[access-uk] Re: Apple is at the vanguard of a push behind technology helping old-fashioned Braille replace text-to-speech audio for the blind
- From: "Terry Clasper" <terry.clasper@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2013 15:41:41 -0000
I actually do that quite often, reading Braille with my let hand and
manipulating the screen with my right.
Terry Clasper.
E-Mail, terry.clasper@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Twitter: @terryclasper
-----Original Message-----
From: access-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Niamh
Sent: 02 January 2013 15:38
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [access-uk] Re: Apple is at the vanguard of a push behind
technology helping old-fashioned Braille replace text-to-speech audio for
the blind
If I tried to read braille with one hand and work a touch screen with the
other I think my brain would fall apart.
Niamh
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Nutt" <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2013 9:34 AM
Subject: [access-uk] Re: Apple is at the vanguard of a push behind
technology helping old-fashioned Braille replace text-to-speech audio for
the blind
> Hi,
>
> This is old news. I have been using Braille with iOS for a couple of
> years.
>
> Braille is also with us on Android now as well.
>
> All the best
>
> Steve
>
> --
> Computer Room Services
> 77 Exeter Close
> Stevenage
> Hertfordshire
> SG1 4PW
> Tel: +44(0)1438-742286
> Mob: +44(0)7956-334938
> Fax: +44(0)1438-759589
> Email: steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Web: http://www.comproom.co.uk
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: access-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:access-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Colin Howard
> Sent: 31 December 2012 08:31
> To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; bcab@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [access-uk] Apple is at the vanguard of a push behind technology
> helping old-fashioned Braille replace text-to-speech audio for the blind
>
> Apple is at the vanguard of a push behind technology helping old-fashioned
> Braille replace text-to-speech audio for the blind
>
> Apple is at the vanguard of a push behind technology that's helping
> old-fashioned Braille replace text-to-speech audio for the blind - and it
> couldn't have come at a more critical time
>
> On a lazy Sunday afternoon, Chancey Fleet reads the menu of Bombay Garden
> to
> four friends gathered at the back of the Chelsea-based Indian restaurant
> in
>
> New York City.
>
>
>
> Although she is reading aloud, there are no menus on the table. They
> aren't
> necessary, because Fleet is blind.
>
>
>
> Instead, she reads using a Braille display that sits unobtrusively on her
> lap and connects to her iPhone via Bluetooth, electronically converting
> the
> onscreen
>
> text into different combinations of pins. She reads by gently but firmly
> running her fingers over the pins with her left hand while navigating the
> phone
>
> with her right.
>
>
>
> "The iPhone is the official phone of blindness," she told the Guardian.
>
>
>
> Until recently, technology, especially that which converts text to audio,
> has been hastening the demise of Braille, which educators say is a bad
> thing.
>
> Students who can read Braille tend on average to acquire higher literacy
> rates and fare better professionally later on. But Apple's push into the
> field
>
> - coupled with increasingly affordable Braille displays - has the
> potential
> to bring Braille back in a big way.
>
>
>
> Fleet's iPhone has a built-in screen reader called VoiceOver that works
> with
> all native applications. It tells Fleet what her finger is touching,
> allowing
>
> her to download the restaurant menu and read it, access her email, and do
> anything else she needs to with the phone, either by converting text into
> Braille
>
> on the separate display or by reading out loud to her. (Here's a video of
> the process at work.)
>
>
>
> Fleet also uses her display to type, rather than navigate with her iPhone
> or
> computer keyboard. It has a spacebar and with eight thumb-sized keys - one
>
> that works as a backspace key, another as an enter key, and the remainder
> that function as the six dot positions that comprise a Braille character.
>
>
>
> When Apple released the first accessible iPhone in 2009, "it took the
> blind
> community by storm," said Fleet. "We didn't know, nobody knew, that Apple
> was
>
> planning an accessible device. The device went from being an infuriating
> brick to a fluid, usable, opportunity-levelling device in one iteration."
>
>
>
> Apple has shown that "devices aren't inaccessible because they have to be,
> but because companies made them with a lack of imagination," said Fleet.
> "Apple
>
> proved that a blind person could use an interface that didn't have
> physical
> buttons."
>
>
>
> Anne Taylor, director of access technology for the National Federation of
> the Blind, agrees.
>
>
>
> "Apple has set the bar very high," she said. "No other mobile OS provider,
> such as Google or Microsoft, has made Braille available on their mobile
> platform."
>
>
>
> Apple's iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and third generation iPod Touch
> already
> support more than 30 Bluetooth wireless Braille displays. And the
> company's
>
> recent push into digital textbooks could greatly reduce the time it takes
> for Braille textbooks to be available to students, not to mention reduce
> their
>
> cost and size: a single print textbook must be transformed into several
> volumes of Braille.
>
>
>
> "Ebooks can be a game changer if they're properly designed because it
> would
> allow us to get access to the same books at the same time at the same
> price
>
> as everyone else," said Christopher Danielsen, spokesman for the NFB.
> "Publishers and manufacturers have to ensure they are designed to be
> accessible to
>
> work with braille displays. That's what Apple has done. Apple is not
> perfect
> but they're way, way ahead of everybody else in this area."
>
>
>
> The benefits of Braille
>
> Apple's accessibility efforts come at a pivotal time. For decades now, the
> number of Braille users has been on the decline. Data from the American
> Printing
>
> House for the Blind's annual registry of legally blind students shows that
> in 1963, 51% of legally blind children in public and residential schools
> used
>
> Braille as their primary reading medium. In 2007 this number fell to just
> 10%, while in 2011 it stood at under 9%.
>
>
>
> While there are many reasons for the decline of Braille, technology that
> converts text to speech has been identified as a major factor. In a
> nationwide
>
> sample of 1,663 teachers of visually impaired and blind students conducted
> in the early 1990s, 40% chose reliance on technology as a reason behind
> Braille's
>
> decline.
>
>
>
> "When we experienced the tech boom in the nineties, I was led to believe
> speech was the way forward, that Braille was becoming obsolete," said
> William
>
> O'Donnell, a Manhattan-based student who has been blind since birth.
>
>
>
> But learning or reading using Braille - rather than audio - has distinct
> advantages, say educators.
>
>
>
> "There's this tremendous importance to seeing the way print looks on a
> page,
> what punctuation does and looks like in a sentence," said Catherine
> Mendez,
>
> who works as a kindergarten teacher at Public School 69 in the Bronx.
> "Braille in the context of early literacy is huge. If we can get these
> devices into
>
> the hands of kids early we can bolster their understanding in a way speech
> can't do."
>
>
>
> There are professional benefits to learning Braille too. A survey
> conducted
> by Louisiana Tech University's Professional Development and Research
> Institute
>
> on Blindness found that people with sight disabilities who learn to read
> through Braille have a much higher chance of finding a job, even more than
> those
>
> who read large print.
>
>
>
> And once you get that job Braille might help you keep it. "In business
> meetings it's more unobtrusive to use Braille. If I want to multitask,
> headphones
>
> are rude, but Braille is acceptable," said Fleet. She uses Braille when
> writing formal letters or papers, or preparing notes for a public speech
> or
> presentation.
>
>
>
> A 'literacy crisis'
>
> Still, for now Braille displays can only show one line of Braille at a
> time
> and can cost between $3,000 and $15,000 - depending on the number of
> characters
>
> they display at a time - which is prohibitively expensive for some. "For
> me
> it was not practical to continue to use Braille," said Mendez, who does
> not
>
> own a Braille display.
>
>
>
> How the cost will come down is a problem that scientists are working to
> solve. Dr Peichun Yung, a postdoctoral research associate at the
> electrical
> and
>
> computer engineering department of North Carolina State University, who
> lost
> his own eyesight in an accident, has been working on a device that would
> raise
>
> dots that by using a hydraulic and latching mechanism made of an
> electroactive polymer, which is both cheaper and more resilient than the
> prevailing technology.
>
>
>
> "There is a Braille literacy crisis right now," said Yung. "Literacy is
> the
> foundation for having a job and living an independent life. For reading
> every
>
> day, you cannot just rely on speech."
>
> My desires for you and yours at this time of the year
> will be found in my signature.
>
> Colin Howard, living near Southampton in Southern
> England, hopes all have enjoyed a blessed Christmas
> day and will have a peaceful, prosperous and happy
> 2013, remember the Babe of Bethlehem is not the end of
> this story, for when he grew up, he died on a cross
> shedding his blood, so we could be absolved from sin
> and so have the relationship with our creator, he
> always intended for us.
> ** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:-
> ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe]
> ** If this link doesn't work then send a message to:
> ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> ** and in the Subject line type
> ** unsubscribe
> ** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the
> ** immediately-following link:-
> ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq]
> ** or send a message, to
> ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq
>
>
>
> ** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:-
> ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe]
> ** If this link doesn't work then send a message to:
> ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> ** and in the Subject line type
> ** unsubscribe
> ** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the
> ** immediately-following link:-
> ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq]
> ** or send a message, to
> ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq
>
** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:-
** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe]
** If this link doesn't work then send a message to:
** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
** and in the Subject line type
** unsubscribe
** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the
** immediately-following link:-
** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq]
** or send a message, to
** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq
** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:-
** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe]
** If this link doesn't work then send a message to:
** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
** and in the Subject line type
** unsubscribe
** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the
** immediately-following link:-
** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq]
** or send a message, to
** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq
Other related posts: