(NARRATOR) Javier Romañach, Human Rights activist in Spain.
Guillermo Fesser, journalist. Gomaespuma.
(GUILLERMO) Have you heard of the cyborg, the legendary character?
(JAVIER) Yes, Neil Harbisson.
He's not a legend, he's a guy who appears everywhere
claiming that he's the first cyborg in history.
(GUILLERMO) What exactly is a cyborg? Is it a compendium of...?
(JAVIER) A cyborg is a mixture between human and machine.
What the guy did, since he was color-blind,
was to implant a camera with a chip transmitting sounds conveying colors.
(GUILLERMO) When he had an excuse to run traffic lights.
For example, you, who are mechanized, are you a cyborg?
(JAVIER) I discovered it when I heard him speak.
If it's about having cybernetics like my wheelchair,
which has a lot of sophisticated hardware‍,
and the human side, which is me, I am the human in the chair‍,
I've been a cyborg for 20 years.
(GUILLERMO) There are many cyborgs down the street.
But this guy, as he has appeared on the news, seems like Superman.
And then there are people like you,
or a neighbor, or some man with other devices,
a cane and such, who don't...
(JAVIER) Being a cyborg is different from needing a wheelchair,
I don't know if I explained it right.
(GUILLERMO) It's the same, but it's understood differently.
(JAVIER) If I said: "I'm a cyborg"
and went demanding the rights of the cyborgs
to enter some buildings, there would be technologists
defending my rights.
Since I'm just a poor guy
who goes around in a wheelchair, I'm screwed.
When you start to describe yourself in another way,
going from, for example, cyborg to disabled,
it's a whole other world, and that requires technology.
Well, functional diversity somehow affects disability.
That is, it's a person who functions in a different way
and needs cyborgs or gadgets to function,
or a person who can't do things.
If you are telling people that they can't do things,
that vision is: "You can't do them."
And when you can't do everything,
everything you're given is like a favor.
For example, the blind,
because seeing the screen and being blind aren't compatible.
(GUILLERMO) It's bad for them.
(JAVIER) There's a system to listen to the screen,
like the cyborg that hears what he sees through the camera,
you can listen to the screen.
What's the issue? It's considered an assistive device
instead of a cyborg.
(GUILLERMO) So a portion of society has had disastrous marketing.
(JAVIER) I'd never seen it that way. Yes, indeed, yes.
(GUILLERMO) It's very bad. It's being seen as charity,
perceiving: "Oh, poor people...,"
instead of approaching it as a question of human rights.
"Hey, excuse me, I also want to get on the bus."
(JAVIER) That's right.
You buy an IPad or "iPlof" or whatever,
and with all that you've bought a gadget,
but if you need a screen reader, it's no longer a gadget;
it's an assistive device.
(GUILLERMO) Very bad marketing.
For honest and decent people, and for the "poor people".
(JAVIER) The UNED is working hard to try to explain to people
that these assistive devices,
especially for students, generate new gadgets.
(GUILLERMO) That a man in a wheelchair can climb a mountain.
A blind man might also like to listen to music,
not just to sell lottery tickets, he might want to be an attorney...
Various inventions, we're talking about gadgets here.
(JAVIER) It's crystal clear. What happens is that we're talking
about the difference between an assistive device
and a gadget.
An assistive device
becomes a gadget and cool when it reaches the general public.
As long as you invented it for a deaf or a blind person...
Then it's an assistive device, which is a niche thing.
But the truth is that a vast majority of these assistive devices
end up becoming inventions that all of society uses,
then, they are cool, they are gadgets, they're great.
The most paradigmatic example is that of Alexander Graham Bell,
who invented the telephone because his mother was deaf
and lived in a deaf community.
He wanted the deaf to hear, so he tried to create
a system of sound amplification and remote transmission.
And so, there are a lot of inventions like that.
Maybe you knew that the typewriter was invented
for a blind person, for an Italian countess.
(GUILLERMO) That must've been Mrs. Olivetti, of course.
(JAVIER) You probably have a GPS, maybe in your car...
(GUILLERMO) Me? I have two or three GPS.
Can't you tell that I buy every GPS that I see?
(JAVIER) It tells you: "Turn right in 200 meters."
That voice synthesis began to develop many years ago
so that the blind could have access to information.
And the same technology is used in what is called a "screen reader."
(GUILLERMO) But how did they carry that?
(JAVIER) The device is a piece of hardware.
So, it was used for elevators...
(GUILLERMO) "Arriving at the fifth floor."
(JAVIER) Exactly, to be able to access information that...
(GUILLERMO) "José Luis, you're going to run into the column."
(JAVIER) "In 200 meters, avoid the column."
And then, that technology, which was speech synthesis,
you take it out and you turn it into something that everyone uses.
It turns out that we discovered that we humans
have to do many things at once, and we can no longer look.
To drive you must keep your eyes on the road.
If you look at the GPS, you'll crash, right?
So, there's predictive text now on mobile phones,
which completes the words.
That was created from another gadget they call an "assistive device."
There are people who use only a button,
as they can't handle more things.
For example, an arm or a foot, they can only do like this.
Then what you do is go across a keyboard;
that is, "the A," well, then going: "A, B, C, D..."
(GUILLERMO) And that takes a long time.
(JAVIER) Yes. So, to speed it up,
a technology was invented many years ago
called "predictive text,"
to speed up the process by hitting just one option.
(GUILLERMO) It's 8 in the morning and you type "C,"
and it puts "Coffee," right?
(JAVIER) Exactly.
(GUILLERMO) And if it's 8 at night, "Cocktail," right?
(LAUGHTER)
I'm going to tell you a story about the remote control.
I'm going to tell you now, very quickly.
The remote control was invented,
and José Manuel La Peña's father bought a television with one.
He was a very classic, conservative, elegant and simple man,
but very fussy about his things.
He turned the TV on and placed the remote on top of the set.
He sat in his armchair,
and when he had to change the channel,
he went over to the television, grabbed the remote, and changed it.
So, his son says to him: "Dad, it's a remote control..."
"No, the remote control stays here. Don't touch it."
So the remote control remained on the television,
He had to move like everyone else, but he was happy.
(JAVIER) Others mustn't have been like that.
In fact, you wouldn't be able to watch TV without a remote control.
You wouldn't be able to have a GPS without speech synthesis,
nor would operate a computer if it didn't have a keyboard.
All the efforts devoted to the extremes of human diversity,
to the extremes of humans' functional diversity,
end up benefitting everyone.
(GUILLERMO) And I have this question, from a personal concern:
the assistive devices, the gadgets to be a cyborg when you're older,
how does it work?
Does one go to the pharmacy with a prescription,
or do they sell it at department stores?
(JAVIER) There's different types
depending on whether they're gadgets or assistive devices.
Some come directly: if you buy an iPad, it already speaks to you.
Mobile phones already talk to you, many of them, right?
Gadgets are already built in.
What was once only for the blind, now we've discovered
that it's very good for us, to tell us who's calling us,
so we can avoid picking up the phone.
(GUILLERMO) What they call "accessibility elements?"
For people who want a ramp instead of stairs,
if you can't see the screen, they give you a voice...
(JAVIER) That's right.
When the product is widespread, when it has reached many people,
then it's included.
All these operating systems come with things that you can add.
(GUILLERMO) That's because those who had to push for them did so.
(JAVIER) American legislation forced them to do it.
"Otherwise, I, the federal government,
won't buy from you.
And since I'm the best customer you have...."
(GUILLERMO) That's one thing...
(JAVIER) There are other products, and they are expensive,
like a speech synthesis system that reads the entire computer screen
with all the windows, with all the internet,
with everything...
(GUILLERMO) For example, if you're blind and to look for an apartment.
(JAVIER) While they're "assistive devices,"
they're expensive.
Then they become cheaper, as they realize:
"It's not an assistive device, it's a gadget."
Then it becomes a gadget, and the technology spreads.
Then it's no longer expensive and is included.
The only thing you have to do is to have an open mind.
And as long as people continue to have the "disabled version"
that we give them, a little product to use and not like...
"What a gadget we're going to get, one that's good for all of us."
(GUILLERMO) Pure marketing, pure marketing.
And what's needed is a good advertising agency.
(JAVIER) That's right.
(GUILLERMO) A good one with well-prepared people.
(JAVIER) Back to the subject at hand. I already have all the gadgets.
We've given the blind man the gadgets, he can use a computer.
Then we go to buy a plane ticket,
the company has made an inaccessible web page.
So the gadget becomes a problem,
because things are not in the order they should go,
Customer Service says that there's no way to access "Buy,"
or no way to access the window where the flight is indicated.
Well, in the end we made a mess of things.
(GUILLERMO) So...
The support elements are the ramp,
but if the place doesn't have a door...
(JAVIER) That's right.
(GUILLERMO) How is accessibility on webpages going?
Do people make accessible websites, or is that very rare?
You have your reader there...
(JAVIER) I spent ten years trying to make websites accessible,
I think now about 0.01% of websites are accessible...
(GUILLERMO) And good ones? At least good ones? Or, not even...
(JAVIER) A bit of everything. The strangest thing about all this...
(GUILLERMO) The Interviú one, right?
(JAVIER) Oh my God, I didn't think of that.
Curiously, there was a law in 2002
that required all pages to be accessible, but that didn't happen.
Half are public, by the way.
In 2002, all public administrations were required
to make webpages accessible.
(GUILLERMO) 2002 was a terrible year. They also chose a year that...
(JAVIER) Since it didn't go well, they put it off until 2006,
then until 2011.
Then we have a law... We have a lot of laws
but not accessible webpages.
(GUILLERMO) So, all the young people thinking about designing a webpage
have to think that it must be designed to be accessible.
(JAVIER) Yes, but...
(GUILLERMO) In order for the gadgets to be worth something
and, above all, so that we benefit from...
(JAVIER) Yes, but once you have gadgets that work,
that force the webpages to be user-friendly,
what you get is a better webpage.
Do you know what happens when we talk about all these gadgets,
all this gadgetry, Superman and cyborgs, etc.?
In the end, everyone believes that, with gadgets, we can fix everything.
(GUILLERMO) Right.
(JAVIER) These gadgets are great, and necessary, but not enough.
I'm gonna give you a very clear example.
I have all the computers adapted, with mice just for me,
voice recognition, and I've inverted the contrast
because it's better, at my age...
But, of course, there's the little problem of:
"I'm going to connect a pen drive," right?
Then I can't pick up the pen drive because I don't have the dexterity,
I don't have the strength to put it in or to take it out.
There comes a time when you say:
"Until I have an automatic pen connector gadget,
what you always need is a support person,
what we call a personal assistant."
(GUILLERMO) You may have an eyebrow chip that programs your microwave,
but you have to put the chicken in... (JAVIER) It's that simple.