I understand how placing the hands on the device creates a virtual set of
keys, what isn't clear is how one actually uses that keyboard. Since Braille
requires up to six keys pressed in combination, how does a person indicate
the he or she is brailing, rather than just calling up the keyboard? You
have to lift your fingers off the pad before Brailing a letter, so then
what? Don't know if I explaining this well, but Brailing is obviously not
the same issue as typing which is only one key at a time.
-----Original Message-----
From: Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of doris marvel fisher
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 5:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [VICUG-L] stanford braille keyboard
This was posted elsewhere so I thought I would share it here.
Touchscreen Braille Writer Lets the Blind Type on a Tablet By Christina
Bonnington October 12, 2011 | 12:00 pm | Categories: R&D and Inventions One
group of people has traditionally been left out of our modern tablet
revolution: the visually impaired. Our slick, button-less touchscreens are
essentially useless to those who rely on touch to navigate around a computer
interface, unless voice-control features are built in to the device and its
OS.
But a Stanford team of three has helped change that. Tasked to create a
character-recognition program that would turn pages of Braille into readable
text on an Android tablet, student Adam Duran, with the help of two
mentor-professors, ended up creating something even more useful than his
original assignment: a touchscreen-based Braille writer.
Currently a senior at New Mexico State University, Duran arrived at Stanford
in June to take part in a two-month program offered by the Army
High-Performance Computing Research Center (AHPCRC). The program is a
competition: Participants are given research assignments, ranging in the
past from aerospace modeling to parallel computing, and vie for honors
awarded at the end of the summer. This year, projects aimed to solve a
problem using the Android platform. Duran and his team's project, titled "A
virtual Braille keyboard," was this year's winner for "Best Android
Application."
Duran was challenged to use the camera on a mobile device, like the Motorola
Xoom, to create an app that transforms physical pages of Braille text into
readable text on the device. From the get-go, there were problems with this
plan.
"How does a blind person orient a printed page so that the computer knows
which side is up? How does a blind person ensure proper lighting of the
paper?" Duran said in an interview with Stanford News. "Plus, the
technology, while definitely helpful, would be limited in day-to-day
application."
So Duran and his mentors, Adrian Lew, an assistant professor of mechanical
engineering, and Sohan Dharmaraja, a Stanford Ph.D. candidate studying
computational mathematics, decided to develop a writer app, instead of a
reader. Currently, the visually impaired must use desktop-based
screen-reading software or specially-designed laptops with Braille displays
in order to type using a computer.
Because a blind person can't locate the keys of a virtual keyboard on a
flat, glossy touchscreen, the team decided to bring the keys themselves to
the user's fingertips. Specifically, when the user sets eight fingers on the
device, virtual keys align underneath each of the user's fingers. The team's
Braille keyboard is comprised of eight keys: six that are used to compose a
Braille character, a carriage return, and a backspace key. If the user gets
disoriented, he or she can re-establish the keyboard layout with a lift and
re-application of the hands.
"The solution is so simple, so beautiful. It was fun to see," Lew said. Such
a keyboard is also useful because it customizes itself to the user,
adjusting the onscreen keys based on the user's finger size and spacing. (I
wish my iOS keyboard did that!) Duran demoed the app blind-folded, typing
out an email address as well as complicated mathematical and scientific
formulas, proving the keyboard could be useful to educators, students and
researchers. He also got to see a blind person use his app for the first
time, which he said was an indescribable feeling, "It was the best."
Lew said via email, "We do not yet know how exactly this will reach final
users, but we are committed to make it happen." The team has several options
they will be considering over the next few weeks, so perhaps we could even
see an app end up in the Android Market soon.
The tablet-based system costs 10 times less than most modern Braille typing
solutions, and, based on the video below, appears to be anything but vapor.
dory
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