'Company launches Menus that Talk'

"Taylannas Inc. has announced the launch of an electronic restaurant menu system, Menus That Talk. The portable device, approximately the size of a DVD case, speaks to restaurant guests, describing selected food items from the hand-held unit's illuminated buttons." - Press release spotted by David Faucheux.

RoboBraille

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

(From the RoboBraille site, via David Faucheux.)

Are you smarter than a fifth grader?

By David Faucheux

Recently, a friend, Lisa, who is up on current TV programs told me during a telephone visit about a new trivia type game show. That was all I needed to hear to become instantly interested. She explained that the show was similar in some ways to "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" but did have differences.

In this show, hosted by Jeff Foxworthy, the contestant competes for a million dollars. There are 5 fifth graders on the stage, and one can help the contestant. There are 10 categories including math, spelling, and science. Unlike Millionaire, one is not given multiple choice answers. One must know the correct answer.

I watched/heard Thursday's broadcast. I was visiting another friend as I do not have a television; mine broke in July. I found some of the questions unbelievable. One dealt with supplementary angles--something I do not recall learning in fifth grade.

Fifth grade was not my favorite year. I developed secondary glaucoma the previous year and by that year, I had to travel to Houston to have several eye surgeries and missed 81 days of school. I was able to pass to the next grade but had to do allot of work alone at home. If homebound education existed then, no one bothered to tell me.

I visited www.infoeyes.org to inquire if this gameshow had a website. They told me that it did, and I visited it. Alas! the link that allows visitors to play an online version of the game did not work for me. (Why does that never surprise me? Doubtless blind techno-geeks had no problems. They never do!) I also learned from Infoeyes that the gameshow is not looking for contestants and nothing was said about how one can become a contestant.

I also asked them about another trivia gameshow, "One Against the Mob," but again, no information was available on becoming a contestant. Guess my destiny lies in another sphere.

IMAGINE That.

The New Standard Keyboard: A review

By David Faucheux

The New Standard Keyboard has far fewer keys than traditional keyboards and is further desirable for its compactness, thinness, lightness, and method of reducing the number of keys on a traditional QWERTY keyboard by means of three shift keys. The wrapping cord feature is clever with the slot to tuck the USB connector in. The front and back feet are compact and offer adjustability. Tactile markings are included but could be bigger. The arrow keys have been moved to the center of the keyboard. No separate numpad is utilized.

I was sent a keyboard to review for my blog and an email with attachment that explained the layout and the tactile markings. This made it easy for me to learn the layout. I’d add a button that shifts you from the unique NuStandard.com layout to Dvorak and QWERTY so that anyone can use the keyboard and can gradually transition.

This keyboard harkens back to the earliest days of the typewriting machine (a typewriter was the operator, not the machine and it opened up jobs for women) by putting the letters in their correct alphabetical order. Letters A-M are struck with the left hand; letters N-Z, with the right. The earliest typewriting machines jammed and so the QWERTY layout was developed to slow things down! I am not sure if both hands type equally and if the strongest fingers type the most used letters as is true in Dvorak.

The website explains: “In the past with the jumbled Qwerty or Dvorak letter arrangements, the only way to gain skill in typing was by drilling on a few letters until they became second nature, then repeating on a few more letters at a time until every letter was an automatic response. Only then, after complete training to make the entire alphabet available, could productive typing begin. Most touch-typists cannot say where any particular letter is, even though their fingers seem to know.

“Now, on the New Standard keyboard, the letters are arranged alphabetically to read like a book. The first half of the alphabet, A to M, reads line by line down the rows of keys for the left hand. The second half of the alphabet, N to Z, reads line by line on the right hand. This breaks the alphabet into familiar little chunks that are easy to remember, and after a few minutes familiarization, makes it possible to find each letter without any drilling, because the alphabet is already familiar.”

I have used a prototype keyboard by www.dvortyboards.com that arranged each column of keys in perfectly straight lines. No other keyboard I have used has ever done this. I liked it and think it could be explored further as a design feature. In other words, the tfb yjn --or as this was Dvorak, xuy fhb--were not angled and slanted but ruler straight as were the other keys. Also note that I need the numpad keys for screen reader navigation so I may not be able to use this keyboard as my main keyboard.

IMAGINE That!

My book comment in the Christian Science Monitor

By David Faucheux

The Christian Science Monitor lets readers recommend books, and here's an item of mine that it published on April 3:

I liked In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant because it had a blind character (well, sort of) and I am blind. I also liked the lush setting of 16th-century Venice and the unique voice of the first-person narrator, a dwarf named Bucino.

– David Faucheux, Lafayette, La.

' Blind Auto Mechanic Hires Deaf Assistant'

A blind mechanic has hired a deaf assistant. Details here. Spotted by David Faucheux. Excerpt from AP story:

Cars have been Larry Woody's life for more than 30 years. He fixed them, he raced them, he restored them. But five years ago on Interstate 5 a truck blew across the median and drove over his tiny Toyota Celica. He almost died, and he was blinded.

But Woody, 46, still works on his 1968 El Camino, dabbles in racing and recently bought his own shop, D & D Foreign Automotive, in Cottage Grove. And he has hired a deaf assistant.

His red-tipped cane stands idle. He walks without hesitation through his shop. He handles the paperwork and billing with the help of a talking computer. He still changes fuel lines, hoists cars and changes filters.

"So much of it is done by feel anyway," he told the Eugene Register-Guard. "I use my hands to see what I'm doing now."

Multimedia Web browser under dev for the blind—from IBM

"IBM looks to be trying to make multimedia content on the web slightly more accessible to the blind, developing a new browser that'll make it easier to sort out audio and video from other content, with the project itself led by a blind researcher at the company, the BBC reports." - Engadget.

The TeleRead take: I wonder if some of the same ideas might work out in multimedia e-books. Standards should help the blind. But could the right reading software---using IBM's research---also aid the cause?

A Brush with Darkness: A book review of sorts!

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."--Degas

By David Faucheux

In A Brush with Darkness (RC 60724), artist Lisa Fittipaldi describes how a blind person can paint. I am still not sure I understand her explanations of the mind's eye, but they work for her.

I read/hear autobiographies by blind people so as to gain a sense of place and of what is possible in life, not necessarily my own life but in the lives of others who are blind and dare to dream and have supportive others, a spouse, a friend, someone.

Fittipaldi, a former CPA and trauma nurse with a photographic memory, became blind in her late 40s due to a rare autoimmune disease, vasculitis, that the doctors were too late in diagnosing. It was her husband, Al, growing frustrated with her torpor and poor coping skills, who one day tossed a child's water color set at her. From such events are life changes made.

In the summer of 1995, she attended several painting classes in Ruston, Louisiana, managing apparently to avoid The Louisiana Center for the Blind while there. (I attended that Center but that is another blog or several.)

Her thoughts on living in a blind world are interesting; but, perhaps, I have been blind now too long as some of the things that she says are extremely complex to master after sight loss, i.e., making a peanut butter sandwich, organizing your clothes, brushing your teeth, eating, pouring liquids, are no big deal to me. But then painting is something I could not attempt with any degree of success! (It could be that maybe I should try it once just for fun as some of the abstracts that hang in museums surely could have been painted with the artist blindfolded!) I am not sure what exactly Fittipaldi sees or how she translates that through her mind's eye onto canvas. I suspect, we shall never know if what she paints from what she sees in her mind and what sighted viewers see on her canvases are the same. It may not even matter. I am intrigued that she can recognize different pigments by their feel.

I no longer see (my ophthalmologist says that but I think sometimes bright sun penetrates my optic nerves) and have long wanted to find an interesting hobby to turn into a vocation as the library thing is now practically moribund. It's just been too long with too little to show for it. I'd stand just as good a chance to be a contestant on a trivia-type gameshow and win decent money, or win the lottery, as I would getting a library job especially as I recently tried, one last time, to apply for a position, this in the library for the blind in Louisiana where I live. I was told by the HR people that I lacked by 4 months sufficient experience to be placed in the interview category.

I can't help but think of a popular New Age guru-type author whose gifts at translating pop Hinduism and pop science into meaningful prose has made his pockets deep, indeed. He opined that your darma or purpose should come, flow, easily and naturally. If you are pushing very hard all the time, you may not be in the right place or attempting the right purpose. Perhaps, I am not?

Maybe exploring aromacology or food lore...

Learn more about this unique artist and her non-profit foundation to help disabled children.

IMAGINE that!