forman@cs.washington.edu (George Forman - GHF) (12/15/90)
Consider a large tabletop brailleboard-- it's too expensive to
make all those pins in hardware, so how about virtual-ware?
Is the technology for finger pressure pads sophisticated & small
enough to produce a braille image on a fingertip?
What about tracking a fingertip-- can we monitor the position of a
fingertip (perhaps on a special table, but still cheap) on a table
with enough precision to give the illusion that the braille is
actually on the table surface?
Is this already being investigated, and by whom?
Considering that very little money is available for the handicapped
(compared to defense or industrial applications), this system would
need to be produced inexpensively.
The brailleboard is good for scanning a page (or more?) of text--
something voice readers are lousy at summarizing. Even so, it'd
be great to be able to skim, point and have the computer start
talking; for example, some voice readers read the entire mail/news
header before they get to the body. (e.g. date colon F R I comma
fourteen december ninety fourteen colon fourty-eight colon twenty three
dash zero eight zero zero from colon swanny open paren dave swan close
paren-- we're not even through half a mail header yet...and imagine this
with NO inflections.) Clearly a brailleboard would be really useful
to skim/skip past the junk headers.
This is just one useful application.
Thanks,
George Forman