Breakthrough computer opens Internet to blind people

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Breakthrough computer for blind people

by Neill Birss

A computer developed in Christchurch that opens the Internet to blind people has been described as a breakthrough.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has twice discussed the new BrailleNote computer with Russell Smith, the managing director of Christchurch electronics firm Pulse Data International.

The head of the Microsoft unit that looks to the needs of the disabled, George Allen, was in Auckland yesterday for the computer's launch.

A demonstrator from the Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind, Marcel Oats, said the computer was a breakthrough. He agreed it could be the equivalent of a laptop computer for blind people. The computer contains a panel of cells of tiny rods that give in Braille the equivalent of screen text. It also has synthesised speech.

The user chooses to read incoming email or documents in Braille or hear them read out.

Blind people learn to understand read text at a speed that sounds like garble to the sighted, and the computer provides speed controls for this.

The computer comes with an internal modem, so that the user can send and receive email. The word processor takes input from the Braille keys and converts the document to Microsoft Word format. Incoming email can be either read on the Braille keys or listened to.

Pulse Data is working on enhancements that let users access Internet sites, though without the graphics. This facility will be available soon.

Dr Smith said a Braille world encyclopedia had not been printed since 1949. The last one filled 145 volumes and took up nearly 15m of shelf space. Enabling blind people to consult on-line databases should overcome such publishing problems.

The computer should help Braille-literate blind people gain more jobs, he said.

http://www.press.co.nz/2000/15/000414l00.htm

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), April 15, 2000

Answers

Wonderful to hear about your system development; I am a blind person that needs internet access. Please put me on your e-mail list for further news development.

-- James Dee Kness (jim355113@altavista.com), April 20, 2000.

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