[nfbcs] Optacon thoughts

[David Andrews]

Curtis et al:

I acknowledge what you and others have said. The Otpacon did allow 
you to feel what was really on the page.  But it was relatively 
expensive, and most people never got that fast with it, so didn't use 
it much.  Yes, there are people who were good, and still are ... but ...

I predict that what is likely to happen is that we are seeing at 
least one announcement of a relatively inexpensive graphics display, 
from APH, ue out late next year.  You could scan a page, and have 
parts come up on this display, I would predict, giving you a feel of 
what is actually there.

Hope I made sense.

Dave

At 12:30 PM 9/14/2016, you wrote:
>Greetings all:
>
>Although the optacon was difficult to learn, slow to read print, and 
>moderately expensive, it did one thing that no technology does 
>today. With the optacon, a blind person could literally feel the 
>shapes and texture of print on the page. A blind person could, with 
>some effort, also feel diagrams and handwritten information, 
>although I would wager that this latter type of information was a 
>bit more difficult to understand.
>
>Yes, we do have OCR technology now, imperfect as it is. But we don't 
>have anything that enables us to "feel" the print. I do have some 
>desire for this ability, but I am not sure how much I am willing to 
>pay for it<smile>.
>
>Regards,
>
>Curtis Chong