RE: Announcing the Orion Smart book

  • From: "Ken Perry" <whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 21:19:42 -0500

We use custom android in the same way Motorola, Samsung, HTC and others are
doing it.  I can tell you we started with Android 2.0 and we are currently
building towards 2.3 and already have plans for 3.0 so if I get hung for
saying that so be it.  The point is for the first time this will be a device
that can keep up with the time.

ken   

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alex Hall
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 9:09 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Announcing the Orion Smart book

Ken, I am not sure if you can answer this or not, but here goes. Did
you guys have to use a custom kernel, or is this just stock Android?
That is, when Google upgrades Android, will the Orion be able to take
advantage of new core features or will users have to wait for you to
adapt things? Also, will Android apps run on this and/or will there be
some sort of custom sdk to take advantage of braille ui elements and
navigation?

On 3/9/11, Joseph Lee <joseph.lee22590@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
> Yes - Orion is powered by Android.
> Cheers,
> Joseph
>
>  ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ken Perry" <whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date sent: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 21:00:05 -0500
> Subject: RE: Announcing the Orion Smart book
>
>
> ON the Icon the only two methods without doc is abc mode and a
> mode called
> Thumb Braille that uses the key pad.  It's a APH patented method.
> Now if you
> want the Icon with 6 key entry then what you want is the Braille
> + it's the
> same hardware as the Icon but add a control, a shift, a space bar
> and the 6
> braile keys to type if you turn it sideways.
>
> As for the Smart Book it is much much much more than just a book.
>
> ken
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dale
> Leavens
> Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 8:45 PM
> To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: Announcing the Orion Smart book
>
> I take your point Ken and I was premature in my conclusions.  I
> went to the
> LevelStar Site and all they show there is the Icon.  On further
> research I
> gather that the Orion is intended to be more of a book reading
> solution, I
> couldn't find out anything about the platform they/you are basing
> it on.
>
> Just for my own satisfaction though, the Icon, is there some
> other form of
> input besides the docking station or is the dock necessary for
> text use?
>
> LevelStar does not really provide much information on their Site
> about their
>
> equipment, not nearly enough to help one decide how useful it
> might be.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ken Perry" <whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 8:25 PM
> Subject: RE: Announcing the Orion Smart book
>
>
> I understand your argument and know it has merit.  I also know
> there is a
>  market for these devices.  The one thing that all the cool touch
> screens
>  do
>  not have is a quick and easy input method.  I personally use
> both an
>  IPhone
>  and a G2 right now.  The main thing I hate about both is having
> to write
>  documents and take notes.  You can record with them fine but if
> you're
>  trying to use it as a document or even a good messaging system
> the input
>  is
>  terrible.   This new device improves on the input by 100 % and
> the output
>  I
>  will leave that up to the people as they try it.  I can tell you
> this
>  though
>  Ivona speech engines are the stuff dreams are made of.
>
>
>  Look we can all argue that one thing is better than the other.
> We can all
>  say it's too expensive even though I am working on the project
> and don't
>  know the cost yet.  One thing we all have to agree on is that
> the more
>  accessible devices the better.
>
>  Ken
>
>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>  [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dale
> Leavens
>  Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 8:10 PM
>  To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>  Subject: Re: Announcing the Orion Smart book
>
>  But so far we don't have the price for the braille display.
>
>  What I quoted was the current hardware as shown on the LevelStar
> Site.
>
>  Unless they have some new refreshable braille technology the
> Orion will be
>
>  a
>
>  lot more than two grand and you can have braille on any number
> of devices
>  these days.
>
>  I agree.  A netbook and at least you have a fully compatible
> word
>  processor,
>  one used by the rest of the world assuming one shares documents
> with the
>  rest of the world.
>
>  for a hundred bucks you can buy a 32 GB card for your Stream.
> Modern SSD
>  drives are used these days maybe the Orion will upgrade to a
> solid state
>  drive.  Even that on the Icon wouldn't justify $1,300.
>
>  I will say that I approve the use of braille but for the speed
> of speech
>  it
>  will have to get a bunch cheaper before I'll be buying int.
>
>  I guess there is a market but I don't see it.
>
>
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: "Alex Midence" <alex.midence@xxxxxxxxx
>  To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>  Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 7:00 PM
>  Subject: Re: Announcing the Orion Smart book
>
>
>  Well, if it does braille output, it's got my vote sight unseen.
> At
>  the price it's selling for, it looks like you can have a little
>  braille display for under 2k.  That's really cool.  I still
> can't
>  afford it, mind, but it's really cool.  I wonder if you can use
> it as
>  an external speech synth and/or braille display for a screen
> reader on
>  a laptop or desktop.  That would be really nifty.  The note
> taker
>  stuff isn't really that exciting to me.  I can grab a $150
> netbook off
>  of craigslist and load up soemthing like Vinux on there and I
> have a
>  powerful note taker right there and then.  You don't even need
> all the
>  stuff Vinux comes with pre-installed really.  All you really
> need is
>  Pico, abook, tudu, mplayer and Lynx running on something with
> speakup
>  installed and you got a decent note taker.  Couple of megs more
> gets
>  you emacspeak and you have something that is just as powerful as
> any
>  word processor out there, imho.  Add a menu feature of some kind
> which
>  launches what you want at the press of a key and you don't even
> need
>  to have the command line come up to bring up your stuff.  That
> braille
>  display and that speech synth though are very attention grabbing
> for
>  me.  Don't get me wrong, I am not knocking all the nice apps
> featured
>  on there.  I just can't see myself going into debt for them when
> I can
>  get a comparable set of them for ffree on a much much cheaper
> machine.
>
>  For daisy, I have a victor reader which also stores songs.  I
> don't
>  need 40 gigs of songs.  IN fact, I have a 2 gig mini flash card
> for my
>  music and an 8 gb one for my audio books.  Podcasts, I get
> through my
>  android phone and stitcher but a braille display, that for under
> 2
>  grand is not to be sneezed at.
>
>  Alex M
>
>  On 3/9/11, Dale Leavens <dleavens@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>  Well, I don't get it.
>
>  The LevelStar Site doesn't give much information on the Icon,
> look like
>  you
>  don't get any input other than audio without the docking station
> which
>  means
>  $1,300 for the Icon and $600 for the keyboard, $1,900
> altogether.  For
>  that
>  you get 8 more gigs of hard drive than you get on an iPhone.
>
>  I presume you can do input in some way outside of the docking
> station
>  but
>  they don't tell you anything about that.
>
>  Having braille output albeit only 18 cells will add to the
> capability of
>  course but it seems redundant to me to have yet another isolated
> note
>  taker.
>
>  The iPhone and come to that the iPod touch already does all that
> stuff
>  and
>  more for less.
>
>
>    ----- Original Message -----
>    From: Littlefield, Tyler
>    To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>    Cc: Ken Perry
>    Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 5:36 PM
>    Subject: Re: Announcing the Orion Smart book
>
>
>    I seen that! And even with no price tag, it's already making
> my wallet
>  clench up in fear.
>    On 3/9/2011 1:39 PM, Ken Perry wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>      I can now show you what I am helping to work on.  Here is
> the
>  announcement that was put out today.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> //www.freelists.org/post/accesscomp/Fw-icondiscuss-A-Glimpse
> -Of-The-Lev
>  elStar-Orion-SmartBooks-At-CSUN-2011
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  --
>
>  Thanks,
>  Ty
>
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-- 
Have a great day,
Alex (msg sent from GMail website)
mehgcap@xxxxxxxxx; http://www.facebook.com/mehgcap
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