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Braille PDA/Phone
awtbfb writes "ALVA B.V. has released details on their Mobile Phone Organizer 5500. This combination tri-band GSM phone and Windows CE.net PDA does not yet include GPRS, but it is supposedly in the works. Release dates are this summer. It's only been a year since this was requested in askslashdot."
How does Caller ID work if you are blind? Have the phone speak the caller's name? Maybe a touch pad with moveable nails that can do a sequence of braille letters? That would be pretty cool.
I dated a blind woman in the late 80s who had a handheld far more functionally capable than most anything available nowadays (something about not having to worry about graphics...). The one she used was called a "Braille'n'Speak" by Blaise (?). Dumb name, nifty device. It's apparantly been far outpaced by the compatition nowadays (well, it's been 15 years). Basically, it's a standard braille keyboard (a chording keyboard invented decades ago) with seven keys, a speaker, headphone jack and a serial port, all in a small package. It allowed the user to interface it to a computer and use it for speech synthesis. This was the age of DOS (and BBSes, where she and most of the blind community were), so it was easy to tie into the BIOS and redirect text. You could take notes, and import and export text files. All the users I saw who used it cranked up the speed of the speech until, to a non-user, it sounded like an unintelligable warble. This allowed the users (who were used to it), to whip though gobs of text as fast or faster than many people could read. Now, if this was state of the art in the late 80s, I'd imagine that there are some significantly more advanced models. BTW - try IRC, as I've run into several VI users in various channels (VI as in visually impaired, not the editor). Heck, one of the serverops on Slashnet is legally blind. BTW - if any blind people used text2b.com or text2b2.com (those aren't web sites, they are apps - remember when dot com meant an executable file?), I wrote those about that time... I released 'em as shareware and got a few hundred bucks, mostly from schools. Text to braille and text to grade 2 braille, pretty much for use as printer filters. I also had a semiworking MIDI to braille sheet music app. All written in Mix Power C.
Have you ever looked at how much Braille notetakers go for? They start at around US$1000 and go up from there. I realize there's a limited market for braille products and the companies have to recoup R&D costs, but it really seems like this market gets price gouged. So what's this beauty gonna cost? US$5000?
Hi,
I have a friend who I like to refer to as a Vampire, actually technically only half of a vampire.
She has porphyria which is a disease which makes it so that when light (mainly blue and green spectrum) strikes any part of her body it kills off red blood cells in that area. She says it feels like a sunburn of sorts.
What it basically boils down to is that she has been stuck in the dark in her basement for almost a year now. The condition just keeps getting worse for her.
The condition is so bad now that she can only sit in front of her laptop for like 20 minutes or so before she starts feeling effects. And this is with two sheets of tinting on the screen and with the background of all the windows, etc. set to black and the text set to red.
Over the past few weeks I've been trying to do some research for her to help her find solutions.
This device might have possibility some for her. Of course she can see just fine, but if her condition gets much worse she's gonna have to start living life in a manner akin to how a blind person lives life. In some respects, of course, some not.
Has anybody out there seen one? Does it work? What does it do with something like a PDF? Does it require some sort of screen scraper software?
Any experiences would be appreciated. I cannot believe this post appeared today, I was just thinking last night about possibly submitting an "Ask Slashdot".
Thanks,
OYAHHH
Caution: Contents under pressure
I remember something aboout .com being the "tiny" build target, and .exe for "medium" and "large." I left windows before I seriously got into C/C++ programming. Can anyone explain the diferrence?
Here is an article on chording keyboards. It seems like something useful for palmtops; a pic and some momentary pushbottons could make a nice serial device for my Zaurus.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
That thing looks a rather large; considering the specs sound a lot like that PocketPC phone (it runs WinCE and has an X-Scale proc), I wouldn't think it would be that big. I realize that braille display takes up space, but over a pound of space? How can you call that thing "mobile"?
Actually, I *am* deaf. It would be nice to get tty service anywhere, but it depends on your provider. Verizon wants up to $500 for the equipment/service. No, you don't get a cash bonus from the gov't (or anyone else), you work 5 days a week like everyone else. Meanwhile, I'm reviewing some ways to do speech to text and text to speech, falling asleep reading commercial API's for my linux boxes. It's gonna be interesting to try and synthesize my own voice from memory. (thank you, sounblaster!)
I currently use hearing aids, but 120 dB of graphical EQ only goes so far, especially in a work environment. Implants were vetoed by the surgeon's evaluation team - I adapted too well by visual cues, and fake normal conversation well enough. Everybody thinks it's an obscure Brit accent, whan it's actually a deaf American accent.
You have *no* idea how frustrating it is when the whole world *assumes* you use the phone. Try to get someone close to you to call your bank on your behalf. You will end up giving power of attorney over you, because that's the only way they'll deal with it. This applies for most business scenarios.
For me the phone is a useless expense, except for data.
C|N>K
Oh yeah, going above 640Kb was reserved strictly for the SM fans. One had to deal with all sorts of interrupts etc. to 'get' memory from the OS.
How anyone ever programmed anything is still an unsolved mystery. Although some might argue that it forced a great deal of thriftyness. If we saw that kind of coding now, no one would need a 2.4GHz P4 for word processing - although the apps would probably take a few years longer to develop - or maybe more of us would have jobs ;-)...
All bow to his Noodliness!! His Noodle Appendage has touched me!