As most of you already know, a few months ago the SightCity took place in Frankfurt in Germany. A trade fair where many developers presented their latest products in the field of accessibility.
At Braille 200, one key question naturally came to mind: How extensive was the range of Braille devices?
Were there new products? Innovative ideas? Interesting approaches?
Rudolf Volejník attended the event, had a feel around, and sent us a short summary along with his personal assessment.
Spoiler alert: His conclusion is rather sobering.
Despite increasing digitalization, Braille technology currently seems to be stagnating. A lot of familiar ground, little that was truly new. That was the first impression.
We’re very interested in how you see things:
Is technological development drifting further away from Braille?
Or were there exciting innovations that simply weren’t present at SightCity?
Have you perhaps visited other assistive technology fairs where Braille played a more prominent role?
In short: Is the development of Braille devices really stagnating?
We’d love to hear your thoughts, impressions, and insights.
We’re looking forward to your feedback at: braille200@livingbraille.eu
Many thanks, Rudolf, for your honest and thought-provoking summary!
SightCity: impressions and reflections
On the suggestion of Michal Tkáčik, M.A. head of Slovak National Braille Authority, I make public my brief observations from this year’s SightCity event. By way of presenting my modest expertise, suffice it to say that I’ve been in the trade of promoting and using Braille displays for more than 40 years.
there’s not much to be reported apart from an abundance of orientation gadgets and applications which are, however, not within our terms of reference. Consequently, the brief account below will deal exclusively with Braille displays on display.
Nothing new, actually
The exhibited displays can be divided into two categories: retro and rattle-snake, while the latter category can be divided into two subcategories: “fingers-track” and “fingers-up”.
Let’s look first at the “Retro” category. What on earth is retro on Freedom Scientific, Humanware, Hims, Helptech, Seiko and such like displays? Wel,. I’ve got here, on my retro radiogram, Braille eMotion 40, the Rolls-Royce among state-of-the-art Braille displays of today; and even this display is a retro. Though overstuffed with a number of fancy autonomous applications and functions, its most essential component (the line itself) is basically the same as the display constructed and designed by Oleg Tretiakoff back in 1978. What does this fact imply? That the piezo-fitted Braille displays have proved to be the most reliable solution. Pity that there are as yet no graphic solutions that could be purchased by reasonable money.
Fingers-track rattle-snake displays are in abundance. Their electro-mechanical dots rearrange quite noisily, although their sewing machine singing is nothing compared to the rumble of mechanical Braillers in a class-room of an old-time school for the blind. They seem to be a practicable solution – and yet … One of our renting companies purchased some 10 fingers-track units to be loaned out to blind patrons. In a short time, all units had to be returned to the distributor – not even one of them could stand real-time operation. Simply speaking: servicing and repairs were needed after several hours of standard use.
I can share no useful information on the reliability of graphical rattle-snake displays. I, however, believe that the only rattle-snake fingers-track graphics display worth noting is Graphiti. The pins can re-arrange under your fingertips, they can be set to some five hights from even surface to uppermost position (useful for drawing maps), etc. But, I repeat: I know nothing about the reliability of the device. In any case, it would be a welcome aid in lots of educational as well as professional environments.
The fingers-up rattle-snake subcategory displays work as follows: before you need to rearrange the pins (to show a new Braille line or new graphics), the user is required to lift his/her fingertips from the display and wait until the rattling has ceased; only then he/she can inspect the result. Should he/she leave the fingertips on display even for the very beginning of rearranging process, the resulting pin combination is unreadable. If one strictly observes the fingers-up procedure, one can inspect both graphics and text; I am using the word “inspect” on purpose because any true reading appears to be rather difficult. There were two devices to be seen at this year’s SightCity belonging to this subcategory: BraillePen24 manufactured by Harpo, Poland and DotPad manufactured by Dot incorporation, Korea.
Braillepen24: a nicely-looking, sleek, extremely light-weight case with 24-character Dot Incorporation display. The company is, in its documentation, quite frank about the fingers-up necessity.
DotPad: a nice, light-weight Braille graphics display. Simple Braille graphics is displayed quite clearly, although the pins have only two positions: either hidden or protruding. In my opinion, the display could be used in school environments (geometry, geography, physics, biology, etc.) as long as the fingers-up procedure be observed (static pictures can be shown easily).
I have been attending Sightcity for the last 20 years. My overall impression is that Braille product stagnate while navigation devices and applications flourish. Only time will show whether totally blind people will be able to move safely in barrier-free settings of parking lots, shopping centres, railway and bus stations and pavementless streets, laden with a number of AI contraptions pretending that they have replaced eyesight.
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