In Touch: News for Blind People

We report on the sailing club that is trying to attract visually-impaired sailors in the hope of glory in 2012. And new technology could put the American Library of Congress' books into a digital form, but they haven't got the budget to bring it about. We compare the positions in Washington and London.

Sue Arnold and Vidar Hjardeng join Peter to discuss their favourite current chillers in our crime audio-book review.

A magic bullet or yet more false hype – we try to sort out fact from fiction when it comes to gene therapy as a possible cure for certain types of blindness. And we examine the UK Vision 20-20 strategy; what does it mean to the lives of the visually impaired?

Peter White visits the Motherwell School, where a group of partially-sighted children are honing their echolocation skills and he talks to Daniel Kish, one of the pioneers of this technique.

News of a piece of equipment that could bring all your audio needs under one roof. And we hear from Zambia, where such technological riches are a pipe dream.

When is a disability not a disability? Why is the accessibility of council websites getting worse not better? And Mani Djazmi visits Birmingham's science museum.

AMD sufferers who've gone private have been told they'll be reimbursed - so why does it seem no-one will actually get any money? And Peter White reports from Beijing.

Remploy may be closing many of its factories, but Peter White has visited a similar operation in Seattle with an annual turnover of $37 million. There he visited the Lighthouse Project for the Blind, while back in, the UK, and in the studio, he was joined by Robert Mooney, branch secretary of the National League of the Blind and Disabled in the Glasgow factory where he works as a machinist.

Could we be closer to having the first blind American President? And audio description comes to league football.

A blind couple who want to marry, but the bureaucrats are getting in the way. And a play where blind members of the audience are assigned their own audio describer and become part of the action.