01/02/2008 - Blog

An inexpensive BCD

The aim of the this project is, unsurprisingly, to produce an inexpensive Braille cell display; ideally one that will retail at or under £300.

According to John Gill, head of the science division of the RNIB, There is an unmet need for an inexpensive easy-to-use reliable Braille display. And he's right, too. A quick meander around the market reveals the astonishingly high prices blind users are expected to pay in order to be able to read Braille from a computer.

These prices are consequences of the mechanical complexity of current models. While there has been various attempts in the past to upgrade the hardware so it can be produced more cheaply, thus far all attempts have failed to make it past either patent or prototype stage. And for a very simple reason. Technologies explored or sponsored by institutions such as Texas Institute, Stanford Research Institute and IBM include;

• Electric Shock,
• Thermal sensing,
• Electrorheological fluids,
• Electrorestrictive polymers,
• Shape memory alloys.

The simple reason being that the new technological solutions were not simple, they were in fact more complex than the problem. By contrast, this project intends to use just four electric motors. In a box.

22/11/2008 - Drobe

Prototype affordable Braille display in development

A low-cost computer-controlled Braille board has been prototyped by a RISC OS-using university student. Undergraduate Edward Rogers hopes to sell his completed units for as little as 200 quid each to schools and families to allow more blind children to continue learning Braille. And he said he wanted to launch his venture using RISC OS-powered kit before offering a package for other platforms.

Edward's mechanical Braille board, also known as a cell display, uses little motors to push Braille alphabet patterns onto a flexible surface that the blind can then read using their fingertips. A computer is connected to the display and software feeds text from web browsers and other applications to the motors. According to Edward, displays already on the market use complex mechanics and can cost between £3,000 and £10,000 - a price tag that is too much for most parents to swallow, leaving the blind cut off from the Internet and other technologies.

As part of his degree with the Bristol School of Animation, final-year Edward produced a RISC OS and Windows driver for the Arduino interface kit, (pictured right), devised and built his motor-driven cell display and created the software to link it all together. A second prototype is due to be construction by June next year.

Revealing why he chose this particular project, he said: "My enthusiasm for somewhat Heath Robinson-style solutions to problems outside of the general public eye kick started my imagination for the cell display. It was designed solely by me."

Edward, who has had brief contact with a couple of RISC OS companies to gauge their interest in the kit, explained: "Braille cell displays are an electronic mechanical rendering of text from the screen of a computer onto a refreshable Braille board. The primary method used by most blind people to read off a computer is a screen reader with a voice synthesiser.

"Very few blind adults can read or are capable of learning to read Braille because most go blind during their adulthood. Braille reading is largely the preserve of those born blind or blinded during childhood. Therefore most children will learn. This is done with embossed documents rather than computerised ones.

"However when the child finishes the initial learning there is seldom the necessary facilities at affordable prices to allow their skills to develop and so instead it withers.

"Some schools will have a cell display for the student to occasionally practice on but there will usually not be any available for general classroom use. The ideal solution is the portable computers and cell displays known as notetakers, which have essentially the same functionality as a PDA - but these retail for between £3,000 and £10,000.

"The aim of the £200 Braille cell display project is, unsurprisingly, to produce a Braille cell display hardware and software package that will retail at or under £200."

Mechanical Braille boards are not a new technology and a lot of time and research has been spent on the subject. Boffins at IBM and the Texas Institute and Stanford Research Institute have explored using electrical shocks, thermal sensing, fluids and other materials that stiffen in the presence of electrical current and similar magic - all of which add up to a rather expensive bill for end-users.

Edward added: "These huge price tags are down to the mechanical complexity of current models. The core element of these cell displays, the piezo-electric pins, are what keep the prices so high as there must be at least 240 of them, costing over £4 each. While there has been various attempts in the past to upgrade the hardware so it can be produced more cheaply, thus far all attempts have failed to make it past either the patent or prototype stage.

"However, where they failed, my project expects to succeed. The simple reason being that the new technological solutions were more complex than the problem. By contrast, this project operates primarily off four electric motors.

"Cell displays require information to be fed to them via a screen reader, which takes the text off the desktop and open windows. There are several large commercial screen readers available for Microsoft Windows, most notably Jaws, but they are all extremely expensive.

"Therefore, while it is essential the reader be made compatible with Jaws, it will be released with a free or very cheap screen reader package. Currently the only screen reader is a simple text file reader and navigator programmed by myself on BBC Basic for Windows, purely for the purposes of testing."

In Edward's system, the blind person's computer talks to the Arduino electronics and sends it the text that needs to be displayed. The embedded microprocessor on the Arduino, programmed by Edward, turns the signals into motor movements. Edward has also started work on basic scanning and OCR support for his system.

He said: "I aim to have a package which runs off RISC OS, possibly through the ROOL ROM and emulator option if it becomes available or on second-hand RiscPCs, and can access the Internet, browse directories and read various types of text files. Running on RISC OS initially will allow it time to develop and iron out flaws before jumping into the Windows ring with the industry giants - as well, that is, as promoting the platform. Early versions of the software will be aimed at schools willing to test the new system rather than personal usage."

The kit has been demonstrated at his university although a field test was halted when the material onto which the Braille is pushed was found to be unsuitable. It's hoped that his cell display will eventually feel as similar to paper as possible.

Edward said: "The initial prototype developed a fundamental flaw which, though it has now been rectified, meant all testing and feedback had to be cancelled, quite literally within the final hour.

"The machine, in its semi-functional form was demonstrated to my university colleagues. However it was due to be tested by a parents association, a teachers group and all the regional branches of the RNIB for the West Country. Where as the university was interested in how far the project had progressed, these other groups were going to test the actual readability of the Braille produced.

"The material used to emboss onto turned out not to be adequate - so while the motors turned out perfectly readable Braille, there was nothing from which a blind person could read it. Therefore the tests were cancelled."

Edward also had to learn C++ in order to develop the program code for the Arduino board, which he had to learn as the project progressed. He said: "I'm not a natural programmer so learning even basic C++ was very difficult. On the mechanical side, the greatest challenge is keeping the machine as simple as possible while building in full functionality."

Asked if he felt his work was pioneering, Edward said: "I wouldn't feel comfortable assuming the work is pioneering. Many others have tried and failed with other more exciting and revolutionary concepts to reach a solution. Elements of these previous projects have been inspirational for me, but will be applied to far simpler technologies in this case. I am wary, when the machine is so far from completion, of putting too much expectation into those four motors."

Edward said he wanted to concentrate on completing his last year at university before completing the Braille board project.

10/09/2010 - PM Studio

Developing a revolutionary cheap Braille Cell Display for the blind & visually impaired

Objective

To transform the lives of blind people by providing a Braille Cell Display (BCD - a device that reads information off a computer screen and translates it instantaneously into Braille) at an affordable price. This will give them access to tactile reading which the vast majority do not currently have as existing BCDs are too expensive.The aim is to maximise the number of blind Braille users globally who can access computers with a BCD by cutting the cost drastically. Currently available models cost upwards of 1,400 and are usually around the 3,000 price mark. Our target sales price is 300.

The ultimate goal is a BCD that is affordable even in developing countries, which can be achieved through repeated cycles of product development, funded by reinvesting surpluses at each stage.

Product Development Approach

Start simply, grow organically and develop the product very actively based on user feedback. Product development will be an ongoing process, with the initial batch of 500-1,000 concentrating on mechanical robustness. Development of the second generation cell display will be heavily based on the experiences and comments of the purchasers and testers of batch one.

Initial target market is the UK, then international expansion through viral marketing and PR. Within three-to-five years, we expect to see these devices in widespread use in British schools, homes & charities and beginning to make inroads into other countries such as India & the USA. We will be able to partner with overseas development organisations and international charities to achieve the most widespread access.

Customer Support

With customer support we intend to clearly surpass the competition. Expansion of the user base will be gradual rather than depend on a sudden influx of demand. By taking this route we ensure a thorough approach to customer support and relations which will grow to meet needs. Initial marketing will be done both virally and personally, approaching existing networks/groups of parents with blind children & blind computer users. There will be a system of user groups set up which, as well as aiding in the continued development of the BCD, will help propagate the use of Braille.

Financing requirements

Each batch is paid for by pre-orders and the operating surpluses from that batch go towards R&D to cut cost of manufacture and improve the quality & design of the next model. There will be little or no need for outside investment.

Find out more

We welcome expressions of interest from both potential customers and those interested in joining the development process. Please send your e-mails to pachpict@sdf.lonestar.org.

30/09/2010 - Blog

Possibilities for intelligent mobile screen readers

Introduction

Why couldn't a screen reader do more than layer itself over an inappropriate GUI? Why, in this age of the smartphone, couldn't it intelligently manage the content within a flexible, independent container of its own creation?

Screen readers

The Pachyderms’ Picture BCD will, when built, rely entirely on a software package for the blind and visually impaired known as a screen reader. It is the same for all BCDs. The screen reader interprets the textual and graphical output produced by other programs and by the OS itself, matches this against the user's key commands and then either speaks it aloud or feeds the resulting line of Grade 1 or Grade 2 Braille to the BCD. Some of these are hardwired into systems (such as the sonorously voiced Microsoft Narrator on all versions of Windows post ME), some are free (such as Orca) and some are stand-alone commercial products (such as the highly popular JAWS).

A screen reader's function is to provide an efficient way of navigating around the modern GUI by keyboard whilst simultaneously reducing the information therein down to the bare textual content. Perhaps they're missing an opportunity to do more than this. Or rather, perhaps the current trends within smartphone operating systems presents an opportunity for them.

A smartphone trend

Increasingly noticeable through the haze of the iPhone's two-finger-stroke-operated glamour, which has so thoroughly enveloped the rejuvenated smartphone market, is the trend towards seeing computing devices as a way of efficiently bringing together individual packets of information. Not necessarily information as it is to be found on a web browser, a sprawling mass of chaotic links though which the user floats; neither as a series of large lumpen files, dotted across the folder metaphor of a hard disc. Rather, it is a stream of distinct nuggets of information which, though quite possibly as closely related to each other in content as the paragraphs in a website's homepage or Microsoft Word file, are intended to be far more flexible in the mode of their delivery.

The rapid patter of incoming texts, tweets, RSS updates, weather reports, Facebook messages, pokes, GPS directions, pictures of cats and, of course, e-mails from the Managing Director of the Bank of Nigeria is what defines modern smartphone usage. Not so much tools to aid the creation and consumption of complete and relatively lengthy forms of media (films, word-processed documents, PC games &c.) as traditional desktop computers usually are; the smartphones running iOS, Android, QNX et al. focus more on manipulating this stream to constantly present the user with whatever vital or utterly trivial nuggets they most want to see at that very moment. God forbid that your phone should do anything but fall over itself to present you with instant updates on the latest everything.

Getting to the point

The smartphone category, which has risen so rapidly in significance and popularity over the last few years with the renewed focus on slick GUIs, makes much use of this very modular approach to information. And as this approach is highly suitable to screen readers which, of course, put absolutely no focus on slick GUIs, it may be that the two types of product, superficially with little similarity between them, could in fact be well suited to each other.

Could it be possible for screen readers on mobiles to take advantage of this modularity? Perhaps so, by using it to populate unique, dynamic documents which represents everything the blind user is interested in and is participating in. A kind of XML file into which the screen reader inputs information, the user reads the information, the user enters information and the screen reader sends this new or altered information back to the app or system call responsible for that communication. This could sit on top of the file system and the network access, not obliging the user to interact with either but mirroring them, so that any changes are instantly relayed back from the dynamic document to the underlying system and visa versa.

By virtue of its absolute reliance on text (whether spoken or rendered in Braille) a screen reader of this ilk could make hay of current trends and introduce their users to an experience which may be so efficient in its focus and flexibility that for some forms of creation and consumption it surpasses even the methods available to the sighted user.

Caveat lector

How, exactly, would this work? I don't know. I don't even know generally, let alone exactly. It was a thought which struck me whilst I was being especially anal about the mark-up of a HTML5 website I'm half way through writing, a thought which I've tried to put on paper in essentially the same form that it occurred to me. It is therefore largely unsubstantiated or researched, but, nevertheless, one which I feel might have some promise.

I'd be interested if anyone else has been thinking along similar lines, knows an existing solution or even (especially, in fact) some flaw, some unfounded assumption in this article which has eluded me. I can be contacted within the Studio most days of the week, or via pachpict@sdf.lonestar.org.