Maybe I'm just being cranky, but I think people are getting much too excited 
over this project.  It is just the work of a couple of graduate students in 
a summer program.  There is no paln to go to market.  No prototype for any 
of us to examine.  It sounds interesting, but I just don't see the point in 
spending much energy on worrying about what all it will and won't do. 
Again, maybe I'm just in a cranky mood -- or maybe my critical brain 
discredited them the minute I read the part of the announcement that braille 
was invented by the French military.
Deborah

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sun Sounds of Arizona" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 12:17 PM
Subject: Re: [VICUG-L] stanford braille keyboard


> Yes Terry, it does, and I figured it was something like that. The article
> didn't say though, and you'd have to become used to keeping your hands 
> very
> still and also not resting your hands on the "keys". As I am a very fast
> Brailist, I wonder what the lag time is.
>
> Mark, if there was a back translation app, you'd just use the dot six as 
> the
> capital sign like normal. That would be the easiest way for this to work 
> for
> a true Braille user.
>
> -----Original Messag e-----
> From: Terri Hedgpeth [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 8:30 AM
> To: Sun Sounds of Arizona; [log in to unmask]
> Subject: RE: [VICUG-L] stanford braille keyboard
>
> Bill,
> The way this app works is that it establishes the spatial position of the 
> 8
> Braille keys when you place all 8 fingers on the screen.  Then you type 
> the
> Braille letters by tapping the corresponding finger combination for the
> desired Braille letter.  So for a letter b you would touch the screen with
> both your index and middle fingers at the same time.  For letter c, you 
> tap
> both index fingers at the same time maintaining the same spacing between
> them you had on your initial tap with all 8 fingers.
> Does my explanation make sense?
> ===================================================
> Terri Hedgpeth Ed.D.
> Director, Disability Resource Center
> PO Box 873202
> Arizona State University
> Tempe, AZ 85287-3202
> Assistant: (480) 965-3366
> Direct: (480) 727-8133
> Fax: (480) 965-0441
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> ==================================================
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sun Sounds of Arizona
> Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 8:02 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [VICUG-L] stanford braille keyboard
>
> 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
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
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