[Nfbmo] Tablets turned into Braille keyboard by US researchers

[fred olver]

Actually Dan, the idea of a Braille style keyboard intrigues me very much. 
Having grown up using Braille, it was not uncommon for lots and lots of 
blind folks to become extremely fast in Braille writing using a Braille 
writer. Of course it was pretty noisy... Also, if you think about it, you 
wouldn't need a line-spacing key unless you wanted to start a new paragraph, 
too.

Fred

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <DanFlasar at aol.com>
To: <nfbmo at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 12:48 PM
Subject: Re: [Nfbmo] Tablets turned into Braille keyboard by US researchers


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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