[Nfbsatx] A Touch Screen Braille Keyboard coming soon

Jose Martinez jose.martinez07 at gmail.com
Mon Oct 24 17:26:09 UTC 2011


Feature Writer Alena Roberts - A Touch Screen Braille Keyboard Coming
to a Tablet Near You

The ability to use a touch screen as a blind person is amazing, but it
is still quite difficult to type efficiently. IOS devices like the
iPhone can have a physical blue tooth keyboard or braille display
attached to them, but this adds extra cost and requires extra space
for traveling. What if instead, the blind could write using a braille
keyboard on the touch screen itself? Well now, a team at Stanford
University has come up with a way to do this.

According to the lead designer, to use the braille keyboard the person
simply places their eight fingers on the touch screen once. The touch
screen then recognizes that the person wants to type using braille. As
long as the person keeps their fingers close to where they started,
they can start typing and the program will adjust to movements in your
finger position. If you want to get a drink of water or move your
hands to do something else, simply put eight fingers back on the touch
screen and tap once and you can start typing again.

This project could be a way to increase braille literacy because the
software will be built into the device. Braille displays and
notetakers cost thousands of dollars which puts them out of reach for
a majority of the blind community. If a braille keyboard was available
on a tablet PC, then far more people would have access. The next step
should be building in braille output, but that will be more of a
challenge.

To learn more about the project, listen to this episode of the market
place tech report:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/www_publicradio/tools/media_player/popup.php?name=marketplace/tech_report/2011/10/17/marketplace_tech_report20111017_64

You can also watch this YouTube video presented by Standford
University: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABfCXJSjAq0




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