[Njtechdiv] Braille for a New Digital Age

[Andy]

The only problem I have with this is…blind people *HAVE* been doing all these things for deuces with JAWS and other technologies.  The technology does sound interesting, though, if for nothing else than reading and interpreting images in a more affordable way.



> On Sep 9, 2018, at 11:50 AM, Mario Brusco via Njtechdiv <njtechdiv at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> a bit late, but here it is...
> 
> Braille for a New Digital Age
> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/03/arts/tablet-devices-blind-braille.html
> 
> By Nazanin Lankarani
> Sept. 3, 2018
> 
> When she was a graduate student in her native Bulgaria about five years 
> ago, Kristina Tsvetanova was once asked to help a blind friend sign up 
> online for a class. Understanding why he could not do so opened her eyes 
> to the lag in technological innovation to benefit blind and visually 
> impaired people.
> 
> “The shock that my friend couldn’t perform this simple task stayed with 
> me,” Ms. Tsvetanova said in an interview.
> 
> Ms. Tsvetanova, who went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in industrial 
> management and a master’s in engineering, knew that she had stumbled 
> onto an untapped opportunity.
> 
> “I realized that there was a gap in the market and a business 
> opportunity in developing technology to provide access to content and 
> services for the blind,” she said. “I am a second-generation 
> entrepreneur, my father taught me to take risks.”
> 
> In 2014, Ms. Tsvetanova, who turned 30 last month, moved to Vienna to 
> take advantage of its more sophisticated business culture, where she 
> co-founded the start-up Blitab Technology (a play on the words blind and 
> tablet). She is also the company’s chief executive and has since 
> relocated to San Francisco for proximity to Silicon Valley investors. 
> Later this fall, she plans to introduce Blitab’s debut product, a 
> portable tablet (also called Blitab) designed for blind and visually 
> impaired people.
> 
> “Blitab will soon be available for pre-order on our website,” Ms. 
> Tsvetanova said. “We plan to ship by the end of the year.”
> 
> On the top half, the tablet’s glass is perforated into a grid with 
> holes, which allow Blitab’s liquid-based technology to create tactile 
> relief — or “tixels” — that outputs content in the Braille alphabet — 
> the touch-reading system that has been the literacy tool for blind 
> people since 1824. The “smart” liquid alters the surface of the tablet 
> to convert text, maps and graphics into Braille, by creating a rising 
> sensation under the user’s fingertips.
> 
> “Blitab can translate any type of content into Braille using our 
> cloud-based software and displays one page of content at a time,” Ms. 
> Tsvetanova said.
> 
> Priced at around $500, Blitab could be the improved and affordable 
> alternative to existing portable Braille readers that blind people have 
> long desired.
> 
> “With this tool, the blind can surf the net, connect with friends and 
> download books, like everyone else,” she said.
> 
> The impact of Blitab on the lives of visually impaired people is 
> potentially enormous.
> 
> In 2017, the World Health Organization estimated that there were 253 
> million people living with vision impairment across the globe, including 
> 36 million blind people and 217 million with moderate to severe vision 
> impairment. Those numbers are expected to triple by 2050.
> 
> Existing keyboards for the blind mostly operate via piezoelectric 
> technology, which uses pressure to generate electricity, allowing them 
> to function as a Braille reader. The keyboards are often bulky, limited 
> in functionality and sell for thousands of dollars. There are also 
> portable Braille readers, which have been around for two decades, but 
> typically offer only single-line displays.
> 
> “Can you imagine reading Harry Potter one line at a time?” Ms. 
> Tsvetanova said.
> 
> “Only 1 percent of published books is available in Braille,” she said. 
> “People with sight loss cannot actually read most books, they can only 
> listen to them being read.”
> 
> Braille illiteracy contributes to high unemployment rates for blind and 
> visually impaired people, estimated to be 75 percent in Europe 
> (according to the European Blind Union) and 70 percent in the United 
> States, according to Cornell University’s Disability
> 
> Statistics. These numbers are even higher on a global scale.
> 
> Since Blitab’s founding, Ms. Tsvetanova has been recognized for its 
> potential to change the lives of people with sight loss. She won the 
> Rising Innovator award in 2017 from the European Institute of Innovation 
> and Technology and was recognized in 2017 by MIT Technology Review’s 
> Spanish edition as one of its European Innovators Under 35. Last year, 
> Blitab was among 56 finalists selected from 1,401 entries in the Index: 
> Design to Improve Life, a design competition
> based in Denmark, which awards about 500,000 euros (about $580,000) in 
> total prize money.
> 
> “This tablet will be especially impactful for the life progress of young 
> blind persons,” said Mette Laursen, a former board member of the Index 
> competition.
> 
> “Just imagine the first time you used an iPad and the possibilities it 
> opened for you,” Ms. Laursen said. “Blitab can do the same for the blind.”
> 
> Ms. Laursen was also a member of the jury of the 2018 Cartier Women’s 
> Initiative Awards, an annual international business plan competition 
> funded by the luxury jeweler that rewards innovative projects by women 
> entrepreneurs. At its awards ceremony in April in Singapore, Ms. 
> Tsvetanova was the top prize winner, or “laureate,” from Europe.
> 
> “Cartier’s prize is a springboard to help our laureates secure 
> investment from banks and investors who rely on our due diligence and 
> our assessment that these businesses are viable,” said Cyrille Vigneron, 
> president and chief executive of Cartier.
> 
> While she awaits closing on a new round of financing this month, Ms. 
> Tsvetanova is negotiating with a number of American service providers in 
> the telecom and banking sectors to integrate Blitab into their businesses.
> 
> “With our technology, a visually impaired employee can review a document 
> unassisted, and a blind client can read a contract before signing it,” 
> Ms. Tsvetanova said.
> 
> “Blitab means literacy,” she said. “Reading it yourself is a big step 
> toward independence.”
> 
> Correction: September 7, 2018
> 
> An earlier version of this article misstated the percentage of blind 
> students in the United States who were considered Braille readers in 
> 2017 and 1974.
> The statistics, posted online by the American Printing House for the 
> Blind, were taken out of context. They were reported in conjunction with 
> a registration program that helps Congress allocate money to states to 
> buy educational materials for students who meet the definition of 
> blindness. They were not intended to indicate overall Braille 
> readership; such statistics were not available.
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