Braille converter eases web use (BBC) {robobraille.org}

[eppur_se_muova]

By Geoff Adams-Spink
Age & disability correspondent, BBC News website

A free service that provides automatic Braille conversion is proving popular despite still being in test phase.

RoboBraille was started by a Danish organisation and now has partners in five other European countries.

Anyone wanting to use the service, which is partly funded by the EU, can send plain text, rich text, html or Word documents by e-mail.

Within a few minutes they receive their document either as an MP3 audio file or as electronic Braille.

Electronic Braille can be read by a tactile display - a device connected to the computer with a series of pins that are raised or lowered to represent the Braille characters - or sent to a Braille printer.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6542441.stm

http://www1.robobraille.org/websites/acj/robobraille.nsf
Can anyone post a review of a trial run?

[Breeze54]

1. That is soooo cool!!!!!

Technology is just awesome!!!!

I wish that was available when my father (legally blind) was still alive!

Thank you for posting this!! ;)

Welcome to RoboBraille

http://www1.robobraille.org/websites/acj/robobraille.nsf

Image: Robobraille logo

Welcome to the RoboBraille home on the web

RoboBraille automates the translation of text documents into Braille and speech.

The service is available free of charge to all non-commercial users.

With RoboBraille, you can

* Translate documents into contracted Braille
* Translate documents into speech
* Translate text into visual Braille
* Convert text documents between different character sets
* Convert Braille documents to specific Braille character sets
* Partition documents into smaller parts

Please send an email to [e-mail] with your contact information
if you would like to participate in the pilot tests of the RoboBraille service.

I'm going to try it. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.

Be back in a few...I think! ;)

[melnjones]

2. Um...

most people with a tactile display already have software that automatically converts text into braille. Otherwise it's pointless to have the tactile display hooked up to your computer to begin with. And most blind people who use computers already have software that can turn text into an mp3 as well. JAWS does that, and that's the standard software that all of my friends who are visually impaired use. I bought cheap software for $40 that makes mp3s wonderfully, and I'm not blind. Just want to read with my eyes closed. How is this thing new?

On edit...i'm sending the link to a friend of mine to look at it, and if she has a review I'll post it here.

[Breeze54]

3. I've never used it.

Why shouldn't it be new? :shrug:

[melnjones]

4. Well, I guess the good part is that it's free.

JAWS is expensive software. Very. And I'm not sure how expensive the software to read from text to braille is. I guess my point is just that (I would assume) most blind people who are using computers probably already have a text to speech program, and if they have a braille display they surely also have the appropriate software for that as well. I'll have to ask my friend though, perhaps there really is something new that I'm missing.

Regardless, I agree that it's very cool technology:-) My friend's braille display is awesome, and she just got a braille printer too.

[Breeze54]

5. I sent an e-mail but

I'm not sure if that was all I was supposed to do to be in the trial.

Aids for the blind are very expensive!!! I explored for and with my father
to try to find suitable devices so that he could at least read the newspaper.
We did end up buying an optical device but it was difficult for him to use.

Any specific software, not in the mainstream use, will be more expensive, I think.
Just because it is exclusive but I'm not an economics major. ;)