Stevie Wonder visits FCC

Pop icon Stevie Wonder visited the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Tuesday to promote services for blind people.

The “Songs in the Key of Life” musician met with Commissioner Ajit Pai about technology that allows people who are blind or have a sight disability to follow along with their favorite television shows.

{mosads}“Stevie Wonder spoke with the commissioner about the importance to visually impaired people of making video description available for scripted television programming,” an aide to Pai said, referring to a service that gives short audio descriptions of onscreen events to help blind people understand what’s happening.

“He spoke about the importance of that to visually impaired people and also shared some ideas in terms of how that might be done,” the aide added.

Pai, a Republican, tweeted after the meeting that he was “overjoyed” to discuss the issue with Wonder.

“I look forward to working with him,” he wrote.

The commissioner’s office said that his meeting with the entertainer would be helpful as part of the FCC’s implementation of a 2010 law to update standards for television, movies and telephones to make them accessible to people with disabilities.

Previous rules under the law have set requirements for cable set-top cable boxes to audibly read out text menus and made sure that deaf people can turn on closed captioning with the simple press of a button, among other measures.