417 - Celebrating Louis Braille
the latest tech i'm alexa i can answer your questions interviews and we are evolving and we are seeing an amazing opportunity that's happening accessibility accessibility is one of the core values it's even the product mission statement this is double tap tv happy new year everybody i hope you had an amazing holiday break this year welcome to the first edition of double tap tv for 2022 it's gonna be a really exciting year we've got some great shows lined up for you including our one hour ces 2022 special airing next week here at this time we are in birthday celebration mode and world braille day is here so we're going to celebrate if you guys want to get involved send us an email it's feedback ami.ca or you can follow us on twitter at doubletap canada and if you've got a question for us don't forget to use that hashtag which is ask tap i am marca flallo and steven scott is by my side each and every single week live from glasgow scotland stephen world braille day what exactly are we celebrating here is it just because it's louis braille's birthday well you know i thought we were celebrating the fact that i had just turned 40 at the end of last year mark uh clearly you've moved on yeah i forgot about that yeah well i'm actually in mourning at the moment i'm wearing my black t-shirt today in morning for my 40 previous years um and no doubt the 40 to come um but yes world braille day far more important uh louis braille's birthday of course yeah a very significant date in the calendar for many people uh you know louis braille uh was the man who invented the braille code which unfortunately he didn't even see uh become uh the the braille uh language that has become the useful tool the ability essentially for blind and partially sighted people to be literate in today's society he didn't even see that come to fruition in his own lifetime people laughed at the prospect of braille but you know ultimately it did become a language of its own and indeed a way a means of communication for many blind people and a way of being as i said literate which is the key you know essentially reading and writing is what braille is to blind people that is the same thing and that is how important it is and it is just as important in 2022 as it was when louis braille was alive i think this is misconception stephen that anybody with a visual impairment just knows how to read braille that's not the case you only started learning it a couple years ago right absolutely and i'm not alone in fact many people never learn braille and it's interesting the number of people who learn braille and actually use braille is very small the numbers are small in fact there's an interesting statistic from 1960 done by the national federation of the the blind when they surveyed blind people back in the 60s you were looking at around 58 of children learning braille at that time now it's down to ten percent just in the last five ten years that survey taken uh only ten percent of blind and partially sighted children are learning braille so you know this is a big problem here it's not being taught in schools as much as perhaps it should have and in my own experience that was certainly the case i was discouraged from learning braille in favor taught to learn to use audio technology or text-to-speech technology which you know is what i use today the the jaws screen reader essentially which is great but you know i still need to know how words form how sentences form how how words on a page appear that's important that's what braille's about what kind of advantages do you think you have now having learnt braille i know that you're not up to stuff in terms of the level of other people's reading of braille but do you think you have an advantage over other people because you know how to read it i think it's different when you're older you know when when you start learning at an older age it's very different to what i would have learned had i started at a young age now interestingly i did learn grade one braille now grade one is essentially the alphabet uh and i learned that at school through a teacher who was actually learning herself she was teaching or going on to teach braille to students and she wanted to use me as a guinea pig and that's the only reason i got the opportunity to learn it i wish i had gotten to grade two grade one is what they call contracted braille where essentially a number of characters become one and it makes the amount of braille on one line equal more words on the on the line so essentially shrinking down the amount of braille you would have to read and it allows you therefore to read faster the advantages for someone like me is the ability to for example when we're on the cruise recently last year we had a lovely time on a cruise it was nice to know what floor we were going to with the lift rather than just randomly poking buttons and waiting for the announcement to tell us we were on the ninth floor and then try and work out what button that was we'd press to get to the 14th you know actually being able to read the braille read the braille inside the ship to know what was on the floor what was actually there what what we were walking towards because there's so much braille around in these settings it's good to be able to do that to take quick notes to label plugs on the wall to know what things are connected up so you'd have to pull a plug out and chase a cable you can just literally just feel the the braille dots and figure out what it is you know there's so many applications for braille not necessarily to sit down at my age and read war and peace because it would take me as long as it took to write war and peace to read it but ultimately you know it's those little things through the day that make my life easier with braille and also it keeps me literal which is something i really do value as you lose vision you know i always think back to the film back to the future and you might remember mark in one particular scene there's an image where as marty's back in the future he or back in the past i guess is he's um looking at an image of his family from the future and because he's making changes to his world the images of the people are changing they're disappearing from the photo leaving perhaps just him and someone else and all his other family members have disappeared out of the image that's what words are like to me now the the letters and the words are disappearing so i'm forgetting how to spell and you know that's where braille is so important and actually being able to read a page and actually you know see or feel arguably how a word is spelled out really makes a difference yeah stephen next week on the show we're going to be covering all things ces we're going to be here with you at the same time but we're going to be with you for an hour because there are lots of things to cover including the makers of the braille display or one maker of braille displays and that's the american printing house for the blind so after a quick break we're going to actually dial them up a little bit early before ces because i want to find out what their thoughts are on the state of braille in 2022 if you guys want to get involved it's feedback ami.ca and of course on twitter if you're following us it's at doubletap canada with the hashtag askdoubletap we're going to talk to them and a very very cool feature from grant hardy after this break stick around for more great double tap tv content visit ami dot ca slash double tap this is double tap tv we're back on double tap tv in full celebration mode break out the candles the confetti poppers and say happy birthday to louis braille and let's help celebrate world braille day with us i am mark of lalo and i could not be here without steven scott by my side steven what do you think louis braille would say today if he could witness all the technology around us that's taking his language and bringing it to all these new heights i think louis braille would be in tears of joy quite frankly because you know despite what i said earlier about the number of blind people who are learning by children who are learning braille today i will say there's been a massive sea change you know one of the biggest challenges there's two challenges essentially that exists when it comes to learning braille and actually people not just children but anybody reading braille and that is the education part the number of people who are actually being taught at school that's one challenge but secondly it's the cost of the technology and the technology cost is is high you know for a braille display you're looking in the region of four uh sometimes five or even six even beyond that thousand dollars you know we're not talking a little bit of money here you know you think about if you were going out tomorrow mark to buy a new keyboard for your computer right if i was saying to you uh like okay what keyboard are you gonna get you'd be like well i'll get the logitech or i'll get whatever it might cost me 200 bucks or 150 or whatever i'd be saying well i'm gonna go and get a braille version it's gonna cost me five thousand dollars you'd be like what and that's unfortunately the reality we're still in today now there are lower cost options coming along we've seen products like the orbit reader at 20 and then the orbit reader 40 as well come out and these products are much lower cost which is good news better better entry point for many people but we're even seeing the technology that we buy every day having the capability to improve braille for example the humble iphone the iphone has a built-in braille screen input on the device so i can just use my fingers in the perkins style the way i would with a braille display or with a perkins brailler and input that braille onto that device i have it on android phones as well you can even get an app a brilliant app for windows called perky duck hilarious name uh but perky duck brilliant app it works just like a notepad uh on your windows desktop so you just open up perky duck and just like notepad you go and you start typing away using the uh the sdf and the jkl keys as your perkin keys on a qwerty keyboard so if you can't afford the perkins because they're quite expensive if you can't afford the braille display you can use perky duck uh you know there are different ways to do it and read that information back which is brilliant so the technology is getting cheaper so that's helping and that is why i think louis braille is is certainly going to be would have been happy if he'd been here so let's talk a little bit about louis braille a little bit more in a little bit more detail grant hardy is here double tap tv contributor and he's looking back at louis braille himself the man and what his legacy is all about and what it would mean if he was here today hey am i vancouver bureau reporter and double top contributor grant hardy here i've been blind since birth and whether i'm reading the latest thriller taking notes at work or reading the buttons in an elevator i use braille the system of raised dots for reading and writing that's become the ubiquitous essential window to the world for literacy education and employment for people who are blind so i wanted to talk to dr k holbrook professor at the university of british columbia to find out more about the genius who invented braille louis braille so louis braille was born in what was at the time a very rural village now it would be considered a suburb of of paris and he went blind when he was very young two or three years old as a result of an accident in his father's saddlery shop and through a variety of events he got a scholarship to the paris school for the blind where they were doing some innovative work in the education of individuals um young young children who were blind or visually impaired and so he became he was really a pioneer in the development of the of the braille system that we use almost almost the same system that he developed when he was very young and he developed it because he needed it and his classmates needed it given the generally negative attitude towards blindness and visual impairment in the past louis braille was truly way ahead of his time what's really striking to kay is his determination i can't believe that as a young child in a time where this kind of thing was not accepted really he was able to go past that and to develop something that was that's really been lasting for over 200 years even today people who are who are innovating new technologies new ways of doing things new strategies are also that kind of creative they they imagine something that doesn't exist and they work to try and make that exist there's no doubt about it louis braille didn't know that computers would exist in the future or blindness specific tablets or even elevators but he did know one thing just like for the sighted world a simple consistent way to read and write letters is the key to independence and success i wouldn't be where i am today without louis braille and the system of raised dots named after him i can't wait to see where the system of braille goes next that's grant hardy there thank you grant and uh really insightful to learn a bit more about louie bros past his history and indeed his legacy mark which is uh something that a lot of people will be talking about today and i hope we'll continue talking about in the future coming up we're bringing on a company it will be featured on our ces episode next week but given our conversation about braille we wanted to bring them on a little bit early to find out what they think about the state of braille and that is the american printing house for the blind get involved get in touch feedback at ami.ca
of course our email address on twitter at doubletap canada use that hashtag which is ask doubletap we'll be back in a moment for more great doubletap tv content visit ami dot ca slash double tap this is double tap tv welcome back to double tap tv talking all things world braille day and celebrating not only that but also louis braille's birthday i am marca flallow with steven scott by my side special thanks to grant hardy for putting that piece together for us that was amazing steven uh but coming up now uh a very cool company that's going to be featured in our hour-long ces special next week and that company is the american printing house for the blind we decided to catch up with them a little early because of course this is world braille day that's right mark we've got a chance to talk to greg stilson who is the head of global technology innovation a huge title at american printing house for the blind they talk to us about the work they've done with companies like humanware and others to make more technology more braille technology in particular accessible to as many blind children and blind people as possible and i wanted to first off ask greg about his thoughts on the relevance of braille in 2022 it's a it's a it's a question that i think is on a lot of people's minds as the text-to-speech offerings become more mainstream when you see voice assistants and people browsing you know shopping experiences with their their voice only and getting text-to-speech feedback and things like that is you see that brought into the mainstream um you know you see that quote or you hear that question brought up even by means a lot of mainstream people of how why do you need to read braille if if i can just listen to an audio book and you know the the the recognition of of things like spelling and and sentence structure and punctuation and and you know all when i when i bring that up to a sighted audience you know they immediately get it because they understand how reading the written word has affected them and their comprehension and their ability to to you know read and write and communicate effectively uh they understand how you know literacy has has allowed them to do that but it's really easy the more technology and voice assistance and text-to-speech offerings that you see for people to forget that is so intricate part of education and braille is the solution for that braille is what gives a blind person that um ability to understand things like sentence structure and spelling and punctuation and an aph has a braille roadmap um you know we've we've really focused a lot on um upping the ante with regards to uh intelligent braille displays mantis being sort of the the first example here it's where braille displays used to be you know great when they're connected to another tool they used to be a very expensive paperweight when not connected to that tool right and now today with devices like the mantis um you know having a a basic editor and a calculator and a book reader and even embedded wi-fi so you can download updates or download books directly to the device um braille displays aren't just this connect connected only device now they they have intelligence and uh and and productivity tools that even when they're disconnected from a computer or a mobile device there's there's value there there's this concept of i guess the holy grail or the holy braille device actually as it might be you know the idea that you have the ability to read from this but also get tactile images as well and i know this is something that you've been uh keen to work on uh we've seen other projects working on this around the world as well tell us about that you're working on something actually right now aren't you you know aph is going to release a product um you know our timeline is hopefully end of 2023 but there's so many unknowns in this project we're trying to do something that's just never been done before and so you know our that's our on the paper timeline but unfortunately with all of the supply chain issues and everything else that are happening we never know what's going to happen so having said all this i hope aph is is you know one of the first to release a product that is really focused on solving this problem but i also hope that aph is not the last being a non-pro not-for-profit company our job one of our main mission goals here is to stimulate in innovation in this space right and so if aph can start the wave of these type of products because i can tell you you know for-profit companies are going to hopefully come up with products that are cheaper easier to produce and uh and and hopefully more innovative than what we're going to what we're going to release but you know the way that i tell my team all the time is it has to start with somebody right somebody has to release this this product and and start this new category of technology we'll hear more from greg stillson next week on our hour-long ces 2022 special because steven they're one of many companies who are in the accessibility i guess you'd say you know section of ces 2022 although it's a little smaller this year because the event is virtual but i guess you know in wrapping up this episode and and again thank you to greg for being here and thank you for grant hardy for putting that great piece together i have to i have to look to you and say you know what would you hope that the future of braille really is is it really that holy grail of of this devices that allows us to have tactile feedback for everything in our world it's a really difficult question because ultimately what you want is something that is mainstream enough to provide the braille that we need um in our more affordable package and i you know i don't know and i think i share greg's view on this that and we get into a huge amount of detail in conversation on this and we'll hear more as you say next week but i just don't know if we'll ever get that from a company like apple or google it will always be i think braille under the term specialist because it kind of has to be this is not something that anybody can or should use or would use necessarily it's for blind people right this is for blind people and in a world where we try and mainstream everything and try and put everything under the banner of in quotes normal um that's quite difficult to do with something like this i think ultimately what i'm looking for is more people to learn braille so you know let's get more people training educating understanding about braille making braille you know a real part of a child's development and encouraging people who are older who perhaps are losing their site to have a go at it it's not saying it's for everybody and certainly not suggesting for a second it's all about reading it's sometimes as i said earlier about making notes um about identifying products around the home that's where these devices uh that's where this technology can be really useful even with that simple dymo braille labeler yes you can get those as well a braille labeler with from dymo that's all about braille um you know and that's a great product to have um the more we have the better right the more tools we have in our arsenal is better for employment for continuing employment in older age and certainly at younger age so you know what i'm looking for my holy grail holy grail if you want is you know something that's affordable uh that's available to as many people as possible we're getting there but there's still much more what to be done well we're going to follow this and maybe some things will come up next week on our ces show so uh do tune in uh see a special next week one hour special all about ces 2022 we'll talk about of course mainstream stuff some more assistive stuff lots of really cool things are coming up next week thank you guys so much for being with us this week again if you want to get in touch feedback at ami nazi is our email address on twitter if you're not following us already what are you waiting for it's at double tap canada and use that hashtag which is ask doubletap to to get our attention on behalf of our guests and stephen scott this week i am marca flallo we will speak to you again next week on doubletap tv hosted by markaflalo and steven scott editing jordan steves and markaflallo voiceover anna vicino integrated described video specialist ron rickford coordinating producer jennifer johnson director production kara nye director programming brian perdue vp content development and programming john melville president and ceo david arrington copyright 2022 accessible media inc
2022-01-09 03:47
