[Nfbmo] Tablets turned into Braille keyboard by US researchers
DanFlasar at aol.com
DanFlasar at aol.com
Thu Oct 13 17:48:16 UTC 2011
Fred, you always conme up with the best tech forwards! Keep 'em coming!
I have had a number of arguments w/ some of my sighted friends who
don't see why a blind person couldn't easily use a virtual keyboard on a flat
screen (one of them has never learned to touch type and hence relies on
sight to know which key to use).
This is a brilliant solution - or it seems to be. What does everyone
think of this solution?
Dan
In a message dated 10/13/2011 6:43:33 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
goodfolks at charter.net writes:
A team of US researchers has devised a way for people with impaired vision
to use the touchscreen of a tablet such as an iPad as a Braille keyboard.
It turns some previously fundamental thinking about how to make technology
accessible to blind people on its head.
Instead of using a keyboard or mechanical writer, users type directly onto
the flat glass.
The inventors used a novel design for the keyboard to overcome the lack of
tactile features.
Smart keyboard
"Instead of having fingers that find the buttons, we built buttons that
find the fingers," said Stanford's Sohan Dharmaraja, one of the researchers
on the project.
The software creates a smart keyboard for users
Users place eight fingers on the screen and the keyboard appears. Shaking
the device activates a menu, and further interaction is achieved by regular
touch gestures.
Mr Dharmaraja, alongside team-mates Adam Duran - an undergraduate from New
Mexico University - and assistant professor Adrian Lew, came up with the
idea during a boffin's X-Factor-style contest.
The competition, organised each year by Stanford University, challenges
students to come up with some innovative future computing ideas over their
summer break.
In demonstrations Mr Duran typed out a complicated mathematical formula
and the chemical equation for photosynthesis.
But it also offers a solution for more basic problems.
"Imagine being blind in the classroom, how would you take notes? 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," said Prof Lew.
There are some obvious benefits to using touchscreen technology over
traditional Braille writers.
"Current physical note takers are big and clunky and range from $3,000
(£2,000) to $6,000 (£4,000). Tablet PCs are available at a fraction of the
cost and do so much more," said Mr Dharmaraja.
Promising development
As part of the project, the students had to learn Braille. The system,
originally developed for the French military, is made up of six dots arranged
in various patterns. They are read by people's fingertips.
But the system can seem outdated in a modern era where touchscreens are
ubiquitous.
Accessible touch screen devices such as the iPad offer a huge range of
possibilities for developers and for blind and partially sighted people," said
Robin Spinks, the Royal National Institute for Blind People's manager of
digital accessibility.
"This prototype Braille keyboard for touch screen devices represents a
very promising development, and RNIB look forward to being able to test it
with our members in the future," he added.
It may be some while until the Stanford project is turned into a
commercial reality but the team are determined.
"Who knows what we will get because of this device. It is opening a door
that wasn't open before," said Mr Dharmaraja.
Fred Olver
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