[nfbcs] Article on refreshable braille projects

[Gary Wunder]

Yay Tami. We too have been watching and always interested. Some of us have
watched so long that we delay in our hopefulness, but thirty years ago who
would have dreamed of the Apex and some of the other things that are now so
important to us.



-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of majolls at cox.net
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 12:55 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Article on refreshable braille projects

I'll weigh in here too.

Unlike some of you, I'm a relative newcommer to Braille.  I'm 56, and I've
only been reading it for about 8 years.  Braille is something I never
expected to get involved with.  Even though I am a blind person (partially
sighted who can read print) who was taught print.  So I didn't have the
advantage of learning it at an early age and really getting some speed
advantages using Braille over print.  There's a whole story there so I will
refrain there.

Once I discovered Braille and saw the price of the Braille displays, I
realized that Braille was something that every blind person should know, but
the price of the equipment would lock out a lot of people.  Then I saw that
people were working on alternate technologies to produce Braille (elastic
polymers to name one) that could have the potential to drive down the price
from $80 per cell to $5 or $10 per cell.  I'm not sure where the explorers
are, but I'm hoping they can make it a reality.  If they can knock down the
price to that level, even a 4 line 40 cell display could be reduced to
$2000.  A single line display that we pay $3000-$6000 today could be reduced
to $1000 or less.  That would put Braille in the hands of people.  And that
would be significant.

I just hope that the people who are experimenting with this can make it
happen.  I hope this isn't just a lot of talk.  The other thing that has to
be done is to make sure that the publications we want to read are all in
accessible electronic form so we can then use the lower price technology.
But I suppose one step at a time, huh?

---- Tami Jarvis <tami at poodlemutt.com> wrote: 
> Here is the link:
> 
> http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw140102
> 
> Interesting indeed! I've been around the block long enough now to need 
> Tums for sure when I think of all those things that are just around 
> the corner when it comes to access to assistive technology. I want it 
> now! I
> *need* it now. And a lot of people I know are in the same position, 
> even here in our prosperous country.
> 
> There do seem to be more and more ideas and projects focused on making 
> refreshable braille affordable and more available for the many. This 
> cannot be a bad thing. I can't help thinking that the more blind 
> readers/students/workers/thinkers who can snap up these tools without 
> that government assistance, the more effect that will have on the 
> market and availability of the assistive tools... Or am I just being a 
> rosy optimist there? /lol/
> 
> So here is another possibility for advancement, waiting just around 
> the corner... But there are more and more of those around that same 
> corner that sooner or later one might just mature enough to let us 
> catch up to it and grab it!
> 
> Tami
> 
> On 01/29/2013 07:05 AM, Tracy Carcione wrote:
> > There's an interesting article in the January Accessworld about a 
> > couple projects working to develop a more affordable braille 
> > display.  One is run by the Daisy Consortium, and the other by NBP.
> > I don't know how to paste a link, but one can find the article by 
> > googling Accessworld January 2013.
> > Tracy
> >
> >
> >
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