[nfb-talk] [nfbwatlk] Are smartphones killing Braille?, The Week, February 15 2012

Fri Feb 17 03:54:48 UTC 2012

This is great--I mean the use of the IPhone.  I'm contemplating getting one 
sometime, but still have my old Nokia which isn't a touch phone.
One thing that I never hear mentioned when discussing the drop in braille 
literacy is that for deaf/blind persons, braille is more than just a 
convenience.  I am glad to see that technology is not leaving braille in the 
dust.
--le
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Buddy Brannan" <buddy at brannan.name>
To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 6:40 PM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] [nfbwatlk] Are smartphones killing Braille?, The 
Week,February 15 2012

Of course they aren't. The trend has been evident since long before smart 
phones. However, here's the other side of the argument:

Braille comes unbound from the book: how technology can stop a literary 
crisis | Society | guardian.co.uk

>From 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/14/technology-brings-braille-back-apple

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, Chancey Fleet reads the menu of Bombay Garden to 
four friends gathered at the back of the Chelsea-based Indian restaurant in 
New York City.

Although she is reading aloud, there are no menus on the table. They aren't 
necessary, because Fleet is blind.

Instead, she reads using a Braille display that sits unobtrusively on her 
lap and connects to her iPhone via Bluetooth, electronically converting the 
onscreen text into different combinations of pins. She reads by gently but 
firmly running her fingers over the pins with her left hand while navigating 
the phone with her right.

"The iPhone is the official phone of blindness," she told the Guardian.

Until recently, technology, especially that which converts text to audio, 
has been hastening the demise of Braille, which educators say is a bad 
thing. Students who can read Braille tend on average to acquire higher 
literacy rates and fare better professionally later on. But Apple's push 
into the field – coupled with increasingly affordable Braille displays – has 
the potential to bring Braille back in a big way.

Fleet's iPhone has a built-in screen reader called VoiceOver that works with 
all native applications. It tells Fleet what her finger is touching, 
allowing her to download the restaurant menu and read it, access her email, 
and do anything else she needs to with the phone, either by converting text 
into Braille on the separate display or by reading out loud to her. (Here's 
a video of the process at work.)

Fleet also uses her display to type, rather than navigate with her iPhone or 
computer keyboard. It has a spacebar and with eight thumb-sized keys – one 
that works as a backspace key, another as an enter key, and the remainder 
that function as the six dot positions that comprise a Braille character.

When Apple released the first accessible iPhone in 2009, "it took the blind 
community by storm," said Fleet. "We didn't know, nobody knew, that Apple 
was planning an accessible device. The device went from being an infuriating 
brick to a fluid, usable, opportunity-levelling device in one iteration."

Apple has shown that "devices aren't inaccessible because they have to be, 
but because companies made them with a lack of imagination," said Fleet. 
"Apple proved that a blind person could use an interface that didn't have 
physical buttons."

Anne Taylor, director of access technology for the National Federation of 
the Blind, agrees.

"Apple has set the bar very high," she said. "No other mobile OS provider, 
such as Google or Microsoft, has made Braille available on their mobile 
platform."

Apple's iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and third generation iPod Touch already 
support more than 30 Bluetooth wireless Braille displays. And the company's 
recent push into digital textbooks could greatly reduce the time it takes 
for Braille textbooks to be available to students, not to mention reduce 
their cost and size: a single print textbook must be transformed into 
several volumes of Braille.

"Ebooks can be a game changer if they're properly designed because it would 
allow us to get access to the same books at the same time at the same price 
as everyone else," said Christopher Danielsen, spokesman for the NFB. 
"Publishers and manufacturers have to ensure they are designed to be 
accessible to work with braille displays. That's what Apple has done. Apple 
is not perfect but they're way, way ahead of everybody else in this area."

The benefits of Braille
Apple's accessibility efforts come at a pivotal time. For decades now, the 
number of Braille users has been on the decline. Data from the American 
Printing House for the Blind's annual registry of legally blind students 
shows that in 1963, 51% of legally blind children in public and residential 
schools used Braille as their primary reading medium. In 2007 this number 
fell to just 10%, while in 2011 it stood at under 9%.

While there are many reasons for the decline of Braille, technology that 
converts text to speech has been identified as a major factor. In a 
nationwide sample of 1,663 teachers of visually impaired and blind students 
conducted in the early 1990s, 40% chose reliance on technology as a reason 
behind Braille's decline.

"When we experienced the tech boom in the nineties, I was led to believe 
speech was the way forward, that Braille was becoming obsolete," said 
William O'Donnell, a Manhattan-based student who has been blind since birth.

But learning or reading using Braille – rather than audio – has distinct 
advantages, say educators.

"There's this tremendous importance to seeing the way print looks on a page, 
what punctuation does and looks like in a sentence," said Catherine Mendez, 
who works as a kindergarten teacher at Public School 69 in the Bronx. 
"Braille in the context of early literacy is huge. If we can get these 
devices into the hands of kids early we can bolster their understanding in a 
way speech can't do."

There are professional benefits to learning Braille too. A survey conducted 
by Louisiana Tech University's Professional Development and Research 
Institute on Blindness found that people with sight disabilities who learn 
to read through Braille have a much higher chance of finding a job, even 
more than those who read large print.

And once you get that job Braille might help you keep it. "In business 
meetings it's more unobtrusive to use Braille. If I want to multitask, 
headphones are rude, but Braille is acceptable," said Fleet. She uses 
Braille when writing formal letters or papers, or preparing notes for a 
public speech or presentation.

A 'literacy crisis'
Still, for now Braille displays can only show one line of Braille at a time 
and can cost between $3,000 and $15,000 – depending on the number of 
characters they display at a time – which is prohibitively expensive for 
some. "For me it was not practical to continue to use Braille," said Mendez, 
who does not own a Braille display.

How the cost will come down is a problem that scientists are working to 
solve. Dr Peichun Yung, a postdoctoral research associate at the electrical 
and computer engineering department of North Carolina State University, who 
lost his own eyesight in an accident, has been working on a device that 
would raise dots that by using a hydraulic and latching mechanism made of an 
electroactive polymer, which is both cheaper and more resilient than the 
prevailing technology.

"There is a Braille literacy crisis right now," said Yung. "Literacy is the 
foundation for having a job and living an independent life. For reading 
every day, you cannot just rely on speech."

Nihal Erkan. Photograph: Saabira Chaudhuri
For those who own both an iPhone or laptop and a Braille display, having to 
choose between audio and Braille isn't necessary. Nowadays, the two go hand 
in hand – literally. Many of the technologies that convert text to speech 
also convert it into a form that can be read on a refreshable Braille 
display, making Braille far more accessible for those who own both devices.

"Braille has a versatility and a fluidity that it has never had before," 
said Fleet. While she recalls owning a pocket dictionary in seventh grade 
that took up "eight huge volumes," now "Braille has come unbound from the 
book".

"Braille is portable, searchable, downloadable. You can convert print to 
Braille yourself," she said. "You can go to a library or use Bookshare, 
which is free for students, and if you harness it, Braille is better than 
it's ever been."

--
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV - Erie, PA
Phone: (814) 860-3194 or 888-75-BUDDY

On Feb 16, 2012, at 7:27 PM, Humberto Avila wrote:

>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Nightingale, Noel
> Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 4:24 PM
> To: nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org
> Subject: [nfbwatlk] Are smartphones killing Braille?, The Week,February 15
> 2012
>
>
> Link:
> http://theweek.com/article/index/224447/are-smartphones-killing-braille
>
> Text:
> Are smartphones killing Braille?
> A raft of fancy new gadgets let blind people listen to text. Is this
> contributing to "Braille illiteracy"?
> posted on February 15, 2012
>
> For 200 years, Braille has helped people without eyesight to read and live
> more independently. But some educators now fear that smartphones and other
> new technologies have made it easier for young people to get by without
> learning the system, leading to a surge in "Braille
> illiteracy<http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/02/13/146812288/b
> raille-under-siege-as-blind-turn-to-smartphones?ft=1&f=1001>." How serious
> is the problem? Here, a brief guide:
>
> How was Braille invented?
> Braille - an alphabet in which each letter is represented by a unique
> pattern of raised dots that the blind can read by touch - was developed by
> Louis Braille<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16984742> in France in
> 1821. Inspired by a failed military "night writing" code, his 
> revolutionary
> system allowed blind people to read independently for the first time in
> history. Braille was widely adopted among blind people in the 19th and 
> early
> 20th centuries. As governments encourage or require the system in more and
> more public settings (especially in Europe), Braille letters can be found 
> on
> everything from elevator control panels to restaurant menus.
>
> How many Americans use Braille?
> These days, only about 10 percent of blind people can read it, a 
> significant
> drop from the early 1900s. The decline began years ago as recorded 
> materials
> became increasingly available. "When am I ever going to use Braille? I'm
> never going to sit down and read a novel in Braille," Jackie Owellet, who
> lost her sight as an adult, tells
> NPR<http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/02/13/146812288/braille-
> under-siege-as-blind-turn-to-smartphones?ft=1&f=1001>. "You know, I'd 
> rather
> download an audio book from iTunes."
>
> And smartphones are contributing to this decline?
> Absolutely. With the rise in smartphones, which can be equipped with
> screenreaders that turn text into spoken language, the decline in Braille
> literacy is accelerating.
>
> So will smartphones mean the end of Braille?
> It's too early to say for sure. But there is a twist: iPhones and iPads 
> also
> have the potential to make Braille more accessible than ever. Compact
> electronic "Braille Displays" (connected to a screen via Bluetooth) can
> translate digital characters into Braille using grids of plastic nubs that
> rise and fall as the text progresses (See a demonstration video
> here<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd10syL5RLY>.) "The iPhone is the
> official phone of blindness," one blind woman tells Britain's
> Guardian<http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/14/technology-brings-bra
> ille-back-apple>.
>
> Sources: BBC News<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16984742>,
> Guardian<http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/14/technology-brings-bra
> ille-back-apple>,
> NPR<http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/02/13/146812288/braille-
> under-siege-as-blind-turn-to-smartphones?ft=1&f=1001>
>
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