Hello everyone,
I now see what Ken has said on this mailing list and can agree with it
100%. There are two new equipment purchases which lead me to this
conclusion.
The first is one of the new Humanware Brilliant BI 40x displays. APH
is selling the Mantis, but unfortunately (for me ) this has QWERTY
input, and I wanted the standard 8-key type. It's clear to me that the
Chameleon 20, Brilliant 20 are the exact same display, except that APH
is able to provide a lower cost to consumers by providing the
Chameleon under their name. This was similar to the PlexTalk /
Bookport situation. I burnt out the book port by accidentally plugging
in both the AC adapter and USB cable. Not a good idea, kids. Some
devices just don't turn off charging on both, and that can fry
internal things. So went the Bookport, but I did find a PlexTalk as a
replacement for it. So there's that.
There is, however, a big difference between the era of yesteryear and
the one of today. The Plextalk / Bookport used same firmware
structure, but both had different firmware files which could be loaded
on your model. The Plextalk was used internationally, so a lot of
European countries saw it, whereas the Bookport + was a U.S exclusive.
Either way,
today we are faced with a world where both the APH devices and the BI
40X models can use the same firmware file. They can run the same
build, and each will display their own hardware-driven differences,
such as Keysoft Light being used on BI 40X, but Mantis/ Chameleon
hiding those Keysoft things and presenting people with the right user
guide for their model.
How is this done? Surprisingly, the firmware for these devices is more
open than custom-built Humanware Apex arm platforms of the past, or
even the Everest-based bootloader boards used by a BrailleNote touch.
They use simple .tar files for the filesystems, but there's good
signature verification on these files so you would need to generate
with keys you don't have if you were to tinker with the package. From
the get-go, the thing I liked and what surprised me is just how much
security is still considered in these devices, but we'll get into this
later.
Either way, I found a few surprises hidden in there. I can tell you
that the entire E-Speak speech synthesizer is in the current firmware,
indicating to me that they may expand full speech functionality (or at
least for book reading if not full speech) using Mbrola based HMM
synthesis technology. This is present today, just not activated. There
are also a bunch of sample .mp3 files in the root user's home folder,
which appears to be used when you get these things in a diagnostic
mode. (that part is still hidden to me, which is good as again, it
shows how well they can still restrict security on a Linux
environment.)
This presents a huge opportunity for expansion in the future on these
devices. I found out that the way they can code for knowing which you
have is simple. These devices are built on off-the-shelf hardware.
Specifically the SAMA5D3 Xplained User Guide -
Atmel-11269-32-bit-Cortex-A5-Microcontroller-SAMA 5D3 breadboard. This
is amazing. In fact, you can view the entire spec sheet for it here:
http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/devicedoc/Atmel-11269-32-bit-Cortex-A5-Microcontroller-SAMA5D3-Xplained_User-Guide.pdf
So, we can tell many specs of the hardware right off the bat, and that
standard off-the-shelf parts power them, including a Cortex A5 chip
and at least a gig of Ram. In their Linux implementation, there's a
/dev/brldsplay (or something similar, perhaps /dev/brailledisplay)
which drives the Braille output at all times. This is also how the
"recovery mode" prompt can be displayed by the bootloader. These
breadboards appear to have either 1 or 2 gigs of ram, and they pair it
with various Bluetooth chips in the hardware difference process:
Bluetooth 5 for the BI 40x only, 4.2 for Bi 20x, Mantis, Chameleon.
What's interesting is that the famously talked about NLS ereader is
based off this same series also. This means that the EReader (as it is
known internally) has a 20-cell display (just like Chameleon, Bi 20X)
and an exactly identical interface / firmware to these devices. The
difference? Only the BARD online service will be accessible on them
with the "online services" menu.
That's right, here we get into more interesting things. The Chameleon
right now excludes the BARD service, and it's a curious omission.
Perhaps agreements had to be made since the NLS product will have that
service, and it's exactly the same looking device. Either way, all APH
would have to do is to flip the switch on the menu item for Mantis and
Chameleon users, and they would get BARD listed. But at this point,
this could also undercut Humanware's products, although the Mantis
never will as it's the QWERTY brother to the BI 40x. However, today,
the Chameleon is about $300 cheaper over the Bi 20x, and the only
thing you miss out on is the BARD service. I've heard rumblings from a
few people that BARD support may still ultimately arrive on the APH
devices, and I think it should considering how many students may need
that support for their textbooks.
The other device I was able to acquire is an embosser. I'm still
looking for tactile graphics to use which are good to print, but this
can open up a bit more opportunities for me as well when it comes to
creating diagrams of things. One device that came with the embosser is
the GoBraille
You might be a bit surprised to know that the GoBraille is built on a
Raspberry Pi. That's right. When I saw the layout of the board, I
instantly knew. It has 4 USB ports + ethernet on the left, Micro-USB
in the back, standard HDMI in the back. Oh, and it announces its IP
address from the headphone port. How cute.
In a way though, you're also paying for the formatter and embosser
interface + custom drivers all that could require to print Tiger
graphics. Certainly making it air-print compatible over CUPS,
configuring how the embosser's Graphics VS text mode will work, all of
that requires a bit of custom coding. The frontend to the LibLouis
translator through the GoBraille web interface, it being able to
translate text when it comes across wireless printing, and configuring
the Wi-fi over Wi-fi direct + other extras that make that device user
friendly. Still, it's built on off-the-shelf hardware. And that's a
bit remarkable.
So Linux does have a huge place to carve out in the future of
assistive technology. I think many more things to come will be built
either atop Linux or Android, and this will propel them into the
future where more modern hardware can e used within these devices,
rather than hardware that's a few years old already by the time they
get to design all the custom motors and servos and whatever else to
interface with it. I know they have built .so Linux libraries which
drive some of this now, which opens up a potential of re-use or easier
re-configuration to fit a wide range of Linux hardware.
Just don't be surprised, because that Linux revolution is already
here, and we live among it. Now I just wish I could somehow localize
or help localize the Chameleon's or Bi X series firmware into
Hungarian. That would be amazing.
Sincerely,
Tamas
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