# possible Braille touch pad in the works

Category: Geeks r Us

## Post 1 by Blue Velvet (I've got the platinum golden silver bronze poster award.) on Thursday, 27-Oct-2011 11:34:19

This article is from the October 24 Matilda Zeigler Magazine.
Alena Roberts - A Touch Screen Braille Keyboard Coming to a Tablet Near You
The ability to use a touch screen as a blind person is amazing, but it is still quite difficult to type efficiently. IOS devices like the iPhone can have
a physical blue tooth keyboard or braille display attached to them, but this adds extra cost and requires extra space for traveling. What if instead, the
blind could write using a braille keyboard on the touch screen itself? Well now, a team at Stanford University has come up with a way to do this.
According to the lead designer, to use the braille keyboard the person simply places their eight fingers on the touch screen once. The touch screen then
recognizes that the person wants to type using braille. As long as the person keeps their fingers close to where they started, they can start typing and
the program will adjust to movements in your finger position. If you want to get a drink of water or move your hands to do something else, simply put eight
fingers back on the touch screen and tap once and you can start typing again.
This project could be a way to increase braille literacy because the software will be built into the device. Braille displays and notetakers cost thousands
of dollars which puts them out of reach for a majority of the blind community. If a braille keyboard was available on a tablet PC, then far more people
would have access. The next step should be building in braille output, but that will be more of a challenge.
To learn more about the project, listen to this episode of the market place tech report:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/www_publicradio/tools/media_player/popup.php? name=marketplace/tech_report/2011/10/17/marketplace_tech_report20111017_64
You can also watch this YouTube video presented by Standford University: http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=ABfCXJSjAq0

## Post 2 by LeoGuardian (You mean there is something outside of this room with my computer in it?) on Thursday, 27-Oct-2011 18:27:39

This is encouraging. I still think haptics may provide some means by which inexpensive Braille may be accomplished, if combined with some of the newer polymers. Unfortunately I am not in that particular field, but perhaps the concept of expensive Braille will go away.
As I've said in other places, any blindness organization actually interested at all in Braille or Braille literacy would put its funds towards research into a price-reduced Braille display, one that would be nearly as cheap as speech. Anything less than that, namely all the slogans and so-called inspirational things, is just hot air. It's just a tool: if what I need is a hammer, I don't stand around and talk about hammering skills, I go out in the garage and damned well get one.