J.J. and Brian McDonald, President of National Braille Press, found some time to escape from the ACB Exhibit Hall floor to talk about the new affordable BrailleMe display. Brian walks us through an overview of the product and provides some insight into the unit s unique pin design. The pair also discuss a forthcoming update to the B2G and the differences between it and the BrailleMe. To learn more about both the BrailleMe and the B2G, or to pick up any number of Braille books as well, head over to the National Braille Press website.
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Transcript
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Hide transcriptTranscribed by Grecia Ramirez
Direct from St. Louis, it’s blindbargains.com coverage of ACB 2018, brought to you by Google
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Now, here’s J.J. Meddeaugh.
J.J. MEDDAUGH: ACB 2018 in St. Louis. I have found Brian MacDonald, the president of National Braille Press, here to talk about one of the new low-cost options for – being a braille display and notetaker, the Braille Me, now being sold here by NBP in the U.S.
Brian, welcome back to the podcast.
BRIAN MACDONALD: Thanks, JJ. Glad to be back again.
JM: So we’ve talked a little bit about the Braille Me on a podcast with buddy, but really haven’t had a lot of chance to look at it until now. So I will – why don’t you go ahead and describe the unit, and then we’ll kind of play with it a little bit.
BM: Okay. Well, it’s a 20-cell display. It’s pretty minimalistic. It has a six-dot keyboard for typing, because it does have a minimal editor capability. To the left of the braille display – oh. Let me – maybe, for – before for your audience. So the braille display is to the back of the unit, not towards the front like many other refreshable braille devices. And to the left of the braille display, there are navigation buttons up and down, which is navigating up and down. And to the right of the braille display are panning buttons in the same configuration. They’re kind of tactilely shaped like an up arrow or down arrow. There are cursor routing buttons directly below the 20 braille cells, then the braille keyboard for typing, and then spacebar in the middle, the left is the backspace, and the right is the enter key.
JM: Uh-huh.
BM: There is an SD card access on the left side of the unit, and on the right side, there’s a power switch. And then, there’s a DC jack for a plug, and then that’s -- and on the back -- on the bottom, I should say, there’s four screws for removable battery – to change a battery.
JM: You know, in feeling the braille -- I’m not sure how you would describe it. I would – it’s pretty – it’s almost like signage braille; right? It’s pretty crisp. And it’s very defined.
BM: Yeah. In fact, someone else at the booth said that it was restroom braille. That’s how they described it. Which is true because it is correct. It’s firm and it stands, I think, a little taller, you know, as far as its height goes. So that’s part of that restroom – like, metal signage kind of feel to it, maybe that it’s taller up, I don’t know. But people like it.
I think it’s very interesting, because we have our B2G at our booth too, and people can feel the Metec braille, which, people like. It’s crisp and it’s, you know, it gives, you know, compared to this being much more firm. But – they like them both, but they say, wow. I really like this Braille Me braille, you know? It’s kind of interesting to see the comparison, so –
JM: Uh-huh.
BM: -- it’s definitely different.
JM: And we’ll talk about that in a minute. You have both products, and obviously, I think they serve different needs and purposes. Six-dot braille versus eight-dot?
BM: Yes. So since it doesn’t have dots seven and eight, it has a cursor that’ll blink to show you where you want to navigate for editing, and basically, it’s just the dots that aren’t part of that character, the ones that will blink in that cell.
JM: And actually, why don’t we talk about that a little bit. So some of the decisions, you know, when you’re creating a low-cost display – and you didn’t create it, but you’ve worked with the company -- Innovision is the company that’s created the display. And, you know, there’s – certain decisions end up being made. Six-dot braille is one, but there is cursor routing buttons, which some of the others don’t have.
BM: Correct. I think they really tried to – we weren’t involved with any of the user interface or any of the functionality of this, to be honest. We’ve known them and gave them some advice over time, just about getting started, but not about the actual product. But I do think they were trying to figure out, okay. How do we find a happy medium of cost, six versus eight dots, but also having a little more feature capability with the editor, using router keys, and blinking cursors just to try to make it work? It’s not a high-end editor. We don’t want to fool anybody. Like, you know, you can’t do DOC and DOCX, you know, or EPUBs and different formats. You’re literally limited to text, BRF, and BRL, you know, for this device.
JM: But you can load books onto an SD card if you wanted to?
BM: Oh, yes. By all means. And you can Bluetooth with iPhones and Android phones and have a lot of access that way too. So – and probably get to a computer. You can USB to a desktop. It only uses NVDA right now for screen reading, so people need to be aware of that. But it definitely has those capabilities.
JM: It’s always one of those challenges; right? With new displays, trying to get the – make it so all the screen readers will –
BM: Exactly.
JM: -- support that. Maybe that’ll change in the future, with the new HID –
BM: Yes.
JM: -- drivers and things like that. And also, if you load it on – is it back translation, or how does it work with – you can load on braille or –
BM: Yes. So this is – what is good about this -- another advantage that they did think about compared to some other units is that it will do back translations on the device, which is great. And it has auto scroll on it, which is unique. That – you know, not everybody has that.
JM: Uh-huh.
BM: So they’ve tried to add some features that are different. It does have a good file manager, so you can certainly rename files and do things like that, which is great.
JM: What’s the battery life like?
BM: Well, we’re still trying to figure that out. You know, they say ten plus hours –
JM: Right.
BM: -- 12 hours, I’ll be honest. I think it’s going to be pretty darn good. It only uses power to pulse the braille up or down. When it’s in a set condition, it doesn’t use any power. We didn’t say how it works.
Basically, it is a magnetic actuation which, one of the reasons we were so intrigued with this from National Braille Press -- and, in full disclosure, we gave them the Touch of Genius prize this year because the committee of outside people, not our staff, really were impressed with the technology under the hood. And it uses a very simple design to raise and lower each braille dot with a magnet, and it’s one moving part to do that. So for mass production, it’s a very simple design for that, which is durable and reliable. That’s what we think is so impressive about the future of braille with this technology.
JM: And it’s still pretty lightweight as far as carrying it around?
BM: Yeah. It’s like 20 ounces. It’s a plastic case. It’s built like a tank. It really – it does seem very strong. They’ve said they’ve done drop tests, which I think is insane, but, you know, it’s not Piezo, so it’s probably more durable.
JM: Right.
BM: I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody, but it does seem to be pretty strong that way.
JM: And one of the other things is, you know, when the braille pops up – we can turn this on if you want -- you know, it actually – the braille pops up right away in like, one consistent motion as opposed to kind of –
BM: Yeah –
JM: -- rolling across.
BM: -- what – in fact, I’ll turn it on. It does have a loud beep when it turns on, which your audience will hear now. And that’s something we are talking about having an option to change that or turn it off even, or something like that.
JM: Right. If you’re in a meeting, especially or classroom –
BM: Yeah. And when it first turns on, it populates every dot, all 120 dots. So it does – that magnet hitting the ceiling of the guides makes a loud sound, which – I’ll turn it on right now, and your audience can hear it.
JM: Okay.
And yeah. You can hear that – you said that’s all the magnets popping up.
BM: Yeah. So I can’t describe all the details of how it works, but basically, there is a magnetic actuation, and when you pulse it, it has some braille pins pull up – forward, upward, and yeah. It hits a guide, obviously. You don’t want them to pop right out, shoot through the top of the device.
JM: Right.
BM: So when all 120 of those hit like that, it makes – that’s the loudest sound it ever makes. But once you’re using it, it’s pretty reasonable. I think it’s relatively quiet.
JM: You want to flip through some menus, or just –
BM: Yeah. No. We definitely can do that.
JM: Uh-huh.
BM: So it defaults in a menu item. So I’ll just hit some navigation items right now; okay?
JM: Right.
BM: Sorry. Wrong button.
JM: There we go.
BM: So you can hear that. That opened up towards file manager. It’s pretty quiet.
JM: Yeah. You’re just scrolling through the menus and –
BM: Yeah. Yeah. So it’s not very loud, really. But – you know, it’s noticeable, but it’s not perfectly quiet.
JM: Right.
BM: So I think it’s pretty reasonable that way.
JM: So essentially, you have a simplified menu system, where you could load up files and you can browse through them. And like you said, it’s a very simple editor as well, if people wanted to bring in files and type.
BM: Yeah. Yeah. And it has the limitation, a hundred – for typing a note or whatever you’re doing, 100 kilobytes is the maximum size for that.
JM: Uh-huh.
BM: For reading, there’s no limit. For, like, reading a BRF file or something you download. But a hundred – you know – 100 kilobytes is like, 100 braille pages, I think. It’s not like – it’s not like a one-page grocery list.
JM: Yeah. Unless your typing a novel or something –
BM: Yeah.
JM: Is that a technical limitation or –
BM: I don’t think so. At least not that I’m aware of.
JM: Right.
BM: So I’m saying, it’s reasonable, I think, for the amount of stuff you can type in one file, so –
JM: Sure. And they have been putting a lot of firmware updates while it –
BM: Yes. There’s another one coming next week, I’m told. And we’re certainly making a list of suggestions on navigation. I think it’s pretty intuitive, you know. You have a general file manager, and you can turn on your Bluetooth or go to USB mode or go to more settings for like, your time and date and all that kind of stuff.
JM: Uh-huh.
BM: So it’s pretty easy to navigate once you understand the buttons, and I don’t think it’s bad, but there’s certain things that we always have customers or people say, what about this? What about that? So I think the next couple generations will add a few more new features.
JM: So I guess, a couple related questions here that, you know, I’m kind of – so you’re selling this and you’re selling the B2G. This is 500 dollars?
BM: Yup.
JM: And the B2G – is it still 2500?
BM: That’s – yeah. Twenty-four ninety-five.
JM: Twenty-four ninety-five. Okay, I’m sorry. Let me not inflate –
BM: Giving you the car salesman price.
JM: Right. Okay. And four ninety-five or four-ninety-nine, so –
BM: Five times as much, basically. Yes. Yeah.
JM: Okay. So obviously – so you still feel there’s a need for both?
BM: Yeah. I think the biggest indication, JJ, was at CSUN, when we were giving out the prize for the Touch Genius then. So we had the Braille Me there and the B2G at our table.
JM: Uh-huh.
BM: And it was great for people to go side by side, compare the braille, compare the features. And we – it was really clear to me at that point that there are people that – whether they’re in work or business or school -- that they need more functionality. Especially with our editor on the B2G that can really do anything, even try changes and red lines and, you know, comments from multiple authors, to a low-end text kind of braille format editor, like on the Braille Me. But it has more – you know, it has more capability, obviously, with, you know, all kinds of apps and stuff and internal memory and space and USB and SD and voice and all that. It has just a lot more. So – but we had people that bought – at CSUN – bought a B2G. They said, nope. I want to buy a B2G. I need it for my work. But then I had other people, a year ago, that bought the B2G because it was the lower priced braille displays, and they just read books on it. So if I’d say to them now, well, what do you want to do with this, because maybe the Braille Me’s perfect for you, and you don’t need all the functionality of a B2G, you know?
JM: Do you think there’s a day where the braille technology gets to the point where you have the braille cell technology of the Braille Me combined with the notetaking capabilities of a B2G?
BM: I do. You know, we still have units, we’re still selling them for the B2G. We are upgrading Android on that very soon. So I think it’s a pretty timeless product, and we like it. But the next generation of the B2G and the Braille Me may be some merger combination, depending on where we go with all of this. And, you know what? Even six months from now, what’s going to happen in technology. Like, we’re looking at what we think could be in the next generation of a B2G, but certainly the braille technology is a big part of that. I mean, we use Metec braille in ours, which we really think is a high, high quality –
JM: Uh-huh.
BM: -- braille actuation for Piezo, but it costs more than the Braille Me –
JM: Sure.
BM: -- for us. It costs us more than that just for the Metec display we put in it.
JM: Yeah.
BM: So those are things we have to look at.
JM: So the B2G, of course, you’re still putting updates into that as well. What’s –
BM: Yes.
JM: What’s recent or what’s upcoming?
BM: Right now, we’re literally working with FEMA to do emergency broadcast alerts on it, because it – you know, for tornadoes and, you know –
JM: Uh-huh.
BM: -- Amber alerts and all that kind of stuff. And that will be done, hopefully in the next week. And then, we’re going to –
JM: You know, it seems like a small thing, but it is a big thing.
BM: Yeah. And FEMA hasn’t been able to do it with any braille company yet, and so we’re doing it. I’m sure we’ll be successful. So we’ve been working with their code and their alert systems, and hopefully, within the next week, that’ll be done, and then we’re going right into updating Android. We want to – I don’t want to make some big, huge announcement. We haven’t done it yet, but we think we can go up to 8.0, which would be huge, so that’s what we’re going to be working on as soon as we’re done with FEMA.
JM: Because you’re at 4 –
BM: We’re still on a hybrid of different patches of code from Jelly Bean on.
JM: Right.
BM: So I don’t know what to call it anymore, to be honest. It works, but it’s – we definitely need to get up there for some of the newer apps coming out.
JM: That’s always the challenge, right? Because now, you start having apps that don’t support older versions of Android.
BM: Right. Right. So I think this is good timing anyway. And it’s a good – we feel it’s a good product, and we want to make sure it has much more time available with it for the software side of things.
JM: So there’s lots of low-cost displays; right? And we talked about some of the differences or advantages of the Braille Me. Where do you see this market going in the next couple of years? These aren’t even the last, you know, Braille Me, Orbit, there’s more on the way. At least, you know, anywhere between –
BM: Yeah –
JM: -- two and five more, depending on how you look at it.
BM: It could be. Yeah. And let me just be clear. I want to – when we launched the B2G in 2016, the Orbit was announced at the same time at CSUN. Kevin Carey came from RNIB and Orbit was there, and I gave credit to them in reference to trying to come out with a very low-cost product early on. And I respect them, and I think they did a good job. I think the main differences between the two units, in the same price ranges, of course – I think the Braille Me’s technology is different. I think it’s -- it’s a faster refresh rate, I know that. I think the auto scroll’s good, I think the cursor router buttons are a nice feature for those that want to do some editing, and having some back translations in it. Those are all differences, I think, from the Orbit. But I – the Braille Me is a little bit deeper in length from front to back than the Orbit. It’s a little bit bigger package. Still very portable, but it is, you know, depends what people want. Everyone has preferences, and some people might like the feel of that. Some people might like this. You know, I’m glad there’s competition out there.
I was talking to Venkatesh yesterday about the Orbit -- because our booths are next to each other here, and APH.
JM: Oh, lucky.
BM: Yeah. No. It was actually good, because we have a great relationship. And he said, you know, I’m glad this is coming out, talking about the Braille Me, and I said – he said, it makes us both think of things to change on the Orbit and how to be more competitive. And I said, yeah. It’s great for the market. You know, so that’s kind of how we look at it.
JM: I mean, for braille literacy in general, the fact that we’re having a comparison discussion between 500-dollar braille displays –
BM: Yeah. And people have to realize, that’s a big breakthrough. This is a huge breakthrough in price. And I was watching – I was reading a listserv about the Braille Me -- because there’s been some talk lately. I do want to clarify, I think some of the stuff that was originally said was from earlier prototypes that weren’t the same as this now. But that sounds defensive, but I do think it’s kind of unfair, sometimes, to get this stuff out there and it kind of goes viral before people really know what’s going on.
JM: Right.
BM: But it was interesting to see. Somebody from Canada said, hey, guys. They’re trying to make a difference in braille. What are you going so hard for? It’s 499 dollars. What’s the big deal? Let’s give them a chance to get going here. And it was very interesting, because people have to keep in mind, everyone wants everything for the lowest price possible, and I get that. That’s – but we have to be patient and realize there are real costs to things, and, you know, you can’t put everything – there are component costs and hardware costs too.
JM: You know, we were having this discussion at CSUN with some people, for instance the eight-dot braille versus six-dot and, you know, sometimes, you have features in a braille display that you think, oh. I have to have this, but maybe it’s just because it’s always been there, and you wouldn’t – you couldn’t fathom how cursors would be displayed in another way. And of course, the Braille Me’s figured out another way to display cursors. So, you know, sometimes, you have features that you think need to be there, and maybe they don’t.
BM: Yeah. So I think it’s fun. I think we’ll learn a lot, all of us in the community as well, as these devices proceed forward. And I’m very excited. I think it’s a good product, I think the quality under the hood is very intriguing, and I hope we really shape other products that were thinking of working with them on too so –
JM: So you guys are the first to distribute them in the U.S., and you can get them now?
BM: Yes. Yeah. We’ve been shipping them, and we started about a week ago. And we’ve already shipped our first batch, and we have a we had a second batch right before these shows, and we’re scrambling to try and have enough to make sure we can demonstrate them before we sell the rest. We’ll be on – I will say this: We have back ordered, but we’ve already shipped them all. We’ve – no one’s waited more than four days so far, which is pretty good. So before order to ship date. So we have a bunch more coming next week, and I think we’ll keep on top of it.
JM: And again, four ninety-nine. Is there – what’s the warranty like?
BM: Warranty’s one-year limited warranty. Service – this is also a new model, because these guys are so lower in price, service and all those factors is a different model, distribution costs, there’s not a lot of overhead that you’re getting as a distributed – to make a lot of money off of these. It’s a whole different paradigm –
JM: Well, yeah. The life span and expectation, do you think it’s a little bit less of this, say, compared to a, you know, to a 3 thousand-dollar unit?
BM: I don’t think so. I really don’t. I think it’s really well-made.
JM: Uh-huh.
BM: And I mean, we’ll know in three, six, eight months, you know, if something happens to the braille, if something else –
JM: Right.
BM: -- that would be different, but I don’t think so. They’ve been working on this for quite a while, and they’ve tested – I know a month ago, I talked to the developer, and he said they had done eight million cycles of the braille, and it didn’t fail. Eight million’s a lot.
JM: Wow. That is a lot.
BM: So maybe it’s pretty good. We’ll find out.
JM: Can you get an extended warranty, or is that something you’re looking at?
BM: I don’t know yet, to be honest. It’s so new. That’s –
JM: Right. So far, everyone would be covered under the –
BM: Yeah. I mean, as individual distributors, we have the first, but you know, we’ve talked about having other distributors –
JM: Uh-huh.
BM: -- and to say, you know, you only need one distributor is bull because you need a lot more than that. But I think it’ll make a new model of distributors thinking of how to work together to make this more efficient and effective for sales and swapping and service and all that too, so it’s an interesting time to explore that.
JM: Definitely. As far as service, are you able to do some repairs in the U.S.? Are you working on that right now, or –
BM: We are going to be working on that. We haven’t yet. We haven’t had any yet like that, but certainly, I want to break one of these guys open and see how repairs are done for the braille pins and things like that.
JM: Makes a lot more sense, because this is a model from India, so –
BM: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
JM: -- be a bit of a track to –
BM: Yeah. We’re supposed to have that. I haven’t really done that yet though.
JM: Awesome. Well, hey. Thank you so much. Oh, of course, we should give out the web site and everything else.
BM: Yeah. So it’s National Braille Press, many of your customers probably know us. It’s nbp.org. Right on our home page, we have the Braille Me there, so you can click on a link there to read about specs and information and to purchase, of course. And people call – a lot of people just call our traditional customer service, which is, you know, just extension 520 for NBP. (866) 682-9100, and just – like ordering a book, you can order a Braille Me.
JM: You can get a book and a Braille Me together.
BM: There you go.
JM: I guess, well, you can – because a lot –
BM: Or an eBook and a Braille Me.
JM: Well, I was going to say, you guys do a lot of eBooks; right? You can load them right on the Braille Me if you wanted to; right?
BM: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. That’s correct.
JM: There you go. Well, cool. Thank you so much. Hey, we’re booth neighbors in Orlando, so that’ll be –
BM: Yeah. Look forward to seeing you next week.
JM: -- will be always fun. Thank you so much, Brian.
BM: All right. Bye.
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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.
