an online magazine from eyeway.org
an online magazine from eyeway.org
issue 1 
september-october 2004
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Headlines : India News
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Keyboard Braille brings hope for blind users
Sumali Moitra and K.V. Ramana, The Times of India; January 16, 2004
West Bengal will soon become one of the best-equipped states to offer computer-aided education to blind students. The computerised Braille transcription system developed by Webel Mediatronics Ltd (W.M.L.), which enables blind users to read, write and print will be extended to another 10 government-aided blind schools in West Bengal this year. "This system, on which we are now working with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C.D.A.C.), is already in place at 27 blind schools in the state. The system ensures that students are not deprived of good education because of their physical disability," W.M.L. official Shankar Goswami said. He added that the advantage of the system is it supports 12 Indian languages – Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Nepali – in addition to English.
"Since several students come from a strata where exposure to the English language is limited, it is essential to train them in languages they understand," Goswami said.
Explaining how the system functions, a C.D.A.C. official said the entire range of computer peripherals, including the keyboard and printer, has been redesigned for the benefit of blind people. 'Tact Braille‘ is a P.C.-based touch-reading device that can be used to read line by line with a set of control switches like start and stop, the official said. 'BrailleWriter‘ is an application developed by W.M.L. with a dedicated Braille keyboard. 'Text to Braille‘ is a product which converts text files into Braille script. The printer is a P.C.-based embosser that can convert text to Braille or vice versa. "Efforts are on to print graphics on the printer so that a blind person is able to touch and feel the shape of a picture to know what it is," the C.D.A.C. official said.
"This is a programme aimed at making technology useful to everyone in society, including blind persons," Union Communications and I.T. Minister Arun Shourie told T.N.N. in Hyderabad.
C.D.A.C. and W.M.L. are working on developing pictorial software for spastics too. The software displays a screen full of icons depicting various moods, emotions and objects. A spastic can select these icons to communicate a message using a simple keyboard with one or two keys. "We are trying out this software in two schools in Mizoram and West Bengal. If all goes well, it will be expanded to other locations in March," the C.D.A.C. official said.
Other India News stories in this issue:
Visually impaired boy makes headlines on Akashwani
Low-cost reading aid
One man's vision...