World Braille Day

  The development of devices which would make it possible to store braille print digitally on compact cassettes in order to be recalled for reading, was already one of the topics on the technical conference in London in April, 19. The advantage of this procedure lies mainly in the possibility to have a large quantity of text on a single cassette. Some of those devices are already in the stage of practical test, so, for instance, the "Digi-Cassette" in France and the "Braillocord (BRS.76)" which was designed by the Heinrich-Hertz-Institut in Berlin and developed by the AID. There is, further on, the "Braillex", designed by Professor Boldt (Dortmund) which is said to come out in a series for testing in the course of this year. Supplied with a fast automatic station-scanner it is specially suited for the storage of dictionaries and files. I had the opportunity to test the BRS.76 thoroughly. Though its stage of development is remarkable there will be, no doubt...

  Introduction  The framework of this report has been defined with precision. Modern techniques are obviously the utilisation of data processing and electronics, and traditional methods are the embossing of sheets of paper or plastic. However, we will recall some characteristics of the traditional techniques and, at the end, we will mention briefly the non-traditional methods, such as the elimina tion of braille paper and the utilisation of the normal method of printing embossed characters for the production of braille. According to traditional techniques, the cooperation of a non-blind person is used. This person should have, according to his abilities, the knowledge of grade 1 braille, contracted braille, braille music or mathematical notations. The instruments used are the LOUIS BRAILLE writing frame or slate, the 6 key braille writer and the stereo typing machines. These latter permit the embossing of aluminium plates, indispensable for the press printing of a large number...

  Scientific and technical development has notably in creased in the last few decades. There is talk of the penetration of the scientific-technical revolution in all countries of the world and in all spheres of human life, including the new devices and aids for the blind and visually imapired. We, the directors of printing houses and libraries for the blind, have the responsibility of taking immediate and full advantage, in our work, of the results of the rapid growth of this modernisation and technical development. The organisation of braille libraries, of recorded literature, and of books, magazines and manuals in large print for the partially sighted need not be isolated from the general development. Also in this same aspect it is necessary to search for new ways, new work methods, inas much as both the blind and visually imapaired represent at the present time a significant factor, which must be integrated, as an important part of society and state in normal life. The historica...

  It is nigh impossible to estimate the braille-reading population in the United States. Louis Goldish has made H a couple of stabs and so have others including the Library of Congress, Division for the Blind and Physically «) Handicapped. Neither Mr. Goldish nor we have done much ' more than scratch the surface: the sources for his figures « were secondary sources, and DBPH's most recent effort in i assessing braille readership arose from a loosely constructed survey with limited objectives. If one attempts an honest estimate or projection of **] this readership by looking at a variety of national sources, one can see, I believe, that the braille reader- **] ship appears to be at a plateau in terms of numbers. -> There have been many efforts, however, to provide improved ^ reading services to braille readers, some coming from the J United States and some from other countries. It is these efforts to meet braille readers' needs that have taken up a good deal of my time in...

  In the discussion so far today, we have concentrated on the capability of the Center to attend to the needs of persons in the learning environment. We have concentrated on the ways in which we can make information transparent to persons with impaired or no visual input. But the Center's tasks include an even larger purview, and I should like to touch upon these in my remarks. First, we are undertaking a national sample survey of the braille and large print reading public, in collaboration with the American Foundation for the Blind. The results will document the areas in which the current system of provision of braille and large print product is ill served, in quantity, variety, and depth of material. In fact, some of the operating goals and priorities of the Center will be informed, in part, by our findings. Naturally, we also intend the scholarly publication of what we discover. Second, there are at least three areas in which appli cation of computer techniques can be made which...

  A Hewlett-Packard desktop computer has been pro grammed to output speech with a 64 word vocabulary. The vocabulary consists of the numerals, the alphabet and special symbols for punctuation and upper and lower case letters.  This speech output system has been incorporated into three devices:  (i) a word processing system which permits inputting, editing, printing and formatting. The speech, normally operating only during proofing and correcting, is acti vated whenever the cursor is positioned over a character. The system prices start at $14,000.  (ii) an automatic data entry system which vocally prompts the blind operator to enter data on a typewriter keyboard. Data entered can be proofed and corrected by speech output which is activated by cursor keys on the keyboard. The system can be programmed to prompt the operator for data to fill out almost any form. The system starts at $14,000.  (iii) a talking computer terminal can communicate with virtually any c...

  Introduction  A set of programs oriented to natural language pro cessing have been designed and implemented. These programs were first applied to French language analysis and led to creation of the PIAF system (Programmes Interactifs dfAnalyse du Fran§ais). Some applications are operational mainly in automatic information retrieval where the PIAF system performs two tasks in parallel: 1. Data acquisition and control, 2. Production of simple or compound key words. Following a request from the Centre National des Arts et Metiers, we have developed the contracted braille transla tion and editing of French texts with respect to typo graphic codes from programs and basic algorithms of the PIAF system. General Principles of the PIAF System  We propose to the average user a set of tools to define and handle textual datas, under the control of an editor: i) The definition tools are facilities to create and perform interactive updating of the dictionaries and models of the selec...