Google opens its first UK center developing technology for disabled people

When you design technology with disabled people in mind, it makes it better for everyone. With that statement, Google opened its first research and development center in the UK dedicated to developing technology for people with disabilities. The Royal National Institute of Blind People, the Royal National Institute for Deaf People and disability charity Everyone Can worked with Google to develop the center in London. It is the company's first accessibility-focused website outside of the United States. BBC technology reporter Paul Carter said the technology being developed by Google has the potential to be of great importance to disabled people. "Technology touches so many aspects of everyday life today, but for disabled people it can literally be life-changing," he said. "There's a saying in the disability community - 'nothing about us without us' - and it's great to see one of the big tech players embrace that ethos and create a space to design products and services to work with disabled people can work together and not just for them." Google has many research teams working on things like artificial intelligence, and some of the engineers are tasked with improving accessible technologies and making them usable for the mainstream. For example, closed captioning technology, originally intended for deaf and hard of hearing television viewers, has had a positive impact on people in general and has become useful to the masses. Rachael Bleakley, who is deaf, said she struggled with lip reading as a child, but the subtitles changed everything. "Mainstream entertainment took on a new meaning for me when I was a teenager and subtitles became standard on TV shows," said the 35-year-old. “Closed captions convey not only what is being said, but also useful background noise that reinforces the plot, such as [dramatic music] to build suspense, or a [loud explosion] from the off that explains why the main character looks a little startled ", she said. Christopher Patnoe, from Google's inclusion team, said: "When people have equal access to information and opportunity, everyone wins - but we know that people's needs are constantly changing throughout their lives, or even their day. "We know we still have work to do," he said.