[Nfbf-l] Apple is at the vanguard of a push behind technology that's helping old-fashioned Braille replace text

[Alan Dicey]

pcb-l at yahoogroups.com

Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2012 10:38 AM

Subject: PCB Apple is at the vanguard of a push behind technology that's 
helping old-fashioned Braille replace text-to-speech audio for the blind - 
and it couldn't have come at a more critical time



Braille Comes Unbound From the Book: How Technology Can Stop a Literary 
Crisis

Apple is at the vanguard of a push behind technology that's helping 
old-fashioned Braille replace text-to-speech audio for the blind - and it 
couldn't have come at a more critical time

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."

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 With Best Regards,

Alan

Happy New Year!

Miami, Florida