Your points are all well taken. I suggest that off the shelf products
and specially developed notetakers may be different products. Thus
the discussion is valuable, if comparing is possible understanding
their differences.
One of these differences is the availability of Grade Two braille
input. The Braille Sense and Humanware notetakers do allow somebody
to input using Grade Two braille. This input option may be faster for
somebody with good braille writing skills who needs to take down
verbatum transcripts or who wants to input notes rapidly. In this
case, the notetaker user is paying for the braille translation
software in the notetaker.
Off the shelf and notetakers are sometimes actually different
products, as in this case. They each have advantages and
disadvantages depending on the needs of an individual. This is a
useful discussion if framed in something other than either or terms.
I would personally like a braille display which contained a braille
translator if possible but did not have the weight of either the
braille sense or other notetakers.
At 09:55 AM 2/2/2009, you wrote:
It's not arrogance, it's about financial practicality. How much are you
as a person or organization really spending on these products when if
they did just a little more research, they could find that doing things
with a more mainstream approach in mind would actually be cheaper and
achieve the same thing? People want Braille displays, fine, let them
have them. But you don't need the likes of the voice sense which as has
already been pointed out, is like all the rest of the note taking
devices, not mainstream, not able to run third party aps therefore
inflexible. For the money that the likes of the adaptive tech companies
charge for these devices I would expect them to come in platinum
casings!!
A lot of windows based phones nowa days are accessible to code factories
mobile speak pocket or smart phone. There are Braille displays out there
that will connect to these devices. And these devices are getting far
more powerful than my old htc that I had, mobile speak is making
advances all the time, code factory are the only ones who have yet
realised and got a fully working product out there that can work on
these mainstream products. And at a much more affordable price than the
blind friendly alternatives. As for keyboard issues, well again, there's
wi-fi connectivity, USB, and Bluetooth options on these devices now. So
there's absolutely no reason why such a keyboard cannot be used in given
situations. I've seen them. So no it's not arrogance at all, it just
saddens me to think that all these organizations, access to work, voc
rehab and all the other organizations that provide people in employment
with such devices as these, because of lack of research, are being
effectively ripped off. It's like another difference, the difference
between trekker and wayfinder access. As well as all the other things
you carry about with you, why would you want to carry round an
additional PDA which looks like it's been slapped together by someone
who hasn't even gone through kindergarten yet, when you can have 1
single phone, with an optional external gps device should you not want
to use the internal one and yes there are reasons for and against that,
and the programme on the phone? Sorry but it's ludicrous!
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