Tattu chats

Now I haven’t produced a mobile phone myself before, so the best course of action seemed to be to find someone who did this for a living. While large manufacturers could easily produce it, it would take a lot of time and money to get in front of them, and then there are no guarantees.

So I have been talking to Nick Davey from Tattu. Tattu are a company that design mobile phones for specific markets – either low cost handsets for the Pay As You Go youth market or handsets  designed for certain brands. They did a great phone for Disney, that not only had a physical design that incorporated the Ears motif, but also had an online parental control feature.

They have a design house in the UK and a partner one in the US, and work with production partners in China to allow production of low volumes at high quality.

It’s looking very promising – According to Nick, Blind Phone is, despite the waterproof requirement, a fairly simple device to make. The innards are quite low spec and there’s no need for a screen, and the only thing needed on top of the basic functions is BlueTooth.

It’s early days of course, but just talking to someone who can actually make it happen just makes everything a bit more real.

Insight radio interview

Gary Marshall from XL PR organised a radio interview on Insight Radio, the RNIB sponsored online and cable radio station.

It was really interesting to talk to Steven Scott, the morning presenter, to get the perspective of an eminent member of the blind and partially sighted community.

These interviews are really very encouraging, and puts the onus on me to organize a team to get the Blind Phone built. Because I’m already involved in a funded start up TagText, and so committed to making that happen, I really need to build up a group of people or organisations to make this happen.

It won!

Wow, what an evening.

I had been at the MEX conference during the day, and the breadth of people there, from all over the world, was exhilarating. It is strange to work in such a niche business, practising arcane arts that have an impact on so many people’s lives, yet there are very few places where we can sit down together and chew the fat.

Then Em turned up and we were the first ones in. It’s odd, but although I’d been working on projects that have won awards, I have never been up for one personally before. I was really nervous.

Then everyone else piled in, and things kicked off. The Blind Phone was firstly up for the Freelance section, and when it lost to Cloudaware, I started packing up my stuff. I couldn’t see how I could win the top prize if I hadn’t won my section. Anyway I was up against TapTu and MyView I was a bit dejected it must be said – especially after the interview with Reuters making the whole thing seem possible.

Then they announced it and it all went a bit blurry. There was a rambling thankyou and a lot of back patting. Marek and Mike Grenville were really lovely, and the next hour or so disappeared in a whirl of handshaking and chats.

Well. This is kind of the start.