{"id":797,"date":"2013-03-04T10:00:26","date_gmt":"2013-03-04T10:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandaretreats.com\/blog\/?p=797"},"modified":"2013-03-26T06:08:36","modified_gmt":"2013-03-26T06:08:36","slug":"ipad-turned-into-braille-keyboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandaretreats.com\/blog\/archives\/797","title":{"rendered":"iPad turned into Braille Keyboard?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"22eac3da-4a23-43fe-b8dc-36d9368e3100\"<\/a>The iPad <\/b>is a line of tablet computer.\u00a0 The iPad has built-in Wi-Fi and on some models, cellular connectivity<\/a>.\u00a0 An iPad can shoot video, take photos, play music and perform online functions such as web-browsing and emailing.<\/p>\n

It turns some previous fundamental thinking about how to make technology accessible to blind people on its head.\u00a0 Instead of using a keyboard or mechanical writer, users type directly onto the flat glass.\u00a0 The inventors used a novel design for the keyboard to overcome the lack of tactile features.<\/p>\n

Smart keyboard<\/b><\/p>\n

“Instead of having fingers that find the buttons, we built buttons that find the fingers,” said Stanford\u2019s Sohan Dharmaraja, one of the researchers on the project. Users place eight fingers on the screen and the keyboard appears. Shaking the device activates a menu, and further interaction is achieved by regular touch gestures.<\/p>\n

Mr Dharmaraja, alongside team-mates Adam Duran \u2013 an undergraduate from New Mexico University \u2013 and assistant professor Adrian Lew, came up with the idea during a boffin\u2019s X-Factor-style contest.\u00a0 The competition, organised each year by Stanford University, challenges students to come up with some innovative future computing ideas over their summer break.<\/p>\n

In demonstrations Mr Duran typed out a complicated mathematical formula and the chemical equation for photosynthesis.<\/p>\n

It also offers a solution for more basic problems. “Imagine being blind in the classroom, how would you take notes? What if you were on the street and needed to copy down a phone number? These are real challenges the blind grapple with every day,” said Prof Lew.<\/p>\n

There are some obvious benefits to using touchscreen technology over traditional Braille writers. “Current physical note takers are big and clunky and range from $3,000 (\u00a32,000) to $6,000 (\u00a34,000). Tablet PCs are available at a fraction of the cost and do so much more,” said Mr Dharmaraja.<\/p>\n

Promising development<\/b><\/p>\n

As part of the project, the students had to learn Braille. The system, originally developed for the French military, is made up of six dots arranged in various patterns. They are read by people\u2019s fingertips.<\/p>\n

The system can seem outdated in a modern era where touchscreens are ubiquitous.\u00a0 Accessible touch screen devices such as the iPad offer a huge range of possibilities for developers and for blind and partially sighted people,” said Robin Spinks, the Royal National Institute for Blind People\u2019s manager of digital accessibility.<\/p>\n

This prototype Braille keyboard for touch screen devices represents a very promising development, and RNIB look forward to being able to test it with our members in the future.\u00a0 It may be some time until the Stanford project is turned into a commercial reality.\u00a0 “Who knows what we will get because of this device. It is opening a door that wasn\u2019t open before,” said Mr Dharmaraja.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The iPad is a line of tablet computer.\u00a0 The iPad has built-in Wi-Fi and on some models, cellular connectivity.\u00a0 An iPad can shoot video, take photos, play music and perform online functions such as web-browsing and emailing. It turns some previous fundamental thinking about how to make technology accessible to blind people on its head.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[23],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandaretreats.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandaretreats.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandaretreats.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandaretreats.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandaretreats.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sandaretreats.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandaretreats.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandaretreats.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandaretreats.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}