[stylist] For Eve, RE: OT: FYI: braille device for smart phones

Thu Feb 23 00:28:35 UTC 2012

Eve,
The group has some very helpful folks including 2 who have a blog about
knitting and crochet. Crystal did a series on learning to crochet. If you
want to refresh your memory,  start with this which has links to specific
tutorials:
http://fingeringyarn.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/learn-to-crochet/
Also, if you want to join the list, write to:
Ana 
lot.of.yada at sbcglobal.net

Donna

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Eve Sanchez
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 6:31 PM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: Re: [stylist] For Eve, RE: OT: FYI: braille device for smart phones

Still sounds fun. I used to crochet and have thought about taking it back
up, but am not sure I rmember how to make anything other than a long
string. haha   I guess I really should try. Eve

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 1:16 PM, Donna Hill <penatwork at epix.net> wrote:

> Eve,
> Blind Stitchers is actually a knitting and crochet group. We have some
> weavers and loom knitters as well.
> Donna
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Eve Sanchez
> Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 3:01 PM
> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [stylist] OT: FYI: braille device for smart phones
>
> Cool news. Thanks for sharing. Oh and I take it that blind stitchers is a
> sewing group? Sounds fun. Guess what Im doing today. I have to do it all
by
> hand though as I dont have a decent sewing machine.  Smile. Eve
>
> On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 10:10 AM, Donna Hill <penatwork at epix.net> wrote:
>
> > Saw this on another list. The source wasn't given.
> > Donna
> >
> > Can Braille be faster than QWERTY? App developer thinks so
> >
> > By John D. Sutter, CNN
> >
> > (CNN) - If Mario Romero has his way, we'll all be learning Braille soon.
> >
> > The post-doc researcher at Georgia Institute of Technology has
> co-developed
> > an app, called BrailleTouch, that could help blind people send text
> > messages
> > and type e-mails on touch-screen smartphones without the need for
> > expensive,
> >
> > extra equipment. To use the app, people hold their phones with the
> screens
> > facing away from them and punch combinations of six touch-screen buttons
> to
> > form characters. The app speaks a letter aloud after it's been
> registered,
> > so there's no need to see the screen.
> >
> > The system is designed for blind and visually impaired people, who
> > otherwise
> >
> > have to purchase thousand-dollar machines or cumbersome "hover-over"
> (more
> > on that later) keyboards to be able to type on no-button smartphones.
But
> > Romero sees a spin-off for the technology: The touch-screen Braille
> > keyboard
> > is so fast that sighted people may start using it, too.
> >
> > "It may be a solution for everybody to get their eyes off their phone so
> > they can walk and text or watch TV and make a comment on a blog," he
said
> > by
> >
> > phone.
> > "It may free the sighted people's eyes" and help visually impaired
people
> > to
> >
> > type more easily.
> >
> > The free app, which is being developed for Apple iOS and Google Android
> > devices, should be available in a matter of weeks, he said.
> >
> > You can watch a video of the app in action
> >  on YouTube:
> >
> > iframe%3e%3c/span%3e
> >
> > So far, the app has only undergone limited tests, and Romero declined to
> > make a pre-release version available to CNN. In an 11-person trial,
> > however,
> >
> > he
> > said, some Braille typists were able to go faster than they could on
> > standard, QWERTY keyboards. One visually impaired person, who was
already
> > familiar
> > with Braille (you punch the six keys in various combinations to make
> > letters) typed at a rate of 32 words per minute, Romero said, with 92%
> > accuracy. Romero
> > himself, who never had used a Braille keyboard before, was able to type
> at
> > about 25 words per minute with 100% accuracy after a week of practice,
he
> > said.
> >
> > The app will undergo more rigorous testing before it's released, said
> > Romero, who is a post-doctoral researcher at the university's School of
> > Interactive
> > Computing. It was developed with the help of  Brian Frey, Gregory Abowd,
> > James Clawson and Kate Rosier.
> >
> > Smartphones are generally pretty good at reading material on their
> screens
> > to people who have vision problems, he said, but it's usually difficult
> to
> > enter
> > text on the devices. To get a sense of what it's like for a blind person
> to
> > use an iPhone you can go to Settings >> General >> Accessibility, and
> turn
> > the "VoiceOver" feature on. When you touch a menu item, the iPhone reads
> > the
> >
> > text aloud in a computerized voice. To select something on the screen,
> you
> > double-tap that item. To scroll, you use three fingers.
> >
> > All that works well, Romero said, but typing on an iPhone without
buttons
> > is
> >
> > a pain. Another alternative, he said, is attaching a hardware Braille
> > keyboard
> > to a smarpthone, but those are difficult to carry and are expensive:
> >
> > block quote
> > "The options (blind people) have right now are either too expensive and
> > cumbersome or too slow. Virtual keyboards and soft keyboards - like
> Apple's
> > voice-over
> > keyboard - are too slow. Or they have options to get hardware that costs
> > several thousand dollars."
> >
> > block quote end
> >
> > The new app may not alleviate all of those problems. On Android phones,
> the
> > BrailleTouch app can be programmed in as the phone's standard keyboard.
> > Because
> > of restrictions on iOS, he said, that can't happen on an iPhone, so
> people
> > who want to use the BrailleTouch keyboard have to open the app, type
into
> a
> > text document and then copy-paste that into an e-mail or text message.
> >
> > Romero admits that this app isn't the end-all-be-all in typing. But it's
> > helping create a future, as he said, when "one day we're not slaves to
> the
> > screens."
> >
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