David2074
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- Posted: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 09:33:16 +0000
Nyadriel
David2074
Nyadriel
David2074
Nyadriel
What if they were also deaf and could not hear? Also, there are still some people who still use the phone and the braille comes in handy.
Also as well are those who cannot afford computers or voice synthesizers and maybe don't have access to one while as a child in school.
xdivision_whitey
I think a combination of all they would help the blind. Still have to have braille... Just no switching signs on the restroom doors.
Nyadriel, Whitey
I was not trying to imply there is zero use for braille.
I've done interpreting for folks who were deaf and blind so I'm well aware of the communication issues they face. According to Gallaudet the blind & deaf population in the US is roughly 50,000 people. source (Or roughly .016% of our population of 316 million)
What I was trying to say is I believe the demand for home use braille printers is likely way down and as such probably not a huge demand for such a product - which makes it harder to market. Yes we have braille on elevator and restroom signs but this is not what this printer is designed for.
As to cost, I'm going to hazard a guess that it might be easier / cheaper to get text to voice software than a braille printer. If you google on text to voice you get lots of hits. For example -
http://www.naturalreaders.com/
That one is free and you can choose different voices. I tried it and while it still sounds a bit artificial it isn't too bad. Obviously an actual blind person needs a more blind friendly setup but they exist.
Whether your final output is to a printer (braille or otherwise) or to a speaker (voice conversion) you still have to have something to scan in your text if what you are trying to read is something printed you have in hand as compared to what is already on a web page. My point being that portion of the cost would be the same. These days most people do own computers so there is a good chance they already own the hardware (other than the scanner) to drive the text to voice software. And they may already own the scanner. My laser printer / copier has scanning options that include scan to text. Feed that text into a text to voice converter and you have speech. So chances are I already own everything I need to turn printed material around my home into speech. I know there are more sophisticated / streamlined versions available for folks who are actually blind and can not see the menus on the computer screen.
Anywho.... My point was not to say there is zero use for braille these days.
My point was it is harder to market a product for which there is likely a fairly small demand compared to a product that most everyone would use.
My point being is that many cannot afford the high price of the item you are talking about. It might not be as small a demand as we might think. I have a cousin who could never afford to pay that kind of money, so she could definitely benefit from the LEGO one (if she could even afford that, I dunno)
I don't really know and I'm not trying to make a pissy argument about it. (Not saying you were, just mean by giving facts I'm not trying to be pedantic about it. I just was a bit curious myself and was looking some stuff up.)
I was talking small demand in comparison to the entire US population. Make something everyone uses your target audience is 316 million people just in the US. Make something for blind users who use braille your target audience is a much smaller subset of a subset. While that does not justify not making things for braille users it does make it understandable why many for profit companies are not competing in that market (as opposed to say TVs and cell phones where there are tons of choices).
It is difficult to pin down the number of blind people who can't see at all because the legal definition in the US is best correctable vision is 20/200 in the better eye or visual field must be 20 degrees or less.
In other words, a lot of blind people can see well enough they do not use braille. I have two legally blind friends that I know of. One of them drives. The other is an artist. Both can see well enough to type emails and text messages. Both of them definitely have visual problems but neither one uses braille and you might not know thy were legally blind if you just saw them and didn't know them.
But a hint at the limited use of braille are some stats here -
https://nfb.org/blindness-statistics
legally blind children (through age 21)
Total number of students: 60,393
Braille readers: 5,147 (8.5%)
Older adults are harder to say (at least on what I found) but the WebAim survey (linked in the page I linked above) shows that 95% of respondents say they use a screen reader.
Mind you, I have no idea how that survey is put out or if it is biased by being only put out on the web.
Anyway, I hope the kid's company does great and I hope he didn't give up too much % of the company to the startup investors. Though often they would since they funded pretty much all of it. If he sells 10,000 of them (or less) it will be more than I sold of anything I ever made so more power to him.
And again, I was just looking up the stats because I was curious myself. I'm a little bit part of the deaf community due to my brother but I know very little about the blind community. I don't really think of my friends as "blind" even though I know they are legally blind. The deaf & blind lady I interpreted for was totally blind. She could read your sign language by hovering her hands over yours as you signed. I don't really even know how she learned that. Though perhaps when she was younger she could see and knew sign language when she lost her sight. To me that would be a frustrating world but she appeared to have learned to cope with it.
No problem. It's a good conversation which I encourage.
My cousin was born blind and deaf. She was the one I spoke about who she and two brothers were dumped onto their grandmother who had to quit her job and go on Welfare to take care of them. My cousin also uses sign language (much like the celebrated Helen Keller who was also blind and deaf and it was her mother that invented and developed the hand signing)
Anyway, this kid's innovation could lead to other great things - and ya know, I am surprised (now that I think about it) that no one thought about making cell phones/IPads/IPods/etc with braille keys! Do they have computer keyboards with braille keys? (I think they do)
How did they go about teaching your cousin?
That just sounds so tedious.
I mean, yeah, I saw that Helen Keller movie but they just give it a Hollywood brush over as I recall.
I don't know if there are any phones with braille keys but again I am thinking very limited market.
I am assuming there is software that speaks what they type. In fact that survey had a section about screen readers on mobile devices. So if they are blind and hearing they probably quickly get used to where the keys are located and use the audio. I'm not blind but I do touch type both letter keys and number pad so if I did become blind I could still type and audio feedback would let me know when I typoed something.
For people who are blind and deaf the braille keys for input would be no use without some sort of braille output.
But now I confess I'm a bit curious how most blind people do deal with mobile devices. My guess is just getting used to where the keys are and text to audio like I said. But I don't really know. And of course I mean blind people who can't see well enough to read the screen / see the keys, not legally blind but still largely functional people like my two friends.
Oh DUH! It just occurred to me that for newer phones I bet many blind people use the voice commands that many non-blind people use. "Call John" is a lot easier than pressing buttons.
