LightHouse For The Blind Sues DVD Rental Company Over Inaccessible Kiosks

The San Francisco, California-based LightHouse For the Blind is seeing red over video rental giant Redbox’s self-service kiosks, claiming that they’re inaccessible to the blind or visually impaired.

The group recently filed a class-action discrimination lawsuit against the company on behalf of Californians with vision loss in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. It is the first of its kind nationwide.

Recent technological innovations have changed the way consumers purchase produces and services. Self-service kiosks with touch-screen interfaces now enable customers to perform a broad spectrum of transactions independently, and they are able to be adapted for use by those with visual impairment through tactile controls and other assistive devices.

The suit argues that Redbox failed to adapt its kiosks to be accessible to customers with vision loss, thereby violating federal law that forbids discrimination against Americans with disabilities.

The company each month rents 60 million videos through self-service kiosks located in thousands of businesses throughout California, making up over one-third of the DVD rental market nationwide.

LightHouse contends that Redbox’s refusal to make their kiosks accessible to the estimated 100,000 legal blind Californians shuts out a large and growing segment of the population.

“A lack of accessibility in newly emerging forms of commerce is a symptom of the overall growing technological divide that blind people experience when companies fail to build in accessible features at the onset,” said LightHouse Executive Director and CEO Bryan Bashin.

In addition to LightHouse, plaintiffs also include five blind Californians.

“I’m not asking for the world here but simply for the ability to rent DVDs from Redboxes just like everyone else can,” said plaintiff Joshua Saunders of Union City, California.

Added plaintiff Lisamaria Martinez: ”I love watching movies with my husband and son and would like to independently rent movies for my family at Redboxes.”

Jay Koslofsky, who filed the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs characterized technology as a “double-edged sword” capable of enabling and disabling millions if not made equally accessible to all segments of society.

The Berkeley, California-based Disability Rights Advocates (DRA), a non-profit disability rights legal center, is also helping represent the plaintiffs.

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New Zealand Woman Vying To Be World’s First Blind Certified Pilates Instructor

The practice of pilates proved a life-changer for 27-year-old Renee Clark, a legally blind woman based in Thames, New Zealand.

She sought out classes at the age of 20 to rebuild her body. “I had bad posture from hunching over trying to read and I thought I would give it a go,” she told the Fairfax New Zealand News recently.

But after her instructor left town, she felt compelled to step up and learn how to teach pilates herself. “The rest is history,really” she said to her local newspaper.
However, to become a full-fledged official instructor, she must travel to Toronto, Canada to sit her final exam. To achieve this goal, she’s soliciting contributions to enable her to afford to take the flight and she would become the world’s first visually impaired certified pilates instructor.

Her plan to get certified is just one of several dreams she’s achieved. She’s already a certified personal trainer and holistic lifestyle coach. “I have always had the attitude that if you want to do something, then just go and do it,” she contends.
Clark, who was born visually impaired to parents who carried recessive genes, and her guide-dog Fern can be seen daily in the streets of Thames on the way to work.

Her practice has gained popularity with up to 20 clients ranging from 19 to 76 years old. With a little peripheral sight at her disposal, she must rely on touch to make sure her students’ technique is correct. It makes her more in-tune with the body, they say.

Dianne Carter, one of three teachers Clark has had over the years, says she tends to see “very clearly” through her touch assessments.

“We are all very proud of her, she has shown incredible commitment and because of that we are all equally keen to do our best for her in return,” Carter told the Fairfax New Zealand News.

That her parents carried the recessive genes that caused her visual impairment is rare. As a result, she’s got an older sister who has perfect vision and another born visually impaired. But Clark has by far the worst eyesight of them all.
Because she’s nearly blind, Clark faces challenges that her sighted colleagues don’t. She must translate the certification materials — eleven pilates manuals — into Braille and back again.

She’s currently raising the $4,000 needed to get to Canada. She taking another New Zealand-based instructor along with her instead of her dog for logistical reasons. She’s worried the trek would be “too daunting” for Fern.

Once Clark has passed her final exam, she hopes to eventually go into training pilates instructors.

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A Sardine A Day May Keep Blindness Away: Vitamin D Found To Improve Vision In Mice

More sunshine a day may keep vision loss away, U.K. researchers have found. But a sardine, which is rich in vitamin D or two a day may be helpful as well.

Increasing periodic intake of the vitamin seems to stem declining eyesight in older age, the U.K.’s Independent recently reported. In a trial of middle-aged mice, scientists from University College at London found that giving vitamin D over a period of six weeks could enhance vision. In addition to improving eyesight, increasing vitamin levels also cut amyloid beta, which is associated with Alzheimer’s disease and the onset of old age.

By the time people reach 70 years old, normal aging can cut the number of light receptive cells in the retina by almost one-third. Along with age-related cell inflammation, this can lead to macular degeneration, the top cause of blindness among people older than 50 years in developed countries.

One group of 1-year-old middle-aged female mice (one mouse year = 50 human years) was injected with safflower oil infused by vitamin D, while another received vitamin-free safflower oil. After six weeks, electrical responses within the retinal cells improved substantially in the eyes of the mice who were injected with the vitamin because of key biological and molecular changes, the scientists concluded.

Cells that can cause inflammation but are important to the immune system were reduced, but the remaining ones operated in beneficial as opposed to destructive ways. Amyloid beta deposits, which are considered to contribute to both age-related macular degeneration (AMD) as well as Alzheimer’s, were reduced as well. So, the findings should give hope to those at risk for or in the early stages of AMD as well as the aging population as a whole.

“Taking vitamin D supplements in the early stages of AMD may prove a very simple and effective route to limit disease progression,” the researchers wrote, in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, according to the U.K.’s Independent newspaper.

They added that the vitamin “may have a wider role to play in health and problems associated with aging than in AMD alone.”

The scientists hope to take their research to the next level with human subjects. So be sure to take a walk in the sun sometimes or take vitamin D periodically to keep your peepers in good shape as you age.

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