[nabs-l] David Pillischer wasRE: Fw: Touchscreen Braille Writer

Sun Jan 6 16:52:32 UTC 2013

You could kind of do that with this type in braille app. If you don't
want to type using the braille keyboard, you could just at Lowe's at
the app and type using the on-screen keyboard. That's at least what
I'm understanding. This would make it kind of like Fleksy!

Chris Nusbaum

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 6, 2013, at 11:50 AM, Kaiti Shelton <crazy4clarinet104 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> What would be really impressive to me would be an app which could
> toggle from an accessible touch-screen braille keyboard and qwerty
> keyboard.  Hook that up with a braille display on an IPad and you'd be
> set.  :)
>
> On 1/5/13, David Andrews <dandrews at visi.com> wrote:
>> Sighted electronics is gone, he has a new
>> company.  The info is at work though, so will have to wait until Monday.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>> At 10:25 PM 1/3/2013, you wrote:
>>> Goodness!
>>> I can't believe I misspelled David's name again!
>>> It's David Pillischer, and he used to run Sighted Electronics.
>>> What happened to him?
>>> I couldn't find his number or E-mail online, anymore.
>>> His Braille writer that I mentioned in a
>>> previous post is the sollution to the problem here.
>>> Thanks, Joshua
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: nabs-l [nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] on
>>> behalf of Kirt [kirt.crazydude at gmail.com]
>>> Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2013 10:17 PM
>>> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>>> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Fw: Touchscreen Braille Writer
>>>
>>> Brandon,
>>> I'll wait to see how this actually pans out.
>>> Incidentally, I have done several time test
>>> comparing my speed riding the same text on a
>>> braille keyboard and on a regular keyboard. It
>>> turns out I am consistently faster with the
>>> QWERTY keyboard… And I know I am definitely i
>>> QWERTY keyboard… And I know my braille typing
>>> speed is well above average. I'm curious to see
>>> if anyone else has done something similar, and, if so, what their results
>>> were?
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>> On Jan 3, 2013, at 8:50 PM, "Brandon Keith
>>> Biggs" <brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>> Below is an article I was sent about a new
>>> app. I am not a fan of the way the creator
>>> views blind people, but I do think having a
>>> Braille Writer on the tablet would be very
>>> nice. It is so much faster to type texts in Braille than in print LOL...
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Brandon Keith Biggs
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> STANFORD SUMMER COURSE YIELDS TOUCHSCREEN BRAILLE WRITER
>>>> Home<http://engineering.stanford.edu/> »
>>> About<http://engineering.stanford.edu/about> »
>>> News &
>>> Updates<http://engineering.stanford.edu/about/news>
>>> » Stanford summer course yields touchscreen Braille writer
>>>> <http://engineering.stanford.edu/print/node/148>
>>>> In a two-month summer course on
>>> high-performance computing, promising
>>> undergrads compete to create innovative
>>> applications. This summer's winner developed a
>>> touchscreen Braille writer that stands to
>>> revolutionize how the blind negotiate an unseen
>>> world by replacing devices costing up to 10 times more.
>>>> Andrew Myers
>>>>
>>>> Each summer, under the red-tiled roofs and
>>> sandstone of Stanford, the Army
>>> High-Performance Computing Research Center
>>> (AHPCRC) invites a select group of
>>> undergraduates from across the country gather
>>> for a two-month immersion into the wonders of advanced computing.
>>>>
>>>> Some of the undergraduates are gathered into
>>> teams. Some work alone. All are assigned
>>> mentors and tasked with a challenge. They
>>> compete, American Idol-style, for top honors at the end of the summer.
>>>>
>>>> The competition is made possible in part by a
>>> collaboration between the U.S. Army and several
>>> university and industry partners that makes up the AHPCRC.
>>>>
>>>> Adam Duran is one such undergraduate, a
>>> student both lucky and good. He is now in his
>>> senior year at New Mexico State University.
>>> Last June, he came to Stanford at the
>>> suggestion of one of his professors. His
>>> mentors were Adrian Lew, an assistant professor
>>> of mechanical engineering, and Sohan
>>> Dharmaraja, a doctoral candidate at Stanford
>>> studying computational mathematics.
>>>>
>>>> "Originally, our assignment was to create a
>>> character-recognition application that would
>>> use the camera on a mobile device — a phone or
>>> tablet — to transform pages of Braille into
>>> readable text," said Duran. "It was a cool
>>> challenge, but not exactly where we ended up."
>>>>
>>>> BIGGER FISH
>>>>
>>>> Even before Duran arrived for the summer, Lew
>>> and Dharmaraja began to talk to the Stanford
>>> Office of Accessible
>>> Education<http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/oae>,
>>> people whose profession is helping blind and
>>> visually impaired students negotiate the world
>>> of higher learning. It became clear that there were bigger fish to fry.
>>>>
>>>> While a Braille character reader would be
>>> helpful to the blind, Lew and Dharmaraja
>>> learned, there were logistics that were hard to get around.
>>>>
>>>> "How does a blind person orient a printed
>>> page so that the computer knows which side is
>>> up? How does a blind person ensure proper
>>> lighting of the paper?" said Duran. "Plus, the
>>> technology, while definitely helpful, would be
>>> limited in day-to-day application."
>>>>
>>>> "It was a nice-to-have, not a must-have," said Dharmaraja.
>>>>
>>>> So, the three began to ask questions. That is
>>> when they stumbled upon a sweet spot.
>>>>
>>>> "The killer app was not a reader, but a writer," said Dharmaraja.
>>>>
>>>> "Imagine being blind in a classroom, how
>>> would you take notes?" said Lew. "What if you
>>> were on the street and needed to copy down a
>>> phone number? These are real challenges the blind grapple with every
>>> day."
>>>>
>>>> There are devices that help the blind write
>>> Braille, to send email and so forth, but they
>>> are essentially specialized laptops that cost,
>>> in some cases, $6,000 or more. All for a device
>>> of limited functionality, beyond typing Braille, of course.
>>>>
>>>> "Your standard tablet has more capability at
>>> a tenth the price," said Duran.
>>>>
>>>> "So, we put two and two together. We
>>> developed a tablet Braille writer," said
>>> Dharmaraja, "A touchscreen for people who can't see."
>>> [http://engineering.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/imagecache/700wide/news%20-%202012%200505%20-%20touchscreen%20braile%20writer.jpeg]Sohan
>>>
>>> Dharmaraja, a doctoral candidate at Stanford,
>>> demonstrates how the software works.
>>>>
>>>> First, however, the student-mentor team had
>>> to learn Braille. Originally developed for the
>>> French military, Braille is a relatively simple
>>> code with each character made up of variations
>>> of six dots - or bumps, really - arranged in a
>>> 2-by-3 matrix. The blind read by feeling the bumps with their fingertips.
>>>>
>>>> As any computational mathematician will tell
>>> you, such a matrix yields two-to-the-sixth
>>> minus one variations, or 63 possible
>>> characters. These 63 characters are enough for
>>> a Western alphabet plus 10 numerical digits,
>>> with several left over for punctuation and some special characters.
>>>>
>>>> Over the years, however, those 63 characters
>>> got quickly gobbled up - through the addition
>>> of character-modification keystrokes, the total
>>> grew and now includes chemical, mathematical and other symbols.
>>>>
>>>> CHALLENGE
>>>>
>>>> A modern Braille writer looks like a laptop
>>> with no monitor and an eight-key keyboard - six
>>> to create the character, plus a carriage return and a delete key.
>>>>
>>>> Duplicating the Braille keypad on a
>>> touch-based tablet seemed simple enough, but
>>> there was at least one significant challenge:
>>> How does a blind person find the keys on a flat, uniformly smooth glass
>>> panel?
>>>>
>>>> Dharmaraja and Duran mulled their options
>>> before arriving at a clever and simple
>>> solution. They did not create virtual keys that
>>> the fingertips must find; they made keys that
>>> find the fingertips. The user simply touches
>>> eight fingertips to the glass, and the keys
>>> orient themselves to the fingers. If the user
>>> becomes disoriented, a reset is as easy as
>>> lifting all eight fingers off the glass and putting them down again.
>>>>
>>>> "Elegant, no?" said Lew. "The solution is so
>>> simple, so beautiful. It was fun to see."
>>>>
>>>> Beyond the price difference, touchscreens
>>> offer at least one other significant advantage
>>> over standard Braille writers: "They're
>>> customizable," Dharmaraja noted. "They can
>>> accommodate users whose fingers are small or
>>> large, those who type with fingers close
>>> together or far apart, even to allow a user to
>>> type on a tablet hanging around the neck with
>>> hands opposed as if playing a clarinet."
>>>>
>>>> "No standard Braille writer can do this,"
>>> said Professor Charbel Farhat, the chair of the
>>> Aeronautics and Astronautics Department and
>>> executive director of the summer program. "This
>>> is a real step forward for the blind."
>>>>
>>>> SHOWING OFF
>>>>
>>>> In a demo, Duran donned a blindfold and
>>> readied himself before the touchscreen. He
>>> typed out an email address and a simple subject
>>> line. Then he typed one of the best-known
>>> mathematical formulas in the world, the Burgers
>>> Equation<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgers%27_equation>,
>>> and followed with the chemical equation for
>>> photosynthesis<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis>
>>> - complex stuff - all as if writing a note to his mother.
>>>>
>>>> For Duran, who has an uncle who is blind, the
>>> greatest joy was in seeing a blind person using
>>> his creation for the first time. "That was so
>>> awesome," he said. "I can't describe the feeling. It was the best."
>>>>
>>>> In the immediate future, there are technical
>>> and legal hurdles to address, but someday,
>>> perhaps soon, the blind and visually impaired
>>> may find themselves with a more cost-effective
>>> Braille writer that is both portable and
>>> blessed with greater functionality than any device that went before.
>>>>
>>>> "AHPCRC is an excellent model for outreach,
>>> which not only trains undergraduate students in
>>> computational sciences but also exposes
>>> students to real-world research applications,"
>>> said Raju Namburu, the cooperative agreement manager for AHPCRC.
>>>>
>>>> The center addresses the Army's most
>>> difficult scientific and engineering challenges
>>> using high-performance computing. Stanford
>>> University is the AHPCRC lead organization with
>>> oversight from the Army Research Laboratory.
>>>>
>>>> As for his summer courses, Farhat is
>>> optimistic. "Let's remember," he points out,
>>> "This was a two-month summer project that
>>> evolved because a few smart people asked some
>>> good questions. I'm always amazed by what the
>>> students accomplish in these courses, but this
>>> was something special. Each year it seems to get better and more
>>> impressive."
>>>>
>>>> Andrew Myers is associate director of
>>> communications for the Stanford School of Engineering.
>>>>
>>>> Video
>>>>
>>>> Watch: Stanford Course Yields Touchscreen
>>> Braille
>>> Writer<https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10100361023253469>
>>>>
>>>> Thursday, October 6, 2011
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>>
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>
> --
> Kaiti
>
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