[AERNet] Virtual Braille

[Judi Piscitello]

IT World Canada 
Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Virtual Braille opens employment doors for visually impaired

By Nestor E. Arellano
ITWorldCanada.com  (09 Jan 2007) 

Over the last decade the array of assistive devices that help the
visually impaired use computers has grown.  However, the prohibitive
cost of these products prevents their widespread deployment.  Work being
done by a group of researchers from McGill University in Montreal may
soon change that. 

The researchers are working on a Virtual Braille or - an appliance that
is likely to be a lower-priced alternative to conventional Braille
readers.  What's more, virtual Braille (VB) technology is expected to
open up greater employment opportunities for the blind. 

The current model the team is working on is called Stimulator of
Tactile Receptors by Skin Stretch squared (STReSS2).  

"By developing a smaller and simpler device with fewer moving parts, we
hope to create a far cheaper Braille reader than the ones in the market
today," said Vincent Hayward, director, Centre for Intelligent Machines
(CIM), McGill University.  The prototype is among the research projects
exhibited this week by CIM, as part of an event sponsored by Precarn
Inc., an Ottawa-based non-profit consortium of corporations and research
institutes that support the development of intelligent information and
communication technologies. 

McGill University student Vincent Levesque, who is actively involved in
the project, describes how the VB display works.  "You simply plug it
onto the back of a computer, as you would a mouse," said Levesque, who
is pursuing a doctorate in haptics, the study of how humans communicate
with each other through touch.  The prototype is a pad containing an
array of 64 miniature ceramic slabs called "benders" that move laterally
as the device senses text appearing on a computer screen.  The device
reads screen text and its array of "benders" proceeds to translate that
text into Braille, a code devised by a Frenchman nearly 200 years ago. 

The Braille system - created in 1821 by Louis Braille - is still widely
used by the visually impaired to read and write. The system uses a
series of raised dots with varying arrangements to represent characters
of a writing system. Blind persons moving their fingers across a page
written to Braille can read the contents by feeling the words
represented by the dots. 

The team, composed of Hayward, Levesque, Qi Wong and Jerome Pasquero,
call their prototype devices laterotactile displays because the benders
create temporary "lateral skin deformations" as they make contact with a
user's fingers.  With other computer Braille readers, users move their
fingers across a flexible pad to feel for the dots. When the user
finishes reading one line, the pad is "refreshed" and produces another
line of text.  The VB user keeps his finger tip planted on the small pad
but moves the pad across a surface as he would a mouse. 

Levesque said the team is exploring the possibility of incorporating
the device on a mouse. This would enable users to scan the contents of a
computer screen at will, rather than being restricted to reading
line-by-line.  "We still have to work out how this could be accomplished
without the user losing track of what's being read or getting lost on
the page so to speak." 

Most devices on the market today only allow users to read up to a line
of 18 characters, according to Debbie Gillespie, manager, Braille
publishing at the Canadian National Institute of the Blind (CNIB)
Library in Toronto. By contrast, she said, a VB device on a mouse would
serve to "represent the entire screen at once." 

Gillespie says if the concept works it would enable the visually
impaired to "see" the screen lay-out as a sighted user would. "You could
have an entire screen of information literally at your fingertips."  She
said the system would produce crucial time savings and be particularly
beneficial to visually impaired software developers.  An array of
Braille readers that provide users a tactile translation of what is on
their computer screens and voice synthesizers that read out text
messages have been available for years. 

But despite advances in computing, these devices remain expensive with
prices starting at $5,000 and going beyond $10,000, according to Jeff
Fitzgibbon, national director, consumer goods and assistive
technologies, CNIB.  The McGill researchers hope to develop a device
that would cost much less.  The price of Braille readers is often a
deterrent for employers, who might otherwise hire people with visual
disabilities, as well as for visually challenged individuals with
limited incomes. 

"Anything that can be done to make information more readily available
will have a definite positive effect on the society, labour and the
economy," said Fitzgibbon.

http://www.itworldcanada.com/a/News/ec17ecfd-664f-49ba-b63b-e929c6524835.html

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