Microsoft and Apple Helped Build New Braille Display Standard (engadget.com) 26
An anonymous reader shares a report: Today, the non-profit USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) announced a new standard for braille displays. It was developed in cooperation with Microsoft, Apple and other tech industry leaders. The USB Human Interface Device (HID) standard will make it easier for blind or low vision users to use braille displays across operating systems and hardware. It will also remove the need for specialized or custom drivers and simplify development. "We see the opportunity that advancements in technology can create for people with disabilities and have a responsibility as an industry to develop new ways of empowering everyone to achieve more," said the Microsoft's Windows accessibility program manager lead, Jeff Petty.
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Furthermore, why build a display for blind people? If they can't see anyway, what difference does it make? Your tax dollars at work. x=Beau=x
A Braille display is a tactile device with cells representing characters by raising and lowering Braille dots (typically eight Braille dots in several tens of cells on one line). Some blind users I know use them heavily and some not at all. Open standard is a good thing since controls like buttons and their layout vary quite a bit across devices.
Re:Open source? (Score:4, Informative)
There's nothing much to really open source here. This is a HID standard that manufacturers implement in their USB devices. How they implement it will always be device-specific, but this change means that they won't have to deal with the other side of the wire any longer, since Apple and Microsoft are now baking the necessary support in on their ends, with Linux almost sure to follow.
For anyone who doesn't know what this is all about, there are HID standards for a number of classes of device, such as mice, keyboards, and gamepads. While you may need device-specific drivers to unlock functionality particular to a device, having a HID standard means that you should be able to plug any HID compliant device from any manufacturer into any modern computer and expect that the standard functionality will work the same across all of them. That's why you can plug virtually any USB mouse into any computer and expect that left click, right click, and the wheel will just work, even if you don't install drivers specific to that mouse. Likewise, you can take your keyboard, plug it into any computer, and expect that all of the standard keys will just work.
Up to now, braille displays haven't enjoyed that same level of compatibility. It'd be like (or, actually, is the same as) if prior to using your preferred monitor on any given computer, you first had to somehow install the necessary drivers to run that monitor...without being able to use the monitor to see what you were doing. And yet, that's what low vision users have had to deal with up to now.
Going forward, however, the hope is that it will be cheaper and easier for braille display manufacturers to make devices since they won't have to devote much/any time to custom drivers. It'll also be the first time for low vision users that they'll be able to take their braille display and plug it into pretty much any computer with a realistic expectation that it will actually work. That's a huge win.
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I would think Linux would be easier, being that there is so much you can do in just a text command line interface. Compared to trying to navigate a GUI OS such as OS X and Windows. And combine that you may not be sure if that Text on the screen is actually text or a bitmap.
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Why do you need Open Source when you have open spec?
Apple and Microsoft worked together to make Braille displays a USB class standard, so you can plug in a compliant Braille display and have it work instantly. Being a class device means Linux devs can easily add s
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A few years ago I spoke to a blind Linux/Unix developer who was extremely angry that there was no open source reader available. Not sure if that has changed and if both Apple and Microsoft are behind it, I doubt this will not be open source either.
Well this is a standard API for how to talk to a Braille display, like how to access the hardware. If it can already display "Hello World" under Linux using a custom driver this won't give you any more system/software support. And if it's like most other accessories it probably can, we had keyboards, mice, joysticks, printers, scanners, webcams etc. before the USB class compliant versions, like you could connect a webcam as a generic USB device and use a driver without it being a USB Video/Audio Capture cla
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There's Orca. It's not as good as NVDA, but it's on many major distros.
It's been around a while (since 2006), so I'm surprise your friend hadn't run across it.
apple with force you to buy an $29.99 adapter (Score:2)
apple with force you to buy an $29.99 adapter to use it when our new min mac pro 2020 has only micro TB4 ports.
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That are also USB 3.1 ports (type C connector). No adapter needed if you buy a brand new (not even designed/built yet) device that should already have the more recent connector.
Apple has always led the industry in accesibility (Score:2)
Apple is really good with accessibility in all of their products. I develop educational apps for iOS, and I am required by law to make my software Americansd with Disabilities Act compliant. Apple software makes this easy. Their Voiceover technology makes most things compatible. A standardized braille system will continue to make my job easier.
I have worked with several kids who are visually impaired, and they are inseparable from their iPhones.
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Whistler would approve, I assume (Score:2)