Oh boy, this will get interesting! <smile> Here are my thoughts. Like you, I do not have an opinion yet, since I think there are good cases both for and against specialized braille notetakers. However, I think that the notetaker's days are numbered; it costs more to buy and maintain, it cannot do as much, and mainstream solutions just keep getting better while our own notetakers still can't read docx or pdf files, in mid 2011.
Pro Case: The notetaker is still the easiest to use, not requiring the purchasing of special software, the underlying accessibility frameworks to be used, or the myriad commands or gestures needed (I realize a case could be made against that last one). Notetakers are up and ready to go, no connecting the display or anything. They are also designed from the ground up with accessibility in mind; where else can you write in three different braille codes in one document, depending on the situation? A notetaker, in other words, is designed for a blind person to use efficiently and easily, while mainstream devices that are accessible are designed with sighted users in mind and then made to be accessible after the fact. Yes, they cost more, but so do screen readers, and screen reader upgrades, at least for JFW, can cost more than BrailleNote upgrades. Con Case: Some of what is in the Pro section is company-specific and so cannot be applied to the notetaker or screen reader industries as a whole. For instance, JFW upgrades do cost money, as do BrailleNote upgrades, but HIMS upgrades are free. The NVDA screen reader is free to begin with. As for braille being ready immediately, iOS has this covered; turn on the display and unlock your iTouch and the two will pair within five seconds automatically. (I will now focus on iOS as it is the only mainstream device I have been able to use braille with.) iOS is very accessible and, aside from some grade 2 translation problems, I find it very useable. It lacks a good wordprocessor, but I can install any number of other apps on it. A dictionary for my bn costs $200 from Humanware, but a dictionary app costs nothing whatsoever and can go online for definitions if I want it to. There are countless games, utilities, and other apps on my iPod that my bn could never manage, and most of them were free, not hundreds of dollars. Are they as accessible as Keyword on the bn? Not all of them, but many are, provided one does not apply the same useability model to the iPod as one would to the bn. That is, the iPod has a screen I can touch to do things, whereas the bn relies only on keyboard input. It is unfair to call the iPod not as accessible because everything cannot be done from a braille or QWERTY keyboard, since the iPod was not designed with keyboard use in mind, just as the bn was not designed with a touch-sensitive pad in mind. The other question was whether braille is important. I consider braille absolutely essential. I often use the iPod and apex together, since each offers different things that the other cannot do, or cannot do as well. For instance, I might check my Twitter feed on the iPod through the bn's terminal application, then exit the terminal and send an email on the bn since I can write faster and not worry about translation errors. I may then go back into terminal to open a PDF document, and jump between reading the PDF in braille on the bn (via the iPod) and writing notes on the bn (in it's own wordprocessor). However, even if I did not have the apex, and only the iPod, I would have gotten a display of some kind. What happens when it is noisy and I cannot hear the speech well enough? What about when I have no headphones with me but am somewhere where a yapping computer is not welcomed, such as taking notes in a class or meeting? What about when I simply want to see how a word is spelled, or look at the spacing of a document, without reading character by character with speech? Braille is vital in these and other instances, and so I consider it vital to whatever mobile computing solution a blind person decides to use. My computer at home does not have a display because there is rarely a time when one would be useful, since the room where the computer is set up is quiet and I can use arrows, sound schemes, and other means to quickly examine text if I need to. However, my apex/iPod combo goes everywhere with me when I am out of the house, and I most often use the bn, whether I am actually using the bn's applications or am using it as a terminal for the iPod. On 7/24/11, Chris Nusbaum <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > I don't have a set opinion on this matter as of yet, but I'd like > to initiate the discussion. I'm noticing a trend in the > blindness technology field: PC's can do most everything a > notetaker (BrailleNote, BrailleSense, PacMate, etc.) can do, with > some obvious changes and differences, and in some cases can do > and support more than the notetaker. This is also true with the > ever-improving accessible smartphones and tablets: the iPhone, > iPad, iPod Touch, (the semiaccessible) Android phones, the KNFB > Reader, etc. Yes, the notetakers have built-in Braille displays, > but you can also install a stand-alone Braille display on a > computer to display what's on the screen, or you could just buy a > screen reader (text-to-speech, not text-to-Braille) as a > replacement for the Braille display... that is, if you think it > is in fact a replacement for refreshable Braille. That's another > question for all of you in this discussion. So, here's the > question: with all the advancements and capabilities of a > computer and screen readers or stand-alone refreshable Braille > displays, is it worth it, in your opinion, to buy a notetaker > anymore? What, given all the things a PC can do, is the real > purpose of the notetakers now? I'd love to hear your thoughts! > > Chris > > "A loss of sight, never a loss of vision!" (Camp Abilities motto) > > The I C.A.N. Foundation helps visually impaired youth in > Maryland have the ability to confidently say "I can!" How? Click > on this link to learn more and to contribute: > www.icanfoundation.info or like us on Facebook at I C.A.N. > Foundation. > > Sent from my BrailleNote > > ___ > Replies to this message will go directly to the sender. > If your reply would be useful to the list, please send a > copy to the list as well. > > To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to > [email protected] > To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit > http://list.humanware.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote > > -- Have a great day, Alex (msg sent from GMail website) [email protected]; http://www.facebook.com/mehgcap ___ Replies to this message will go directly to the sender. If your reply would be useful to the list, please send a copy to the list as well. To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to [email protected] To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit http://list.humanware.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote
