Greg Stilson, long time friend of the show, has not appeared in front of the BBQ microphones since November 2020. So, he had a lot to cover with J.J. in this look at what is happening at the American printing House. The pair catch us up with updates on Mantis Q40, Chameleon 20 and Code Jumper. Then the party really starts with the duo delving into products like Juno, the upcoming Poly and a deep dive into what it takes to bring the Dynamic Tactile Device Project from development to purchasable product. Learn what EBRF is and why it is important to the future of multi-line Braille Displays in this interview. To learn more about the products mentioned, or to inquire about the regional user s groups Greg mentioned, listen to the file or read the transcript below. You can also find out more about products, manuals and accessories by visiting the APH website
Sponsor: American Printing House for the Blind
Since 1858, APH has operated in Louisville, Kentucky, empowering people who are blind or visually impaired by providing accessible and innovative products, materials, and services for lifelong success. APH's vision is for an accessible world, with opportunity for everyone. Visit APH.org to learn more about their products and services.
Transcript
We strive to provide an accurate transcription, though errors may occur.
Hide transcriptTranscribed by Grecia Ramirez
This Blind Bargains special coverage is sponsored by the American Printing House.
APH designs innovate learning solutions for people who are blind or visually impaired. They believe in the power of breaking down barriers and creating a future that belongs to everyone. Visit aph.org to learn more about their products and services.
now, here's J.J. Meddaugh.
J.J. MEDDAUGH: Virtual Exhibit Hall coverage, and a special podcast with Greg Stilson. Wow. It has been almost two years. Just about two years to the week since I last saw you at CSUN 2020, right as Covid was just starting to be a name that we heard over and over. Greg is the director of Global Innovation for APH, and a lot has happened since then.
Greg, welcome back.
GREG STILSON: Hey. Thanks for having me, J.J. It's been only, like, two years, like you said. That's crazy. When you look back on it, we were at the Marriott just about two years ago when, all of a sudden, people started talking about this thing that was eminently going to be here. And turns out it's been here for two years plus, continuing.
JM: Yeah. Literally made me think it was going to be that long. But I guess one thing because of that, it has allowed you, and everyone at APH, to develop a whole bunch of new technology and things that have come out since then. So let's play a little bit of catch up, starting with the Braille Displays that we were aware of at CSUN 20, but have since been released, starting with the Mantis and the Chameleon. So why don't you go ahead and give us some updates on where we're at with the Braille Displays.
GS: Yeah. Absolutely. So in I believe it was May of 2020, we officially started shipping the Mantis and Chameleon. Just to remind folks what the Mantis and Chameleon are so the Mantis is a 40 cell refreshable Braille Display with an embedded QWERTY keyboard. It's just like a typical Bluetooth keyboard, but with a 40 cell display at the bottom. This was as Larry Skutchan was planning his retirement. This was his parting gift to everyone.
JM: Nice.
GS: So this was his pet project. I remember even speaking to him back in, like, 2014, 2015, he was talking about, like, "Hey, buddy. Why don't we have a Braille Display that has a QWERTY keyboard?" And, you know, he just he stayed on the course, and we finally got it out in 2020, so super excited about that.
And the Chameleon is a 20 cell refreshable Braille Display, really, directed at the education market. It comes with multiple different colored, kind of, skin cases you can put on it. It's got stickers that the kids can kind of dress it up with and things like that as well. Both of these devices, I would say, kind of fall into that. They're not notetakers, and they're not dumb terminal displays. They're I would put them into the intelligent Braille Display category.
JM: Yeah. And I don't have access to sales numbers, but I would assume that is what a lot of people these days are preferring as far as a display.
GS: I can tell you that just I mean, both of these devices exceeded any of our sales expectations. I think some of that also was a sign of the times; right? You needed people needed refreshable Braille at their fingertips because they weren't getting sadly, were not getting access to as much paper Braille when Covid was a thing, and
JM: Right.
GS: people were in this virtual learning space. So we saw a significant uptick in Braille Display sales and things like that. But I think there was also a lot of value in really teaching those transition skills for students. There's a lot of students that, you know, maybe they prefer the six key entry kind of Perkins keyboard style. And we have a device for those folks. But then, you know, as you mature and you get closer to, you know, higher education, or you're getting a job and you want to transition into that, you know, knowledge of a computer, making sure that you can touch type and use a screen reader and things like that is those are also extremely valuable skills to learn. And I think that's really where Mantis has excelled, is being a device that you can use in the classroom to take your notes with the note taking features that it has. It's a device that can, you know, do book reading and things like that. But then, when you are ready to move to a computer, you're using the same keyboard. You're not trying to do these, like I think screen readers have done a good job of adapting their commands to Braille layouts, but you have to have quite a memory to remember how to do the F five command or something like that
JM: Sure.
GS: just with the Braille keyboard, so
But we've seen, not only, I would say, in the U.S. to our typical APH, you know, education market, but we've seen exceptional uptick in international sales as well in Mantis. So it's definitely hit the mark there. And just appreciate everybody's feedback who's participated in the Mantis and Chameleon list. And the product's gone through I think since then, we probably had six updates, product updates, since it launched.
JM: Yeah. Let's talk about some of the features that have been included in the more recent updates.
GS: Yeah. So I'll talk about, for the Chameleon, the big one that's coming, and we'll be showcasing at CSUN, is we're adding text to speech to it as well. So right now, it's a typical Braille Display, but coming in the next update, the version 2.0 update, you'll hear text to speech. The Chameleon will talk, and it'll be able to basically function in the same fashion that a lot of your typical notetakers do with text to speech; right? So anything that you're typing in the editor, anything that you're reading in the book reader, we really pushed this approach of multimodal understanding and learning. So being able to pair your Braille with your text to speech voice. As you're reading, how do you pronounce that word
JM: Right.
GS: that kind of stuff. That's a big one. It's probably the most requested feature that we're getting on a regular basis. The other one is a BRF editor. So some folks right now, you can edit in text files. You can open up Word DOCX and things like that, but you will be able to actually just do a braille character for braille character BRF editing function as well, where you'll be able to just type your Braille notes and, you know, what you Braille is what you get, kind of thing. So that was another feature that's been requested.
JM: This is traditional BRF; right? Because I know there's been some discussion of a new formats and things like that.
GS: Correct. Yeah. This is just traditional BRF. Yeah. We'll when we talk about some the Dynamic Tactile Device stuff, I'll kind of go into a little bit of the EBRF work that we're
JM: Sure.
GS: we're currently on. But yeah. We've had a lot of requests for BRF editing, specifically also related to Braille music and things like that as well, so
JM: Right.
GS: that will be coming in a future update as well. And then, on top of that, you know, we've done a lot of work with Apple. You know, Apple's had some challenges with bugs in their Braille Display drivers, and we've spent the some time working with them to really improve the connectivity with iOS devices and being able to kind of switch between devices a little bit more effectively as well, so
JM: That's really good to hear because, you know, a Braille Display bug is, you know, for some of us might be an annoyance, but for some people, is a deal breaker.
GS: Absolutely. Especially I mean, if you're somebody who let's say you're hard of hearing and visually impaired. You're that Braille Display is, you know, your lifeline to a lot of connections, and making sure that that is stable, that you're not having to have somebody help you pair it
JM: Yeah.
GS: is a significant barrier, so
JM: One more question, by the way. Just because I know our listeners. Do you know what voice is being used? You know they're going to ask me, so
GS: They will. They will. I've learned in my nearly 17 years of doing that that you will never make every blind person happy with the voice choices that you select, so
JM: No.
GS: I believe out of the gate, we will be using Acapela voices, and I believe it's the Sharon voices. I think there's going to be two voices available
JM: Okay.
GS: for the U.S. market. Having said that, our long term goal it probably won't be in the version that launches at CSUN, but we're targeting a .1 release for version 2 that will include a voice downloader. So if you don't like the two selected voices that are with the U.S. localization, you'll be able to you know, similar to, like, what you can do on some notetakers or other devices. You can download additional voices to
JM: Sure.
GS: to swap out, so
JM: Awesome.
GS: We're trying to accommodate all folks who
JM: Absolutely.
GS: have voice preferences. Yup.
JM: Yes. Absolutely. So that's the Chameleon. And then the Mantis, as well, is pushing some updates.
GS: Yeah. So the Mantis you know, outside of the text to speech, because the Mantis doesn't have a speaker. The Mantis relies on the same software specification, the software applications that are available on the Chameleon. So it'll be getting the BRF updater, so you'll be able to use the SDF JKL input functionality to input into BRF editor.
JM: Sure.
GS: Things like that as well. So it's it'll get all of the same features as the Chameleon, just without the text to speech. We are looking at ways that we could potentially use a Bluetooth headset to transmit text to speech to somebody. It's a little bit more tech challenging, but it's something that's not off the table. Obviously, if we build in the functionality for Chameleon, because they're built on the same platform, we've got half the battle won already, so
JM: Yes.
GS: So definitely something that we're looking at. Or you could connect a Bluetooth speaker or something like that to it, so
JM: Very cool.
GS: So that will be available in the booth. You'll be able to actually hear Chameleon talk in the booth at CSUN. So there that'll be available there.
JM: And I should mention that we're going to aim to record a little bit of hands-on. And we'll put that up later on on Blind Bargains so people can hear some of the things that we're talking about.
GS: Oh, man. J.J.'S in Exhibit Hall recording for the first time in how many years?
JM: I need to figure that out. That's a whole thing. But yes. That is the theoretical plan, as I record this at this moment, so
GS: That's awesome.
JM: cool.
So another new Braille device and this one's a little bit different. I remember when I was a kid a long, long time ago, you know, learning print, there was all these kind of toys. There was Fisher Price stuff and many other things. For Braille, well, there was a Perkins brailler. And it worked, and it was great. But there wasn't a lot of fun Braille learning toys.
And you had the BrailleBuzz for a couple years which was a really, really simple keyboard that people can press letters and hear a few things. But then, you have something a little more advanced now called Poly. Tell me about this.
GS: Yeah. So the BrailleBuzz was it was well-received, and it kind of showed us that there is an interest in this space. And Poly is we worked with a company called Thinkerbell Labs in India. They have the international, kind of, version of this they call Annie. And we customized this device to fit the U.S. market. It's we recorded all of the U.S. localizations in our studio.
JM: Mm hmm.
GS: So for those of you who probably have listened to NLS books, a lot of those NLS books were recorded here in the studios here at APH. So we still have that studio. It's still very active. But we used it for this project. We had narrators actually recording games and prompt voice prompts and things like that. So when you turn on Poly, it is a education early childhood Braille education tool. And it's honestly one of my favorite projects that we're working on because of the reasons that you're talking about, J.J. Like, when we were kids, we didn't have a lot of fun, interactive Braille things to do. And this device is incredibly cool.
So just to kind of give a high level overview. It's a device that incorporates four types of Braille interaction.
JM: Okay.
GS: So in the top left corner of the device, you have a jumbo Braille cell that's interactive. So, you know, in some of the games, it'll quiz you, and it'll tell you, you know, "Type a letter O," and you basically, you'll see a full cell of jumbo Braille dots, and you push down the ones that shouldn't be there to make the letter O, for example, and it tells you if you get it right. Creates a bunch of interactive games. There's also time based games to see how fast you can get these answers right. And there's a whole second level of metrics capture through an online platform that they call Helios that allows a teacher to actually monitor the student's progress even if they're working at home. So the device is
JM: Wow.
GS: it's connected, and the teacher can even assign, and lock in, specific assignments that the student has to do before they're allowed to go play any games, which is definitely built for me when I was a kid.
JM: Yes.
GS: So on the top left corner is the jumbo Braille cell, and there's two characters there. So you sometimes, you'll for example, if you need to write, like, A R, you can do that in the jumbo there's two jumbo
JM: So you can do the contractions too. Most like, the dot fives and
GS: Yeah. Mm hmm. Exactly.
JM: Mm hmm.
GS: In the top right is I think yeah. Six, I think, regular sized Braille cells. And this is used for reading comprehension and reading exercises. So you'll use the Perkins keyboard that's just below these two different Braille cell interactable pieces. So there's a regular Perkins keyboard that you use to type for typing exercises. And then, I guess the old school man that I am, below that is an electronic slate
JM: Hey.
GS: and stylus that I am I love it because I'm incredibly terrible at slate and stylus. So this just varifies how terrible I am at it. But there's games that are designed for all of these interaction methods. And some even require combinations of it. All right. Now, you're doing typing and then switch over to the slate, or typing and then switch over to the jumbo Braille cells.
But there's a whole curriculum that teaches you how to do something, and that's really where APH and Thinkerbell partnered is we we brought in the UEB contracted Braille curriculum. At the time that we partnered, they only had uncontracted Braille. And so, there's a whole curriculum to interactively learn uncontracted and contracted Braille while almost rewarding the user with a gameification process. So, you know, you go through the reading exercises or the writing exercises, and then you get rewarded with some games. And it creates a little level of self competition as well. And like I said, there's a whole metrics capturing process that the TVI, the teacher, the parent, can observe just how far the student's gone. And also, they can see what letter of the alphabet or what contraction maybe they're struggling with, and maybe they need to go revisit some of those exercises as well, so
JM: So does the teacher need to be in the same room? Well, I believe this has Wi Fi or that this connects remotely as well.
GS: Yeah. So it connects via Wi Fi or LAN connection. And the cool thing is that the teacher can see their whole dashboard of the students that they have. So for example, if they have multiple Polys with multiple students, they can see and choose exercises or watch the progress of these students from a distance. So a lot of TVIs, for example, are itinerant.
JM: Yeah.
GS: And maybe they only see the students once a week or so. They can assign a week's worth of exercises or a few days in a row, and then maybe they do a virtual lesson with some of those students. I think that's something that we're hearing from some TVIs, is that it was permanently here last year, but, you know, some of them are kind of creating this hybrid approach where, if they're meeting with a student that maybe is further away, now, virtual is still in play. So it can be part of the virtual lesson as well.
JM: Yeah. Exactly. And there's a lot of, I think, need for remote Braille instruction in remote areas where maybe there isn't a qualified TVI who knows Braille. That certainly has been a challenge even before Covid.
GS: Absolutely. Absolutely. And so we're hoping to see this product, you know, early summerrish timeframe. We're finalizing our field testing, and it will you know, all the products that we're talking about today will be on federal quota
JM: Mm hmm.
GS: for the education folks to purchase with their quota dollars. And yeah. Just really excited to see this product get out and in the people's hands.
JM: Exciting. Is there a price yet for this?
GS: I believe it's 999, if I remember right.
JM: Okay.
GS: It's a lot of technology in this little device, so I'm pretty excited about it.
JM: Yeah. Absolutely. It sounds like an entire re design from the original Thinkerbell.
GS: Yeah. It's a cool product. You know, this is a space that I don't think APH has a lot of experience in. The early childhood tech world is not you know, the BrailleBuzz was a very, very, very simple device that did one or two things. This device does a ton of things, and so we're kind of we're going to learn what the appetite is for tech in that early childhood space; right? And, you know, if folks respond well to something like this I mean, I am a huge gamer in general, so I am a believer that, you know, our blind students should have access to the gaming that, you know, our other sighted kids have, so
JM: Absolutely.
Speaking of early childhood, we're going to record another podcast with Leslie Weilbacher about coding and the road to code, but I just want to cover a little bit of what's going on, especially with Code Jumper and some new puzzles happening.
GS: Yeah. So we we saw a you know, we had this really exciting Code Jumper launch right in at CES, I think it was in 2020. We were all fired up about it. Everybody's excited to get it in their schools and their inclusive classrooms and stuff, and then Covid hit. And then people weren't interacting in the classroom anymore. And Code Jumper's a very hands on device; right? And we were at a world where people didn't want to be touching other stuff that other people were touching.
And so so what we learned was that unfortunately, these interactive coding things didn't really work very well in a virtual learning environment. It's meant to be a in you know, in person interactive kind of concept. And so what we started looking into is ways that students can independently interact with Code Jumper in, you know, a home environment, in a self paced environment, and including some of that gameification we were just talking about.
And so, you know, we looked around at some of the mainstream things, and we saw that these, you know, build your own adventure and puzzle book kind of things were out there in the mainstream. And so, we have a set of puzzles that we're releasing where you use Code Jumper with custom sound sets and things like that that, you know, support these puzzles. And the kids can now, kind of, track the journey of this alien creature that comes to Earth and is learning about Earth and a bunch of different things. It has a bunch of different adventures, and you build different coding exercises. Anything from loops to variables and things like that, and you basically get CJ, this alien creature, to their next destination and go through these puzzles. And so it's a way for a student to kind of stay entertained. Our hope is to, you know, release this first set of puzzles and then kind of gauge folks' appetite for them, and.
JM: Right.
GS: if we can create more, to create more engagement or have other teachers who would like to create them or see value in this type of thing. You know, that's really where I think APH can shine is kind of expanding that process there, so
JM: Is this a free or a paid add on for Code Jumper?
GS: It's -- I mean, it'll be a free add-on. Yeah. You're just going to -- you'll download the new sound files, and it'll come with a -- either an electronic copy of the puzzles, or you can also get them as an audio file as well.
JM: Nice.
GS: So it'll be a fun way -- I'd love to, kind of, see how folks use this in independent, kind of play or kind of gaming that way. So it'll be interesting to see.
JM: Absolutely. Definitely a lot of possibilities there.
We have one more big Braille thing to talk about, but hold up one minute because we do want to talk about Juno, which is a new hand-held magnifier that was released.
GS: Yeah. So last year, with our partner, Vispero, we launched the Juno. And the Juno is a 7-inch hand-held magnifier. But, really, what sets it apart is the amount of features that are packed into this 7-inch hand-held magnifier.
So, you know, it's based on, I think it's the Ruby platform that Vispero uses, but it -- we kind of put the Ruby on steroids, if that makes sense. So we built into this -- it has OCR, it's got text-to-speech. What we tried to do is put a lot of the features that are typically reserved for, you know, full blown CCTVs into a hand held magnifier that's really built for the classroom. And so this device has, as I said, the text to speech, it has OCR. It also has a file manager inside of it. You can load up PDFs.
JM: Wow.
GS: Yeah. It's it's even got an Exam Mode in it, so kids have to be locked into using it as a magnifier for an exam. They can't load up their notes on it.
JM: Right.
GS: on the device. And yeah. It's got multiple viewing angles. You can, you know, you'd use it in your typical Document Mode, but you can also it has its I think Vispero calls it its Barrel Cam on the top, where you can rotate this camera to look at distance or spin it all the way around to do self view as well.
Oh. And the other big thing is after you have taken a picture, there's some really cool concepts called Zoning, where you can almost create, like it divides the image that you've taken of a document into zones to allow a low vision person to, almost skim a little bit more where you can, like, look for headings or look for big chunks that you want to jump in and zoom in on.
So it's a very, very cool device. It's been out since I want to say we launched this in June of last year. But it's also been extremely popular, so that is available, and it's very simple to use. It's been really well received.
JM: Very cool. Well, we've done a lot of talking about what has come out over the past couple years and what's coming out right about now, but perhaps even more exciting to all this not to minimize any of these other things the Dynamic Tactile Device, the DTD. This has been a project in the works for many, many years, but you are actually touching one of these things now; correct?
GS: I'm touching the technology that runs it. I'm not going to not going to make any jokes that I'm touching a product that is
JM: Right.
GS: is there, but the technology is here, and it's pretty incredible to be looking at multiple lines of Braille and a graphic on the same screen. That's the coolest thing, I think.
JM: Awesome. So go ahead and bring people up to speed on what has been happening with this.
GS: Sure. So many folks are probably familiar with the work that we did with the Graphiti, you know, back in 20 I think it was a four year project? 2014 to 2018, I want to say? Something like that.
JM: Something like that, yeah.
GS: And we learned a ton from that project. Even though APH didn't bring that product to market, we learned a ton about how blind people interact with tactile graphics. Even small things like how a blind person needs to learn how to pinch and zoom. There's a lot of people that have never seen what a pinch and zoom gesture even looks like; right?
JM: Right.
GS: So, you know, even those small things. We learned that one example is that when you do allow somebody to zoom in really quickly, you can zoom in way too far, and if you zoom in on blank space, it's easy to get lost in a graphic, so
JM: Yup.
GS: You know, all these things came together, and we were able to gather a ton of research. And, you know, we made a promise to the field of education that we were going to work on a project to create tactile graphics. But what was a really overwhelming kind of outcry from the field was that they wanted Braille and graphics on the same surface. You know, a graphic is one thing, but, you know, many graphics need labeling to really be valuable. You know, this really kind of made us look at the existing problem that's there today, and, you know, we centered this project, this dynamic tactile device project, around, really, one primary goal. And it's going to do a lot more than just this goal, but the primary goal that I'm keeping our team focused on is the metric that I'm using is reducing time to fingertips from the time that a textbook is ordered to the time that it arrives at a student's fingertips. And I'm sure, J.J., you've experienced the same challenges that I have.
JM: Oh yes.
GS: I remember getting a calculous book two weeks before my final exam one time. And it's not uncommon. It's unfortunately not uncommon. So and, you know, as we work toward building this Dynamic Tactile Device, we realize it's like an onion; right? As you start to work on this, you realize that there's more pieces of the puzzle that you have to unwrap. And in this case, more layers that keep coming unwrapped. And, you know, we realized that the existing Braille standards today aren't built to support a multiline dynamic device; right? So this unlocked the need to create a new electronic Braille standard. So today, we have the BRF standard.
JM: Yup.
GS: And BRF standard is great, if you're using a static embosser; right? If you're just creating a or if you're just reading, let's say, literary content from start to finish. But in today's world, you know, we want a Braille book to function similar to the way that you use your talking books; right? You want to be able to go to page 57 and go navigate by heading and paragraph, but you want to respect the Braille rules that exist. So if you encounter a table, you want to view that table correctly. If you see spatial content in math, you want to see that spatial math laid out correctly. So we're not trying to replace the Braille transcriber. I would say, on the contrary, the Braille transcriber, with a device like this, is going to be even more valuable because the Braille transcriber is the one that's responsible for creating the proper spacing and formatting. And the way that you, as a blind person, see a textbook or see a math equation, it's laid out by the Braille transcriber. So that's not going away. What our hope is is to create an electronic delivery system, and this is where APH, I think, has an advantage because we're going to be building the technology along with being the largest textbooks distributor in the U.S., so.
JM: Sure.
GS: You know, our dream is to be able to build a textbook distribution system where the TVI makes the order, the order is received, it's brought into our Braille transcription pipeline, but as the book has chapters or sections completed, they're uploaded to the student's library, and the student, at that point, is able to download them directly to this Dynamic Tactile Device and access those books. You know, it's not going to be instantaneously because obviously, the transcriber and the tactile graphics artist still has to
JM: Sure.
GS: handle this stuff. But what we're doing is we're saving a ton of time and money and effort in you no longer have to do the production process of a book. You don't have to emboss it, pack it, ship it, bind it, any of that kind of stuff. And, you know, we ship things Free Matter for the Blind, and unfortunately, we don't always get pushed to the front of the bus with that, so
JM: No.
GS: you know, this saves months of time between the time that we ship it. Even yeah. The time that we ship it to the time that it's received by the kid; right? So
JM: Sure.
GS: So that's sort of the over arcing goal is a device that is capable of doing multiline Braille and tactile graphics at the same time. This EBRF format we're working on, we're partnering with the Braille authorities around the world from BANA to the International Counsel on English Braille. Partnering with organizations like RNIB, the Austrian Association for the Blind, and NELS in Canada. A number of international organizations who are guiding us the Daisy Consortium guiding us on how best to build the standard. It's not something that I know I haven't done before.
JM: Right.
GS: And it's funny because as we talked about this to the international partners, all of them said, "Yeah. We've had this in the works," or "We've thought about doing this, but it's a really hard problem to solve." and so everybody's been more than happy for APH to take this on and for them to support it, but we're like, somebody has to spearhead this. And, you know, with us being a textbook provider, it just seemed to make the most sense that we would spearhead this.
But this will not be the EBRF standard will not be something that APH owns. This will be owned by the community. It's not something that we want to own.
JM: It'll be an open source
GS: Exactly.
JM: or open standard.
GS: You got it. Yup. Exactly.
JM: So anybody who wants to incorporate it in their products
GS: Mm hmm. Yeah.
JM: can do that.
GS: And the way that I always tell people to imagine the EBRF is imagine, like, an EPUB file with proper Braille formatting. So you have all the flexibility of an EPUB file, being able to navigate by sections or have your document really marked up, but having the you know, we add into an EPUB file essentially the Braille rules. So for example, if there's a section where the transcriber needed to put spatial content, they can mark that with a spatial tag. So then the software that's being used recognizes that, hey, this spatial content is really important, so don't word wrap it to the next line.
JM: Right.
GS: You need to be able to pan left and right through it because it's bigger than the whatever, 32 cells that are available right now. So yeah. It's something that we're really excited about it.
It's not my forte. I'm really lucky to be working with some brilliant Braille experts who know the Braille code like the back of their hand, some transcribers and things like that that I don't have that expertise. But we have great partners, and this is something that will benefit not just multiline devices, but single line Braille Displays as well; right? So being able to open an EBRF on today's, you know, notetakers or Mantises or Chameleons, you'll be able to do that and actually see center lines and things like that as well, so
JM: And also theoretically take those same files and emboss them if somebody still wanted hard copy Braille.
GS: Correct. Yeah. Exactly. Yup. They will be compatible. And we have partnerships in place. You know, we've already brought this up to Duxbury because they're going to be extremely crucial if
JM: Yeah.
GS: -- you know, when they adopt it, of this becoming a real standard; right? So, you know, those -- along with the assistive technology developers building in support for EBRF files and some things like that, so --
So that's the sort of file framework that had to be put in place.
JM: Sure.
GS: The device that we're building will be, as I said, it will be capable of multiple lines of Braille. We are looking at a device that, you know, will have, I would say, the same kind of general functionality of the Graphiti. Our goal is to be able to connect it up to a device as, what I'm calling a tactile monitor; right? So being able to --
JM: Mm-hmm.
GS: -- connect it up to your iPhone or iPad or your computer, and being able to show still images of what is there. Down the road, we are also wanting to partner with the screen reader providers so that we can help them build the pipeline for multiline Braille because some of them have a little bit in there, but there's not a lot of development for multiline Braille yet.
JM: Sure.
GS: And so being able to kind of build that structure around it so that not only could you control your connected device, but you're also reading multiline Braille and not just looking at, let's just say what's in the VoiceOver cursor, you know what I mean? So there will be internal intelligence yet. Like I said, we're -- the only thing I can really talk about right now is the book reader. But we will be building in additional intelligence inside the device as well. But the primary goal here is the textbook use cases. And then the other one is using that tactile monitor use case for really improving impromptu learning. So when that classroom teacher forgets to give the TVI a model that needs to be turned into a tactile graphic, we'll be able to connect it up to, let's just say a tablet or a smart phone or a computer and create a rendering of what that print graphic looks like.
JM: Makes a lot of sense.
GS: Does that kind of make sense?
JM: One of the big things that you've talked about on many occasions is the desire to have both Braille and graphics on the same tablet. How exactly is that going to work? I know you might not have the exacts yet, but graphics and Braille traditionally have been different pin distances away or different things like that. So how can you figure it out? Are you still trying to figure out how to put them both on the same surface?
GS: No. So we believe -- and we've done a ton of testing. We tested with some folks at BANA, we tested with some folks in various partnerships that we have, along with holding some testing groups at NFB, ACB, and a few others. We believe we have an algorithm that -- even though the pins are equidistant apart, we believe we have a Braille algorithm that, even though it's not exactly per the Braille spacing that we're all used to, it is so close that you, as a blind user, as you're reading, you may notice it at first -- this is what we've heard from all of our testers. They recognize something was a little off, but then as I read more, you didn't even think about it anymore. And it's been really, really well-received.
I -- that was, I think, the biggest risk to this project was, you know, we had this dream of tactile graphics and Braille in the same surface, and we plan on giving you sort of a tech demo at CSUN, so I'll let you be the judge of it. But this is the -- that's the feedback that we've gotten so far is it's so close to what you're used to that your brain just sort of fills in the little bit of distance that is separating the words. But it's incredible, because what we're able to do is reproduce tactile graphics that are created by tactile graphics artists; right? So anything that's generally on our tactile graphics image library --
JM: Mm-hmm.
GS: -- we can cast to this device immediately, and that'll be one of its functionalities is we'll build in the TGIL API, so if you need to search for the graphic of an atom, for example, you'd be able to download it right to your device. So --
JM: Wow.
GS: So yeah. It's pretty exciting. This product would not be possible without good partners, as I've mentioned, global partners. But also technology partners. So APH, you know -- one of the big missions that I have is, you know, we can't do everything here at APH.
JM: Sure.
GS: That's why we partner with a lot of the AT companies and the mainstream companies like Microsoft and Google and Apple. So the partners that we're working on with this project is Humanware for a lot of the design of the product, the software inside of it. But the technology that's behind the actual Braille pins is a company called Dot Incorporated out of South Korea.
JM: Oh yeah.
GS: And they've got -- you know, the first question that people ask me is, you know, they've seen, let's say, the Dot Watch that was released several years ago. And the first question people ask me is, "Oh. Is it the same pins as the Dot Watch?" And my answer is no.
Dot and Humanware worked together to really define the pin so that it feels very much like your existing Piezo-electric cells. I would say the biggest difference is that you can't push these pins down, which I see as a huge advantage, especially for the -- for those folks who --
JM: Yup.
GS: - have neuropathy, you know, things like that, who may be a little bit more Braille scrubbers who have to kind of rub back and forth a little harder. But this is a, you know, a long-term project. I'm not saying that this product is going to be, you know, ready tomorrow. We're taking a really methodical approach, making sure that all of the pieces are in place before this product gets out. Because we've seen so many failed attempts at this type of holy Braille thing in the past. And I don't claim to make any promises right now, but what I am saying is that we are working as hard as we can to bring this dream into a reality. And we've seen so many companies come out with these dream scenarios or prototypes and saying, "This is going to be the greatest thing in the world," and they end up not succeeding. And so, you know, that's really where I think -- we've taken the "It's going to take a village," approach to kind of bring this into fruition, so, that's --
JM: Well, I think that the -- the fact that you're bringing something to CSUN, which I definitely look forward to looking at a little bit, shows that, you know, the commitment level here and that you've -- something you've been talking about for a long time. We've seen it at Site Tech global. You -- you know, it's been a big thing there and some other conferences. And definitely seems to be getting closer to reality than just someone talking about a vision for the future.
GS: Yeah. And you know, we know that we're not the only ones working on this. And I think that that is the most inspiring piece is that I'm sure there's going to be multiple things that people are going to see. And what that shows me is that this is going to be a real dream that we're going to see. And, you know, we're -- everybody's going to learn from all the successes of these, you know, multiline approaches and things like that; right? We saw that with Graphiti, we've seen it with the Canute. We're not the first one to do a multiline device. The Canute -- Bristol Braille brought it to fruition first.
JM: Yeah.
GS: So every product or every proof of concept, everything that gets talked about, there's learnings that can happen. And we're just -- we're really excited to see what can be accomplished with something like this.
And I guarantee you as we move forward and start doing even more user groups -- we were trying to do some pretty interesting virtual user groups on a tactile device. Let me tell you, that is not easy to do. I was sent out -- J.J., to get feedback, we sent out so many packetss of tactile graphics --
JM: Oh, my gosh.
GS: -- just to try to get feedback. I cannot tell you how excited I am to actually get in rooms with people and watch the way they interact with stuff. So it's going to be fun. It's going to be an awesome journey, but I guarantee you we haven't thought of everything. And I'm looking forward to learning, you know, what -- the things that we haven't thought of yet.
JM: Just one random tech question, and I know these things are still iterative. Like, what is the -- if you load in a picture, how long does it take to get from that point to it popping up on the device?
GS: So right now, without any intelligent pin recognition. So what that means is, you know, in the final product, we'll be able to know what pins are up and down. So refreshing the whole device from top to bottom takes less than 2.5 seconds.
JM: Wow. And what's the -- is there a prototype as far as how many rows and columns of pins there are? I'm sure that's still fluid as well.
GS: It is. Yeah. We're -- you know, we've been -- that actually was one of the -- we haven't settled on the final iteration yet, but we've looked at anything from ten lines of 20 cells -- and I'm speaking as Braille characters.
JM: Sure.
GS: So ten lines of 20 Braille characters, nine lines of 32, ten lines of 32, and nine lines of 40. So we looked at all of these different approaches, and weighed it against cost, against footprint, size, any of that kind of stuff. We're close to making a decision. It's really torn between two at this stage --
JM: Mm-hmm.
GS: -- but getting people's hands on prototypes is really what's going to help. But I can tell you that it's not going to be the nine lines of 40. That was --
JM: Right.
GS: -- that was the one that we were hoping it would be. But due to the footprint, the device would have been wider than a kid's desk.
JM: A. That makes sense.
GS: So we had to pull that. Because if it was 40 characters wide, that makes our software so much easier because everything is designed for 40-character lines.
JM: Yup.
GS: But that didn't come into reality, so --
JM: And I guess that makes sense, if you think about it. The -- most people -- at least I know when I was growing up, if I was reading -- you know, doing my own Braille, I would most often use an 8 and a half by 11 Braille paper --
GS: Mm-hmm.
JM: -- then, you know, textbooks would be even wider, but sometimes they wouldn't fit in your backpack because they were wider --
GS: Yeah. Yup.
JM: - and so --
GS: Yup. Exactly. And so we didn't want to create a device that was as big as these gigantic textbooks, so --
JM: Yup.
GS: So yeah. It's coming along. If I can put a plug for anybody who is interested in -- one of the things we are looking at doing later this year is doing regional user group sessions. If you are interested in participating in this type of user group sessions, you can reach this project at DTD, Dynamic Tactile Device, dtd@aph.org. Just send us an Email, and let us know where you are, where you're from and your experience with Braille and tactile graphics.
JM: Is that mostly for teachers, or are you looking for a wider group of people?
GS: Anybody. It's really -- we're looking for educators, the -- yeah. Quite honestly, educators are the ones that we can reach easily. I'm looking for a lot of students, I'm looking for college students, programmers, especially. I think there's a huge opportunity --
JM: Yes.
GS: You know, as somebody who has very rudimentary coding, one of the things I always struggled with was programming a UI and understanding the way that things are laid out in a UI, visual UI. And, you know, the idea of having a tactile representation of a user interface is pretty exciting, I think.
JM: Well, awesome. I will send that Email as soon as we finish the recording.
GS: You're already on the list. You don't even have to send the Email.
JM: Okay. Okay. I just want to make sure. I just want to make sure. Definitely will go wherever I need to go.
But definitely look forward to coming to CSUN. As this recording's coming out, check out this stuff. So again, stay tuned on the podcast feed. We will have more hands on with some of this stuff that we've talked about and some initial impressions in person in Anaheim, which is just an amazing thing to say. I hope you have a great conference. I'll definitely have you give out your contact information and anything like that.
GS: Absolutely. Yup. Yup. We're -- I looked at the weather. As it's snowing here in Wisconsin, and it's -- I think the Sunday that I get there, it's supposed to be 75 and sunny, so --
JM: Nice.
GS: -- I'm looking forward to that. So, I -- so you can reach us obviously at aph.org. And as I said, reach this Dynamic Tactile Device project at dtd@aph.org and very, very, very excited to see any of you, all of you who are coming to Anaheim, looking forward to seeing everybody at the booth, and safe travels.
JM: Thank you so much. And thanks, Greg. It's always a pleasure.
GS: Thank you.
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Joe Steinkamp is no stranger to the world of technology, having been a user of video magnification and blindness related electronic devices since 1979. Joe has worked in radio, retail management and Vocational Rehabilitation for blind and low vision individuals in Texas. He has been writing about the A.T. Industry for 15 years and podcasting about it for almost a decade.
