When I was about three or four years old, I remember my mum reading a story to me and my two big brothers, and I remember putting up my hands to feel the page of the book, to feel the picture they were discussing.
Kada sam imao oko tri, četiri godine, sećam se da je mama čitala jednu priču meni i dvojici moje starije braće, i sećam se kako sam podizao ruke da osetim stranicu knjige, da osetim sliku koju su opisivali.
And my mum said, "Darling, remember that you can't see and you can't feel the picture and you can't feel the print on the page."
I mama mi je rekla: "Dušo, znaš da ne možeš da vidiš i ne možeš da osetiš sliku i ne možeš da osetiš odštampanu stranicu."
And I thought to myself, "But that's what I want to do. I love stories. I want to read." Little did I know that I would be part of a technological revolution that would make that dream come true.
I pomislio sam: "Ali, to je ono što želim. Volim priče. Želim da čitam." Nisam ni slutio da ću postati deo tehnološke revolucije koja će omogućiti da se taj san ostvari.
I was born premature by about 10 weeks, which resulted in my blindness, some 64 years ago. The condition is known as retrolental fibroplasia, and it's now very rare in the developed world. Little did I know, lying curled up in my prim baby humidicrib in 1948 that I'd been born at the right place and the right time, that I was in a country where I could participate in the technological revolution.
Rođen sam oko 10 nedelja pre vremena, što je rezultiralo slepilom, pre neke 64 godine. Ta bolest je poznata kao retrolentalna fibroplazija i sada je veoma retka u razvijenom svetu. Nisam ni slutio, ležeći sklupčan u inkubatoru 1948. da sam rođen na pravom mestu i u pravo vreme, da sam rođen u zemlji gde mogu učestvovati u tehnološkoj revoluciji.
There are 37 million totally blind people on our planet, but those of us who've shared in the technological changes mainly come from North America, Europe, Japan and other developed parts of the world. Computers have changed the lives of us all in this room and around the world, but I think they've changed the lives of we blind people more than any other group. And so I want to tell you about the interaction between computer-based adaptive technology and the many volunteers who helped me over the years to become the person I am today. It's an interaction between volunteers, passionate inventors and technology, and it's a story that many other blind people could tell. But let me tell you a bit about it today.
Na svetu ima 37 miliona potpuno slepih osoba, ali mi, koji sudelujemo u tehnološkim promenama, dolazimo uglavnom iz Severne Amerike, Evrope, Japana i drugih razvijenih delova sveta. Računari su promenili živote svih nas u ovoj prostoriji i živote ljudi širom sveta, ali ja mislim da su promenili živote nas slepih, više nego bilo koje druge grupe. I zato želim da vam pričam o interakciji između adaptivne računarske tehnologije i puno volontera koji su mi godinama pomagali da postanem osoba kakva jesam danas. To je interakcija između volontera, strastvenih inovatora i tehnologije, i to je priča koju bi mnogi drugi slepi ljudi mogli da ispričaju. Ali, hajde da vam ja danas ispričam malo.
When I was five, I went to school and I learned braille. It's an ingenious system of six dots that are punched into paper, and I can feel them with my fingers. In fact, I think they're putting up my grade six report. I don't know where Julian Morrow got that from. (Laughter) I was pretty good in reading, but religion and musical appreciation needed more work. (Laughter)
Kad sam imao pet godina, išao sam u školu i učio Brajevu azbuku. To je genijalan sistem od šest tačaka koje se utiskuju u papir i mogu da ih osetim prstima. Ustvari, mislim da prikazuju moje ocene iz šestog razreda. Ne znam gde je Džulijan Morou nabavio to. (Smeh) Bio sam prilično dobar u čitanju, ali trebalo je poraditi na veronauci i muzičkom. (Smeh)
When you leave the opera house, you'll find there's braille signage in the lifts. Look for it. Have you noticed it? I do. I look for it all the time.
Kad budete izlazili iz operske dvorane videćete Brajeve oznake u liftovima. Obratite pažnju. Jeste li primetili? Ja jesam. Stalno ih tražim.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
When I was at school, the books were transcribed by transcribers, voluntary people who punched one dot at a time so I'd have volumes to read, and that had been going on, mainly by women, since the late 19th century in this country, but it was the only way I could read. When I was in high school, I got my first Philips reel-to-reel tape recorder, and tape recorders became my sort of pre-computer medium of learning. I could have family and friends read me material, and I could then read it back as many times as I needed. And it brought me into contact with volunteers and helpers. For example, when I studied at graduate school at Queen's University in Canada, the prisoners at the Collins Bay jail agreed to help me. I gave them a tape recorder, and they read into it. As one of them said to me, "Ron, we ain't going anywhere at the moment."
Kad sam išao u školu knjige su transkribovali prepisivači, volonteri, koji su utiskivali jednu po jednu tačku, tako da sam imao puno da čitam, i to se tako radilo, pre svega žene, od kraja devetnaestog veka u ovoj zemlji, ali to je bio jedini način da čitam. Kad sam bio u srednjoj školi dobio sam prvi Filips magnetofon, i magnetofoni su postali moja vrsta pre-računara, sredstvo za učenje. Porodica i prijatelji su mogli da mi čitaju materijal i ja sam onda mogao da čitam iznova koliko god puta je bilo potrebno. I to me je povezalo sa volonterima i pomagačima. Na primer, kad sam studirao na fakultetu na Kraljičinom univerzitetu u Kanadi, zatvorenici u Kolins Bej zatvoru su pristali da mi pomognu. Dao sam im magnetofon i oni su čitali i snimali na njega. Kako mi je jedan od njih rekao, "Ron, trenutno ne idemo nigde."
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
But think of it. These men, who hadn't had the educational opportunities I'd had, helped me gain post-graduate qualifications in law by their dedicated help.
Ali, razmislite o tome. Ti ljudi koji nisu imali mogućnosti za obrazovanje koje sam ja imao, pomogli su mi da završim postdiplomske studije na pravima, svojim nesebičnim pomaganjem.
Well, I went back and became an academic at Melbourne's Monash University, and for those 25 years, tape recorders were everything to me. In fact, in my office in 1990, I had 18 miles of tape. Students, family and friends all read me material. Mrs. Lois Doery, whom I later came to call my surrogate mum, read me many thousands of hours onto tape. One of the reasons I agreed to give this talk today was that I was hoping that Lois would be here so I could introduce you to her and publicly thank her. But sadly, her health hasn't permitted her to come today. But I thank you here, Lois, from this platform.
Vratio sam se i postao akademik na Univerzitetu Monaš u Melburnu, i za tih 25 godina, magnetofoni su mi bili sve. Ustvari, 1990. sam u kancelariji imao skoro 27km trake. Studenti, porodica i prijatelji, svi su mi čitali materijale. Gospođa Lois Doeri, koju ću kasnije zvati mojom surogat majkom, iščitala je hiljade sati na traci. Jedan od razloga zašto sam se složio da održim ovaj govor danas jeste što sam se nadao da će Lois biti ovde kako bih je predstavio i javno joj se zahvalio. Ali, nažalost, zdravstveno stanje ju je sprečilo da dođe danas. Ali, zahvaljujem ti se ovde, Lois, sa ove bine.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
I saw my first Apple computer in 1984, and I thought to myself, "This thing's got a glass screen, not much use to me." How very wrong I was. In 1987, in the month our eldest son Gerard was born, I got my first blind computer, and it's actually here. See it up there? And you see it has no, what do you call it, no screen. (Laughter) It's a blind computer. (Laughter) It's a Keynote Gold 84k, and the 84k stands for it had 84 kilobytes of memory. (Laughter) Don't laugh, it cost me 4,000 dollars at the time. (Laughter) I think there's more memory in my watch.
Prvi Epl računar sam video 1984. i pomislio sam: "Ova stvar ima stakleni ekran, i nije mi baš od pomoći." Koliko sam samo pogrešio. 1987., u mesecu kada je rođen naš najstariji sin, Džerard, dobio sam prvi računar za slepe, i on je zapravo ovde. Da li ga vidite? I vidite da nema, kako vi to zovete, nema monitor. (Smeh) To je slepi računar. (Smeh) To je Kinout Gold 84k, i 84k označava 84 kilobajta memorije. (Smeh) Nemojte da se smejete, koštao me je 4 000 dolara u to vreme. (Smeh) Mislim da moj sat ima više memorije.
It was invented by Russell Smith, a passionate inventor in New Zealand who was trying to help blind people. Sadly, he died in a light plane crash in 2005, but his memory lives on in my heart. It meant, for the first time, I could read back what I had typed into it. It had a speech synthesizer. I'd written my first coauthored labor law book on a typewriter in 1979 purely from memory. This now allowed me to read back what I'd written and to enter the computer world, even with its 84k of memory.
Napravio ga je Rasel Smit, strastveni izumitelj sa Novog Zelanda, koji je pokušavao da pomogne slepima. Nažalost, poginuo je u avionskoj nesreći 2005., ali sećanje na njega živi u mom srcu. To je značilo, po prvi put, da mogu ponovo da čitam ono što sam otkucao. Imao je sintetizator govora. Moju prvu koautorsku knjigu iz radnog prava sam 1979. iskucao, prosto po sećanju. Ovo mi je sad omogućilo da ponovo čitam to što sam napisao i da uđem u svet računara, iako ima samo 84KB memorije.
In 1974, the great Ray Kurzweil, the American inventor, worked on building a machine that would scan books and read them out in synthetic speech. Optical character recognition units then only operated usually on one font, but by using charge-coupled device flatbed scanners and speech synthesizers, he developed a machine that could read any font. And his machine, which was as big as a washing machine, was launched on the 13th of January, 1976. I saw my first commercially available Kurzweil in March 1989, and it blew me away, and in September 1989, the month that my associate professorship at Monash University was announced, the law school got one, and I could use it. For the first time, I could read what I wanted to read by putting a book on the scanner. I didn't have to be nice to people!
1974, veliki Rej Kurcvil, američki izumitelj, radio je na pravljenju mašine koja bi skenirala knjige i prevodila ih u sintetički govor. Optički programi za prepoznavanje znakova su tada uglavnom obrađivali jedan font, ali uz upotrebu CCD skenera i sintetizator govora, razvio je mašinu koja može da pročita bilo koji font. I njegova mašina, koja je bila velika kao mašina za veš, pojavila se 13. januara 1976. godine. Svoj prvi komercijalno dostupan Kurcvil video sam u martu 1989. i oduševio me je, i u septembru 1989, mesecu kada je najavljena moja docentura na Univerzitetu Monaš, pravni fakultet je dobio jednu i mogao sam da je koristim. Po prvi put sam mogao da čitam ono što želim stavljajući knjigu na skener. Nisam morao da budem fin prema ljudima!
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
I no longer would be censored. For example, I was too shy then, and I'm actually too shy now, to ask anybody to read me out loud sexually explicit material. (Laughter) But, you know, I could pop a book on in the middle of the night, and -- (Laughter) (Applause)
Nisam više bio cenzurisan. Na primer, tada sam bio previše stidljiv, zapravo sam i sada previše stidljiv da pitam bilo koga da mi naglas pročita seksualno eksplicitan sadržaj. (Smeh) Ali, znate, mogu da prebacim knjigu na njega u sred noći i - (Smeh) (Aplauz)
Now, the Kurzweil reader is simply a program on my laptop. That's what it's shrunk to. And now I can scan the latest novel and not wait to get it into talking book libraries. I can keep up with my friends.
Danas, Kurcvil čitač je prosto program na mom laptopu. Eto toliko se smanjio. I sada mogu da skeniram najnoviji roman i ne moram da čekam da se pojavi u bibliotekama audio knjiga Mogu da održim korak sa prijateljima.
There are many people who have helped me in my life, and many that I haven't met. One is another American inventor Ted Henter. Ted was a motorcycle racer, but in 1978 he had a car accident and lost his sight, which is devastating if you're trying to ride motorbikes. He then turned to being a waterskier and was a champion disabled waterskier. But in 1989, he teamed up with Bill Joyce to develop a program that would read out what was on the computer screen from the Net or from what was on the computer. It's called JAWS, Job Access With Speech, and it sounds like this.
Postoji mnogo ljudi koji su mi pomogli u životu i mnogo njih koje nisam ni upoznao. Među njima je još jedan američki pronalazač, Ted Henter. Ted je bio moto-trkač, ali je 1978. doživeo saobraćajnu nesreću i izgubio vid, što je poražavajuće ako pokušavate da vozite motor. Onda je postao skijaš na vodi i bio je najbolji skijaš sa invaliditetom. Ali 1989. se udružio sa Bilom Džojsom kako bi razvili program koji bi iščitavao ono što je na kompjuterskom monitoru sa interneta ili iz računara. Zove se JAWS, "Job Access With Speech", i ovako zvuči.
(JAWS speaking)
(JAWS govori)
Ron McCallum: Isn't that slow?
Ron Mek Kelum: Zar to nije sporo?
(Laughter) You see, if I read like that, I'd fall asleep. I slowed it down for you. I'm going to ask that we play it at the speed I read it. Can we play that one?
(Smeh) Vidite, da ja tako čitam, zaspao bih. Usporio sam ga zbog vas. Zamoliću da pustimo brzinom kojom ja čitam. Da li možemo da čujemo to?
(JAWS speaking)
(JAWS govori)
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
RM: You know, when you're marking student essays, you want to get through them fairly quickly.
Znate, kad ocenjujete radove studenata, želite da prilično brzo pređete sve.
(Laughter) (Applause)
(Smeh) (Aplauz)
This technology that fascinated me in 1987 is now on my iPhone and on yours as well. But, you know, I find reading with machines a very lonely process. I grew up with family, friends, reading to me, and I loved the warmth and the breath and the closeness of people reading. Do you love being read to? And one of my most enduring memories is in 1999, Mary reading to me and the children down near Manly Beach "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone." Isn't that a great book? I still love being close to someone reading to me. But I wouldn't give up the technology, because it's allowed me to lead a great life.
Ova tehnologija, koja me je fascinirala 1987., sada je na mom Ajfonu, kao i na vašim. Ali, znate, mislim da je čitanje pomoću mašina veoma samotan proces. Rastao sam tako što su mi čitali porodica, prijatelji, i voleo sam toplinu i dah i bliskost ljudi dok čitaju. Da li i vi volite da vam čitaju? Jedno od mojih najsnažnijih sećanja je iz 1999., Meri čita meni i deci, dole blizu plaže Menli, "Hari Poter i kamen mudrosti". Zar to nije sjajna knjiga? I dalje volim da budem blizak onome ko mi čita. Ali, ne bih se odrekao tehnologije, jer mi omogućava da vodim sjajan život.
Of course, talking books for the blind predated all this technology. After all, the long-playing record was developed in the early 1930s, and now we put talking books on CDs using the digital access system known as DAISY. But when I'm reading with synthetic voices, I love to come home and read a racy novel with a real voice.
Naravno, audio knjige za slepe su postojale pre sve ove tehnologije. Na kraju, ploče su se pojavile ranih tridesetih, a sada sve audio knjige stavljamo na CD-ove koristeći elektronski format poznat kao DAISY. Ali, kada čitam sintetičke glasove, volim da dođem kući i čitam žestok roman pravim glasom.
Now there are still barriers in front of we people with disabilities. Many websites we can't read using JAWS and the other technologies. Websites are often very visual, and there are all these sorts of graphs that aren't labeled and buttons that aren't labeled, and that's why the World Wide Web Consortium 3, known as W3C, has developed worldwide standards for the Internet. And we want all Internet users or Internet site owners to make their sites compatible so that we persons without vision can have a level playing field. There are other barriers brought about by our laws. For example, Australia, like about one third of the world's countries, has copyright exceptions which allow books to be brailled or read for we blind persons. But those books can't travel across borders. For example, in Spain, there are a 100,000 accessible books in Spanish. In Argentina, there are 50,000. In no other Latin American country are there more than a couple of thousand. But it's not legal to transport the books from Spain to Latin America. There are hundreds of thousands of accessible books in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, etc., but they can't be transported to the 60 countries in our world where English is the first and the second language. And remember I was telling you about Harry Potter. Well, because we can't transport books across borders, there had to be separate versions read in all the different English-speaking countries: Britain, United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand all had to have separate readings of Harry Potter.
I sada ima prepreka pred nama, ljudima sa invaliditetom. Mnoge sajtove ne možemo da čitamo koristeći JAWS i druge tehnologije. Veb-sajtovi su često veoma vizuelni, imaju sve te razne grafike i dugmiće koji nisu obeleženi, i zbog toga je WWW Konzorcijum 3, poznat kao W3C, razvio svetske standarde za internet. I mi želimo da svi internet korisnici ili vlasnici sajtova prilagode svoje sajtove, tako da mi, osobe bez vida, imamo svoje šanse. Postoje i druge prepreke definisane našim zakonima. Na primer, Australija, kao i otprilike trećina zemalja u svetu, ima izuzetke autorkih prava, koji dozvoljavaju Brajev prevod knjiga ili čitanje za nas slepe. Ali, te knjige ne mogu da putuju preko granica. Na primer, u Španiji ima oko 100 000 dostupnih knjiga na španskom. U Argentini oko 50 000. Ni u jednoj drugoj zemlji Latinske Amerike nema više od nekoliko hiljada. Ali, nije legalno prenositi knjige iz Španije u Latinsku Ameriku. Postoje stotine hiljada dostupnih knjiga u Sjedinjenim Državama, Britaniji, Kanadi, Australiji itd. ali se ne mogu prenositi u 60 zemalja sveta, gde je engleski prvi i drugi jezik. Sećate se da sam pričao o Hariju Poteru. Pa, pošto ne možemo da prenosimo knjige preko granica, moraju da postoje snimljene posebne verzije u svakoj od zemalja u kojima se govori engleski: Britanija, Sjedinjene Države, Kanada, Australija i Novi Zeland, sve moraju da imaju zasebno čitanje Harija Potera.
And that's why, next month in Morocco, a meeting is taking place between all the countries. It's something that a group of countries and the World Blind Union are advocating, a cross-border treaty so that if books are available under a copyright exception and the other country has a copyright exception, we can transport those books across borders and give life to people, particularly in developing countries, blind people who don't have the books to read. I want that to happen.
I upravo zbog toga, sledećeg meseca u Maroku se održava sastanak svih zemalja. To je nešto što grupa zemalja i Svetska Unija Slepih zagovaraju, prekogranični sporazum, tako da, ako su knjige dostupne, pod izuzetkom autorskih prava, i ako druga zemlja ima izuzetak autorskih prava, možemo da prenosimo knjige preko granica i dajemo život ljudima, posebno u zemljama u razvoju, slepim ljudima koji nemaju knjige za čitanje. Ja želim da se to ostvari.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
My life has been extraordinarily blessed with marriage and children and certainly interesting work to do, whether it be at the University of Sydney Law School, where I served a term as dean, or now as I sit on the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in Geneva. I've indeed been a very fortunate human being.
Moj život je izvanredno blagosloven brakom i decom i sigurno zanimljivim poslom, bilo na pravnom fakultetu Univerziteta u Sidneju, gde sam radio kao dekan, ili sada, kad sam u Komitetu Ujedinjenih nacija na Pravima ljudi sa posebnim potrebama, u Ženevi. Ja sam zaista veoma srećno ljudsko biće.
I wonder what the future will hold. The technology will advance even further, but I can still remember my mum saying, 60 years ago, "Remember, darling, you'll never be able to read the print with your fingers." I'm so glad that the interaction between braille transcribers, volunteer readers and passionate inventors, has allowed this dream of reading to come true for me and for blind people throughout the world.
Pitam se šta će budućnost doneti. Tehnologija će još više napredovati, ali, još uvek se sećam šta je moja mama rekla pre 60 godina: "Zapamti, dragi, ti nikad nećes moći da čitaš štampu svojim prstima." Tako mi je drago što je interakcija između Brajevih transkribera, čitača volontera i strastvenih izumitelja, omogućila da se ovaj san o čitanju ostvari meni i slepim ljudima širom sveta.
I'd like to thank my researcher Hannah Martin, who is my slide clicker, who clicks the slides, and my wife, Professor Mary Crock, who's the light of my life, is coming on to collect me. I want to thank her too.
Voleo bih da se zahvalim mom istraživaču, Hani Martin, koja mi pomaže sa slajdovima, koja menja slajdove, i moja žena, profesor Meri Krok, koja je svetlost mog života, dolazi da me odvede. I njoj takođe želim da zahvalim.
I think I have to say goodbye now. Bless you. Thank you very much.
Mislim da sad moram da se oprostim. Budite blagosloveni. Hvala vam puno.
(Applause) Yay! (Applause) Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. (Applause)
(Aplauz) Jej! (Aplauz) Okej. Okej. Okej. (Aplauz)