Category: accessible Devices
Hi, I'm looking into getting a refreshable braille display for work. Does anyone know how well these work with forms that have been scanned onto the screen? Also, how portable are they? Any input would be great. Thanks.
Hi
A braille display is just an extension of your screen reader and, generally, will not add much output to the voice, only adds more accuracy and flexibility in manipulating the screen reader, using command line for instance, easier spell checking and navigation around the program screen. For some software braille cursors are more comfortable to work with than the Jaws cursor I find, but the displays are only as good as the screen reading software you have. If voice does not read back to you the content of a scanned form the display won't either. However most OCR software can scan with pretty good accuracy, especially plain text.
Braille displays are veryportable really, but of course they depend on a screen reader being installed on the machine you work with (unless you have a thumb drive).
Most of them connect via USB, some even via Blue tooth, they way between a pound and 5 or 6 pounds, even more for the really old ones.
They arenot cheap, I have a 40 cell and 80 cell displays I want to cell, practically unused Focus from FS, 40-cell around 1200, 80-cell around 3500 or 4 grand, nigotiable.
That's on the very low end you should expect to have to pay for a bralle display, but an employer often pays those things for you.
Cheers
-B
Most displays are pretty portable. The smallest I remember seeing is the Brailliant, made by Humanware, I think.
just an FYI:
some electronic notetakers like the BrailleNote from Humanware can be attached to a computer and used as a braille display.
They are getting smaller and lighter all the time. The Braille Connect from Humanware is probably the smallest I've ever seen. It bosta a whopping ten cells. I think they are marketing it for use with a cell phone, but the display is bigger than the phone. The one thing I really like about displays in general is the ability to make corrections. It isn't dependent on how you have the speech level of punctuation set. In other words, it will show commas, dashes, and the like no matter what the speech tells you. Also, I tend to leave extra spaces between words. Granted, the spell checker catches them, but its really nice to correct your own work without Bill Gates or Steve Jobs looking over your shoulder.
Lou