The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." -- Alice Walker
Begin forwarded message: From: "Richard Turner" <richardturne...@outlook.com<mailto:richardturne...@outlook.com>> Date: April 4, 2019 at 2:34:36 PM PDT To: "blindpho...@groups.io<mailto:blindpho...@groups.io>" <blindpho...@groups.io<mailto:blindpho...@groups.io>> Subject: [blindphones] A note from NFB to the KNFB Reader list regarding KNFB Reader in response to all the traffic about Voice Dream Scanner and other apps Reply-To: blindpho...@groups.io<mailto:blindpho...@groups.io> I thought it was only fair to share what the NFB sent out since the topic has been covered on several lists. Below is a message from Scott White: Subject: [Reader-users] A note from the National federation of the Blind Dear List Members, This is Scott White, Director of Sponsored Technology Programs for the National Federation of the Blind. I want to write to you today to address some of the concerns that have been expressed on the list regarding the performance of the KNFB Reader product and the responsiveness of the customer service. We regret that there is frustration around the product and wish to express the fact that we are listening even if you do not feel you are getting satisfactory information. We hope this note helps address some of the concerns and outlines some of the future steps. Those of you who attend conventions of the National Federation of the Blind are well aware that the technology behind the KNFB Reader and KNFB Reader Enterprise products are owned by the KNFB Reader LLC which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Federation of the Blind. This has been the case since 2015. The KNFB Reader LLC has no intention of selling the technology to anyone and would never do so without public disclosure to the National Federation of the Blind. The KNFB Reader LLC has a partnership agreement with Sensotec NV to develop, promote, and support the KNFB Reader line of products. This agreement has been in place since 2015 and has never changed. Since 2015, the KNFB Reader LLC has received in-kind support from the National Federation of the Blind. Were it not for that support, the product would have disappeared from the market two years ago. Despite a number of pressures, the National Federation of the Blind has insisted that the price of the KNFB Reader not be raised and has urged steep discounts in the product when opportunities arose to do so. As you are well aware, a number of new innovations have happened in the marketplace for access to information. This was stimulated by the creation of KNFB Reader, going back to the early part of the century when the National Federation of the Blind and Ray Kurzweil sought to bring scan and read technology to portable devices-first, a dedicated device and later, smart phones. The KNFB Reader LLC has attempted to continue development of the product even though there have been limited dollars for further development. In 2018, the National Federation of the Blind announced that it intended to put the core technology of the KNFB Reader into the NFB-NEWSLINE mobile application and distribute that free to all blind people. That move is a significant investment on behalf of the National Federation of the Blind since it will continue to require development and licensing of technologies to maintain the technical components inside the NFB-NEWSLINE mobile user interface. This also means that the core technology would be freely available to every blind person in the United States. While the intent has been to continue to maintain a paid version of KNFB Reader, the aggressive development of other products in the marketplace and declining sales of the KNFB Reader product have made it difficult to accelerate progress timelines with our development partner. We recognize that performance improvements are not where our customers would like them to be. We are re-evaluating our strategy and assessing what we can do to make those needed improvements. For anyone that needs KNFB Reader or KNFB Reader Enterprise tech support, they should send their concern to supp...@knfbreader.com<mailto:supp...@knfbreader.com><mailto:supp...@knfbreader.com<mailto:supp...@knfbreader.com>>. When you send your concern to that address, it is automatically entered into our ticket tracking system for resolution. We are examining our procedures to determine where support items are getting dropped. You can be assured that common feature requests or improvement suggestions are well documented in our system. The National Federation of the Blind is proud that we have been the innovators of reading technology for the blind from the start with the original Kurzweil Reading Machine in the 1970s to the mobile platforms in recent years. Our goal has not been to be a technology company. Our goal has been to stimulate the marketplace to develop solutions where inadequate innovations exist. We believe that this has been the case with the significant investments the National Federation of the Blind has made in the KNFB Reader line of products. If there continue to be gaps in the market, it is our job as an organization to determine how to lead innovation in those places and then let the market take it to a mature level of development. A more recent example of this was the National Federation of the Blind's role in the Transforming Braille Group which was established to stimulate low cost Braille display technologies. Now a number of products are emerging on the market that have the promise of revolutionizing the way refreshable Braille is delivered. We continue to need the help of members of the Federation to determine where those gaps are and how we will provide leadership in those spaces. Thank you to each of you for continuing to be passionate about creating equal access to information and to raising expectations for the technologies we use. Scott White Director of Sponsored Technology Programs 200 East Wells Street, Baltimore, MD 21230 (410) 659-9314, extension 2231 | email: swh...@nfb.org<mailto:swh...@nfb.org> -- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: mk...@ucla.edu. Your list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at caraqu...@caraquinn.com The archives for this list can be searched at: http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group. 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