up.

This came resoundingly home at the weekend at an HSBC automated teller machine (ATM) in Tsim Sha Tsui. When I got to the front of the queue, I found an unfamiliar device. Gone were the buttons that allow me to negotiate through the screens to withdraw and transfer cash and pay bills. In their place, the woman behind me helpfully said, was 'one of those new-fangled, touch-screen machines'. Touch-screens are generally out of bounds for the visually impaired. Mobile phones have been going this way for some time and computers increasingly are. Fortunately, in the case of HSBC, their new-feel ATMs are still at the pilot phase, so I got my cash at an old-style machine nearby.

The internet and Microsoft are similarly frustrating. My PC screen-reader, Jaws, frequently encounters new features that it has not been programmed to recognise. Should another way of playing videos be chanced upon, a graphic-laden webpage encountered or an upgrade to Windows released, I have two options: to stay away from such features or wait until the latest version of Jaws is released. The drawback to the latter choice is that adaptive technology is for a minority of the population and, as a rule, does not come cheaply. Often, it requires a sighted person to help install.