[Nfbmo] Tablets turned into Braille keyboard by US researchers

[DanFlasar at aol.com]

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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