Technology: Tech Talk

Nominations are being accepted for the Florida High Tech Corridor Technology Fast 50 list. Technology companies in a 21-county area of Central Florida are eligible if they had 1997 revenues of at least $50,000 and 2001 revenues of at least $1-million. Other requirements can be found, along with a form, at www.fast50.com. The deadline is May 15. For information, call Karen Palvisak at (407) 246-8225 or e-mail kpalvisak@deloitte.com. Sponsors of the annual competition include Deloitte & Touche, the Florida High Tech Corridor Council, Maddux Report, Tampa Bay Partnership, Lakeland Electric and the University of South Florida.

Video description begins on TV network programs

The major television networks recently rolled out technology that allows the blind to follow the action on television by listening to a narrator describe what is happening. The Federal Communications Commission approved rules for such video description in 2000 as part of a broad plan to make telecommunications and technology such as wireless phones more accessible to people with disabilities. Of the 54-million such people in the United States, 8-million to 12-million have severely impaired vision. The technology allows the user to turn on a secondary audio channel, on which a narrator describes the action during pauses in the dialogue. All televisions made in the United States since the early 1990s have such an audio channel.

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