[Electronics-Talk] FW: Electronics-Talk Digest, Vol 117, Issue 15

Tue May 28 01:26:24 UTC 2019

I checked out the website for the Bristol group; it didn't look like
anything had happened recently with them. Here's the original article I
read, though. I really hope they're still planning this.

Sandra

Something is wrong, I know it, if I don't keep my attention on eternity. May
I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful.
(Mary Oliver) 

-----Original Message-----
From: Electronics-Talk <electronics-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of
electronics-talk-request at nfbnet.org
Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2016 7:00 AM
To: electronics-talk at nfbnet.org
Subject: Electronics-Talk Digest, Vol 117, Issue 15

   1. FW: Re: U-Michigan developing full screen tablet	braille
      display for $1, 000 (Tracy Carcione)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2016 13:20:08 -0500
From: "Tracy Carcione" <carcione at access.net>
To: "'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>,
	"'Discussion of accessible home electronics and appliances'"
	<electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [Electronics-Talk] FW: Re: U-Michigan developing full screen
	tablet	braille display for $1, 000
Message-ID: <00bd01d14fc1$5d853b30$188fb190$@access.net>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="UTF-8"

I know we?ve heard about these things many times, but, hey, you never know.

Tracy

http://goo.gl/eBTlUV

Michigan Engineering

Today, blind people fluent in Braille can read computer screens through
refreshable mechanical displays that convert the words to raised dots ? but
only one line at a time.

For the sighted, imagine a Kindle that showed just 40 characters per page,
says Sile O?Modhrain, an associate professor in the University of Michigan
School of Music, Theatre and Dance and the School of Information, who is
blind. Forty characters amounts to about 10 words. 

The process is cumbersome. It doesn?t give context. It?s expensive. And
O?Modhrain believes it?s one of the factors contributing to Braille?s
declining use. Even though fluency in the nearly 200-year-old code is linked
with higher employment and academic performance for the visually impaired,
fewer blind people are learning and using it. Taking Braille?s place are
text-to-speech programs that make it easier and faster to consume electronic
information, but at the same time, hold back literacy.

So O?Modhrain has teamed up with engineering researchers to build a better
Braille display ? one that could show the equivalent of a whole tablet
screen at once. In addition, it could translate beyond text, rendering
graphs, charts, maps and complicated equations in a medium the blind could
understand with their fingertips. 

?What we?re trying to build in this project is full-page tactile screen for
something like a Kindle or an iPad where you could just display refreshable
text in real time,? O?Modhrain said. ?Relative to what?s done today and how
that?s done, it?s a complete paradigm shift.?

In the 1950s, about half of blind children learned to read Braille,
according to the National Federation of the Blind. Today, that number is
just 10 percent. Yet 80 percent of blind people who are employed know
Braille. Those numbers don?t tell the whole story, as definitions and health
outcomes have evolved over the years. But the trend they suggest is real,
the researchers say.

?When you?re learning to read and write, it?s hard to find a substitute for
physically encountering text ? whether it?s in visual or tactile form,?
O?Modhrain said. ?There are many studies that show that listening to
something is not the same as reading it.? 

The system she is developing with Brent Gillespie, an associate professor of
mechanical engineering, and Alex Russomanno, a doctoral student in the same
department, would make e-reading for the blind more efficient and a lot less
expensive. Today, a commercial one-line Braille display costs around $5,000.
If you were to directly scale up the mechanism behind it to show a whole
page, it would cost around $50,000, Russomanno says. The U-M researchers?
aim to offer that capability at just $1,000 per device.

How can they make a bigger display at a fraction of the cost? They believe
the answer is microfluidics ? a branch of engineering centered on tiny chips
with channels that guide the flow of liquid or air. In many ways,
microfluidic chips resemble the integrated circuits of computers.

?We use the equivalent of electronic logic and circuitry,? Russomanno said.
?When I say that, I?m referring to the way a computer works, with
transistors and resistors. Except our circuit is not electronic at all. It?s
fluidic. Instead of high voltage and low voltage you have high pressure and
low pressure, and instead of electric current flow you have fluid flow and
you can achieve the same basic logic features.?

Like the 0s and 1s that undergird computing, Braille is a binary code. Each
Braille cell, which is sometimes a letter and sometimes a whole word,
contains six dots that can either be raised or flat to convey different
information.

?The dots are either there or they?re not,? O?Modhrain said. ?That?s why
this circuit is so elegant.?

Play Video

?Michigan engineers have developed technology that may soon lead to a
refreshable braille tablet the size of a Kindle.

Their system uses air to move bubbles of pressurized air that raise or lower
the Braille dots. And whereas other approaches require a dedicated
information channel for each dot, theirs can control a long string of dots
with just two input valves. The length of the dot string is limited only by
the time it takes the information (high or low pressure/raised or lowered
dot) to get to its end point.

There?s also overlap in the manufacturing processes of electronic and
fluidic circuits. Microchips are made all at once, rather than
transistor-by-transistor. In the same way, the researchers can mold as many
Braille dots as they like with one batch process. They say this will be key
to economically making a full-page display.

Right now they?re working on shrinking their fluidic circuits to fit under
Braille dots, which would be smaller than a peppercorn. They envision a
system where up to 10,000 dots are powered by 10,000 microfluidic chips.

"We would like to think a device like this would make reading electronic
Braille more attractive again, make it close to the experience of reading a
traditional book," O'Modhrain said. "Another challenge is convincing
educational authorities to teach Braille again. It has dropped out of the
system in terms of the education of blind people and we think it?s important
to bring Braille back."