[vicsireland] Braille comes unbound from the book: how technology can stop a literary crisisApple is at the vanguard of a push behind technology that's helping old-
- From: "Joan Ann Brosnan" <kerrygirl18@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2012 22:41:36 -0000
Braille comes unbound from the book: how technology can stop a literary
crisisApple 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
Saabira Chaudhuri
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 14 February 2012 18.01 GMT Article history
Nihal Erkan, a blind woman who moved to New York from Turkey in 2005, on her
Apple laptop. Photograph: Saabira Chaudhuri/The Guardian
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."
Nihal Erkan. Photograph: Saabira Chaudhuri For those who own both an iPhone
or laptop and a Braille display, having to choose between audio and Braille
isn't necessary. Nowadays, the two go hand in hand ? literally. Many of the
technologies that convert text to speech also convert it into a form that
can be read on a refreshable Braille display, making Braille far more
accessible for those who own both devices.
"Braille has a versatility and a fluidity that it has never had before,"
said Fleet. While she recalls owning a pocket dictionary in seventh grade
that took up "eight huge volumes," now "Braille has come unbound from the
book".
"Braille is portable, searchable, downloadable. You can convert print to
Braille yourself," she said. "You can go to a library or use Bookshare,
which is free for students, and if you harness it, Braille is better than
it's ever been."
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Comments
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ta6rma
14 February 2012 10:12PM
Well done Apple.
Recommend? (8)
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| Link SkintAndDemoralised
14 February 2012 10:37PM
Well done to the scientists who have been working on creating this
technology.
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| Link Sofalofa
15 February 2012 12:12AM
Innovative and brilliant - second comments above.
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| Link deafhound
15 February 2012 1:06AM
That was really heartening to read. :-)
I hope that one day voice recognition software gets good enough to make real
time subtitling services for deaf and hard of hearing possible too.
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| Link agghTea
15 February 2012 1:54AM
Another typical Guardian article essentially giving free advertisement to
Apple. When will the tech editors just admit that a tried, grasping, evil
software company can never innovate the way open software can ..... oh....
bugger
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| Link Alcib
15 February 2012 7:29AM
Support for Braille, despite the usual breathless Apple promotion, has been
around on Linux and Windows for many years now. Many years. Just google it.
You will come upon among other things BTRTTY, Braillie fonts, etc etc.
By the way, sit down while you read the next part. Linux and Windows have
ebook readers as well. When did they do that? Yes, when did they?
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| Link marvin500
15 February 2012 8:00AM
Response to ta6rma, 14 February 2012 10:12PM
This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our
community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our
FAQs.
VIPiPhoneuser
15 February 2012 4:16PM
Why is it that inovative solutions to practical problems are so often
heralded as somehow marvelous, when they are so often out of the financial
reach of so many potential users? Well done yes, but let us remember that it
doesn't cost anything to read hard copy Braille!
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