STAR Point Transcript - Pulse Data International BrailleNote family of products
Guest: Larry Lewis and Mike May
Host: Earle Harrison
Intro music and ID:
From the depths of ingenuity to the heart and soul of assistive technology for people with disabilities, STAR is a System of Technology to Achieve Results!
STAR Point does not endorse or recommend any product, individual or agency. The information expressed on STAR Point is informational in nature and does not imply endorsement by STAR's funders: The National Institute of Disability Rehabilitation Research or the State of Minnesota.
Transcript begins here:
LL: Hello. My name is Larry Lewis and I'm the private marketing manager for Pulse Data International BrailleNote family of products.
EH: And hello, my name is Earle Harrison, Program and Development Coordinator for the Minnesota STAR Program. Welcome to another edition of STAR Point. STAR Point is a project of the Minnesota STAR Program. STAR stands for a System of Technology to Achieve Results, and we are the technical assistance program for the State of Minnesota. Today's STAR Point program consists of the audio track from the video that STAR collected at the 2002 Closing the Gap Conference in Bloomington, Minnesota. The focus of the program is on what's considered to be the first personal data assistant for people who are blind, called the BrailleNote. Here to give us a little history on how the BrailleNote family of products came about and to demonstrate and discuss many of the features of the BrailleNote is Pulse Data/HumanWare's product manager, Larry Lewis.
LL: About two and a half years ago we released BrailleNote back at CSUN 2000 and since then have made a number of different advancements and enhancements and feature enhancements to the BrailleNote family, and I'd like to get into those with you. BrailleNote really is the first portable information management system that's running on Windows CE, and, for all intents and purposes, Windows CE is the portable pocket version of Windows. And the intention of providing a hook into what the mainstream is using by implementing Windows CE is not necessarily to access Windows applications directly on this device. We're not interested in providing direct access to Microsoft Word on this device, Microsoft Outlook Express on this device or Internet Explorer on this device, because we feel that will have been absolutely fulfilled by a screen reader running on a PC in which a graphical user interface is appropriate.
What we have decided is to maintain much of the integrity of a notetaker of a portable device and all of the good stuff that a lot of the fore -- many forefathers of this industry really gave us: the intuitive means of navigation, the text-based means of accomplishing things and the many observant ways of opening up applications and so forth, keep that all intact while having Windows running underneath so that we can exchange that information seamlessly and efficiently with our various friends, colleagues and employees, school teachers, what have you.
So we came out with BrailleNote, and since then we have released subsequent models of BrailleNote with varying degrees of lines of Braille -- Braille -- I guess Braille cells, I should say. We have a 32-cell model, which I'll be demonstrating many of the features today. We also have an 18-cell model that is put in the same box or the same design as the 32-cell model so that we can -- if an individual wants to upgrade to a 32-cell, we can take the top off, put a new top on with extra cells. We've also released speech-only models with both Braille and QWERTY input, and most recently just released a QWERTY version of the BrailleNote about a year ago.
And so we have the BrailleNote 32 and the BrailleNote 18. The BrailleNote is running -- when I say BrailleNote, I refer to all six models that we -- that we supply. The BrailleNote is running a suite of applications, a productivity suite of applications named KeySoft, and KeySoft has been around for, hmmm, probably about 14 or 15 years, and there's been varying -- different variances of KeySoft. This version of KeySoft was designed specifically for Windows CE, and much of the code has been rewritten so that it would allow for compati- lity with Windows CE. The KeySoft legacy has been around for quite some time.
KeySoft has two primary menus by which you might access applications or perform a specific function. We have a main menu, and if I press -- you can see we have a six -- or an eight-key keyboard with a space bar for Braille keys. On the front here we have a Braille display, and then on the very front we have fun keys for navigating that Braille display to the right, to the left or up and down to add an application. We also have a screen over my left shoulder that will provide input, visual input, as to what I'm doing up on the screen. My BrailleNote will come out on the screen.
The BrailleNote also has commercial ports, and many are being used right now in my unit. We have a serial cable, which is projecting up onto the screen like what you're seeing. We also have a compact flash slot for a network card, a parallel port for printing, 25-pin parallel port, an RJ11 jack for connecting to a phone line with a 56K modem or sending and receiving e-mail and browsing the Internet. We also have an infrared port for wireless printing, pointing at an infrared printer and printing a print job without using any cables. We have a Type 2 PCMCIA slot along the side here, which allows for any amount of memory, really, to be put into this device via memory card. I have a 5 gigabyte microdrive which provides unlimited assess on a portable device like this. Millions and millions and millions of pages of Braille can be stored on this device and accessed through the BrailleNote.
So we have two menus that I can access. We have a main menu, and if I were the press all six keys with my space bar, you will hear and see (Synthesized Voice: Main Menu) "Main Menu," and our Main Menu houses most of our applications for the BrailleNote. We also have an Options Menu, an O with our space bar, Braille letter O (Synthesized Voice: Options Menu"), and what our Options Menu does is it acts more like your control panel on your BrailleNote, much like your control panel would behave on your PC, allows you to check your date, your time, set your preferred grade of Braille entry on this device, the Grade 1, Grade 2 or computer Braille, also your preferred Braille grade of reading on your Braille display. You can set between those three grades.
We also have a language toggle for multilingual capability on the BrailleNote in our Options Menu. We have the means of checking our next appointments. We have all different types of things. We have a built-in user's guide, built-in manual that's alphabetically indexed. So if you need to access different topics in your manual, we can access those quite quickly. We also have context-sensitive help much like Windows does, and if I hit a Braille letter H and my space bar, you will see a help message. (Synthesized Voice: To review the object, press space. To select any menu option note, press its initial letter. Options Menu.)
Okay. This, basically, no matter where I'm at, be it an application, a menu, a dialogue box or what have you, I've -- I've -- I have context-sensitive help, help specific to where I'm at within a specific situation using this technology. I have seen second and third graders, seven- and eight-year-olds, not even crack a manual and sit down and take advantage of the 4,000 different help prompts and help menus within this device, depending on where you're at, and actually learn this device within a matter of hours. So the learning curve is quite nice because of that built-in on-line user's guide coupled with the context-sensitive help.
So let's explore the Main Menu (Synthesized Voice: Main Menu). Our Main Menu, again, we can navigate a couple of ways. We can use our traditional cording commands and hit space or dot 4 to move forward (Synthesized Voice: Word processor). We could also simply just turn our space bar without a cord dot four to move forward (Synthesized Voice: Printer). We could hit our cord dot 1 to move back with our left hand (Synthesized Voice: Word Processor), and we could also hit our backspace if we didn't want to do that, hit our cord track (Synthesized Voice: Main Menu).
We also have fun keys, as I said, along the front, and for a Braille reader like myself, I preferably do not use speech unless I'm demonstrating this technology. I'm pretty much a pretty heavy Braille user with this product. Although, the speech is quite nice. The middle two fun keys -- and what I have here is my hands on the Braille display and, anatomically, my thumbs just drop and I have access to all four of these keys for moving up, down, left and right. So my middle two keys will move me to my right and advance through a menu, and to the left my left thumb key will move me back (Synthesized Voice: Word Processor. Printer). You can see how I was moving forward without my hands leaving the Braille display (Synthesized Voice: Word Processor: Main Menu). We also have hot keys built into every menu so that if I needed to go to my word processor, I wouldn't have to navigate there. I could just simply hit a Braille W, P for my planner, E for my e-mail, and so forth.
So let's take a quick look at these applications and discuss what each of them do (Synthesized Voice: Word Processor). We have a word processor which allows us to -- I'll just press ENTER (Synthesized Voice: Key Word Menu. Create a document). Create a new document (Synthesized Voice: Open a document). Open a document that exists, that you've already created and edit that and spell-check it and format it, et cetera. (Synthesized Voice: Emboss a document). Emboss directly to a Braille embosser (Synthesized Voice: Print a document) or print to a variety of printers. Again, I could hit C for Create or O for Open and take advantage of all those hot keys.
Ironically, I can also enter text in Grade 2 Braille and save that information as a Microsoft Word or an RTF file -- file format, and that's truly revolutionary, because Microsoft Word does not make allowances for Grade 2 Braille input in and of itself. That's why on a PC we have products that allow us to translate information that we might have entered into Microsoft Word or what have you. If I'm actually working in Grade 2 Braille, I may not be working in Microsoft Word, but on a portable device I'm working in an environment that's quite comfortable for me. Now, where this technology has fallen down in the past is, once you have a result that you've worked on in your specific data Braille, how are you going to get that information to a sighted colleague, a sighted instructor or what have you? That is where the "save as" option comes in. We can save our file as a Microsoft Word or RTF file to a floppy disk. We can also print directly from this device and send that information out. So that's our Main Menu.
(Synthesized Voice: Main Menu. Word Processor. Letter). We have a date planner, which is a calendar. Our date planner allows us to set appointments to go off, and it allows us to very efficiently set an alarm to go off before those appointments as a reminder while the machine is turned off. I use this quite a bit.
(Synthesized Voice: Address List). We have an address database which allows us to take advantage of, again, Microsoft's database technology. We put our own Access shell around it and have made a situation where we can manage all of our contacts, and so all of my employees and employers contact info, my friends' names, addresses, telephone numbers, different notes. There's a notes fields for them so that notes can be reviewed about a specific place or a specific person.
(Synthesized Voice: E-mail). We have an e-mail client which allows us to send and receive e-mail. It also allows us to send Grade 2 files as Braille attachments -- or as Microsoft Word attachments, I should say. It also allows us to read Microsoft Word attachments as Grade 2 text, which is quite revolutionary for exchanging information.
(Synthesized Voice: Internet). We'll get to Internet, and we'll quickly browse the Internet in just a moment, but we do have an Internet Explorer-type application on this device called KeyWeb, which basically takes Windows CE's version of Internet Explorer and put our Access shell around it, makes it quite easy to use.
(Synthesized Voice: Book Reader). We have a book reading utility which stores books in a write-protected fashion and enables us to quite simply access books. I can recall growing up having volumes and volumes and volumes of Braille, and I had a desktop dictionary that was six volumes in size and a World Book Encyclopedia that was 150 volumes. You can fit all that information on your BrailleNote, and what information doesn't fit on your BrailleNote, you can use a very standardized memory card that just slips into your BrailleNote and have all that access to all that information.
(Synthesized Voice: Scientific Calculator). We have a scientific and standard calculator. (Synthesized Voice: Basic). And we have a device called KeySync on this program. It's not really quite ready to show, but it's in the menu here. What KeySync allows us to do is to synchronize our information with Microsoft Outlook, so our date planner, our address lists, which we're able to demonstrate at this stage. But, ultimately, our date planner, our address lists, our e-mail messages and our Internet shortcuts are all able to be synchronized with Microsoft Outlook and all the counterparts of Microsoft Outlook. So, again, it takes that information exchange to a new level, for notetakers at least.
(Synthesized Voice: File Manager.) We have a file manager utility for creating, erasing, protecting, unprotecting or renaming files. We also have a folder manager for organizing files in folders much like Windows does.
(Synthesized Voice: Utility.) I have a utilities menu for backing up, connecting to ActiveSync, and ActiveSync allows us to share files seamlessly and efficiently.
(Synthesized Voice: Terminal or Screen Reader.) If you use this -- and we need to use a PC as a terminal for a screen reader, and that would mean with JAWS for Windows or Window eyes connectors and use this as a Braille display.
(Synthesized Voice: Remote Synthesizer.) You could use this as an external synthesizer with a PC as well.
(Synthesized Voice: Keyboard Learn.) Keyboard Learn would give us specific keyboard help. If we hit a key, it would tell us what we did and no consequences would result as a result of hitting that key.
(Synthesized Voice: For information, press space I.) And if you want information, such as a serial number which is embossed on the bottom of the unit or just your build of software that you're running, you would go there, something that's important when receiving technical call support.
(Synthesized Voice: For the Options Menu, press space O). And, again, for the Options Menu we just have a prompt that's at the end of this menu (Synthesized Voice: End of menu), or we could pull out. (Synthesized Voice: Main Menu.
So that, in a nutshell, is all of the different applications of the BrailleNote, and probably one of the most revolutionary applications on which we have built this software would be the KeyWeb Internet Browser. And we will go to KeyWeb, and if I press the letter I, I will go directly to the Internet and will be prompted for an address, and I will bring us to any address. We'll start with HumanWare, which is Pulse Data International's North American subsidiary, Pulse Data/ HumanWare. We'll go there first. (Synthesized Voice.) And you heard the word dub-dub-dub for less verbiage, rather than www, which is something specific to KeyWeb.
(Synthesized Voice.) I will key in my address, (Synthesized Voice) HumanWare, (Synthesized Voice), and we'll connect to the network, hopefully. (Synthesized voice.) And because I'm connected to a T1 line, we logged onto our Internet site through a network connection, and we're just connected through a T1 line through our compact flash network card. We can also connect it through a PC -- or through an internal modem, I should say, with a phone line. And something that will be demonstrated a little bit later, if I were portable and on the go, I could connect a cell phone to my serial cable, which is being used right now, and use this as a wireless modem and, from anywhere -- a parking lot, a bus station, an airport, what have you -- I could browse the Internet, download my e-mail and what have you, and that will be demonstrated a little bit later as we get into how the BrailleNote works as a portable option for persons who have to be quite mobile.
So here is our Pulse Data/HumanWare index page entrance. It looks totally different than a Web page that you might see on a desktop PC, because, again, we've created this environment for the person who's blind, making the Web page look like a word processor. We can browse the links (Synthesized Voice: Pulse Data/HumanWare. BrailleNote). We could also read text. We could select any of these links just by clicking on our touch cursor or pressing ENTER. So we will go to BrailleNote (Synthesized Voice: BrailleNote), and it gives us the word "linking" (Synthesized Voice), and it brings up BrailleNote, and our percentage is at a hundred percent, which the Braille reader reports back. It's taking just a second to open up the page.
And we can also achieve a number of other things. We can move to favorites, we can organize our favorites, we can select favorites, we can add favorites (Synthesized Voice: BrailleNote and placenote). We can bookmark indexes, our favorite Web page. We could index that in our Favorites Menu. We could also share favorites with our desktop PC, e-mails and file attachments and so forth to friends and so forth who might want to visit certain websites. We can move back to our previous Web page (Synthesized Voice). We can move forward to our next Web page. We can do many of the things that Internet Explorer allows us to do on a desktop PC but in much more of a friendly note-taking environment (Synthesized Voice). We can open up different sites (Synthesized Voice). We can jump to our favorites (Synthesized Voice.) I can go to Google, which is a search engine. I can use Google as a search engine, and I'm able to fill out forms (Synthesized Voice). This is my text input (Synthesized Voice) and so forth.
So you're able to fill out forms, access select boxes and so forth, and everything that you can do using a PC. You're able to simply browse the Internet, fill out forms, search for information, purchase things on-line. You're also able to download books. I'm a fairly avid reader, and so, utilizing products like Web Braille or Bookshare or braille.org or all the different -- different Internet sites in which you can just simply log on, download a book, save that information -- if I want to save this information right here, I could just hit space S (Synthesized Voice). Well, then I would just save this information as a Web page in the respective folder that I would choose.
(Synthesized Voice.) I could toggle. I could paste this into an e-mail, toggle to e-mail, (Synthesized Voice), write an e-mail (Synthesized Voice). And I could get out of this (Synthesized Voice: Exit E-Mail Menu). I could toggle back to my Internet (Synthesized Voice).
So, just to close and to wrap things up nicely, I've already mentioned KeySync, but we are working on numerous development efforts. We have multilingual capabilities, which allow us to utilize the BrailleNote using English as a base language but toggling to different applications, such as our word processor, e-mail clients, and even our Internet as a means of just reading respective Web pages in German, French, Spanish and Italian. We can read books in those different languages, we can send e-mails in those different languages, maintain our address contacts in those different languages, and plan to add more languages in the future. Also plan to have full localized versions of the BrailleNote in different languages and maintain all of the same features and so forth that you would have in the version that we have now.
We'll also be covering a number of different ways that the BrailleNote can be a portable tool for those persons who are traveling quite a bit. As I've already mentioned, we discussed the cell phone being used as a wireless phone with the BrailleNote. We'll also be spending a little bit of time dealing with the BrailleNote Global Positioning Satellite System using commercial technology such as this Magellan receiver.
EH: You're listening to STAR Point, a project of the Minnesota STAR Program. I'm Earle Harrison and, yes, it's true, when we return we'll be riding with Mike May of Pulse Data/HumanWare. He will be discussing the Global Positioning Satellite technology now available for BrailleNote, as well as other wireless applications.
Musical break.
MM: I'm Mike May, Blindness Products Manager at Pulse Data/HumanWare, and I'm here to talk to you about the applications on the BrailleNote for wireless communication and information retrieval, the GPS and the well-known cell phone. The BrailleNote has a full range of applications, and the global positioning system is one of many. I'm going to hit the G to go to GPS (Synthesized Voice: GPS Menu), and then hit ENTER a couple times and load the program (Synthesized Voice). The GPS is detected. We've got the receiver up on the dash of the car. This is a pretty typical scenario. When a blind person's in a car, they're in a -- what I call a cocoon. You can't really tell what's around. You have very little sense of the environmental information, such as businesses and restaurants. Whereas a sighted person has a lot of information, we have very little. So there's a -- what I call the look-around mode, which I'll hit by pressing one of the keys on the BrailleNote, and it will now search the index of 700,000 points of interest and find the ones closest to me. So, since we're at the Radisson Hotel, there will be a number of those first followed by some other adjacent restaurants. (Synthesized Voice.) So it's telling the Radisson north-door coffee shop is off to our right, and that's the north door of the Radisson. I'm going to just scroll through the list here and we'll see what else is around. This is -- we're just looking around like a sighted person would look around.
(Synthesized Voice.) West door. (Synthesized Voice.) So Burger King is left. If we wanted to go to Burger King, we could set that as our destination. Since it's only 300 feet, it wouldn't make sense to drive there. We'd probably just walk. (Synthesized Voice.) In that same area is Subway Sandwich, and goes on down through the list, Embers Restaurant, Friday's is up ahead of us somewhere. (Synthesized Voice.) So let's set Friday's as our destination. (Synthesized Voice.) It says POI, for point of interest, marked, and we'll see how far away that is. (Synthesized Voice.) I'll note how many satellites we're tracking. (Synthesized Voice.) So we have good reception. And, of course, if I want to check the speed at this moment (Synthesized Voice). All right. Let's go ahead and proceed towards Friday's.
And as we start to go, we'll see the speeds start to kick in. (Synthesized Voice.) And now we'll see that the distance is decreasing. (Synthesized Voice.) Ahead and right, so we're going to go up and ahead a little bit off to our right. (Synthesized Voice.) "Arrived." So you have two levels. It said, "You've arrived near," because GPS has an accuracy level of approximately 30 feet, so you never really arrive "at" anything, you arrive near it. And then the second voice that came on that said "Arrive," that says that you're really near, and we're right in front of it. So we'll proceed around the area here and see what else we -- we can drive by.
We could find out which direction we're traveling. Now that we've turned and we're headed out here, we can see the speed, and we're actually moving (Synthesized Voice) and see which direction we're headed. (Synthesized Voice.) So due west is 270 degrees. We're just a degree off of that. (Synthesized Voice.) And we arrive near the north-door coffee shop that we talked about before. And that clicking is when the satellite reception might reverse -- the satellite reception reverts to poor for a second. We'll see how many satellites we have. (Synthesized Voice.) Now we kicked back up to six satellites. So we have another change of direction here. We'll see which way we're headed now. (Synthesized Voice.) And we're curving a little bit, so we're going to curve to the west, which will kick us down around 300 degrees. (Synthesized Voice.) And as we come to a stop (Synthesized Voice).
So I'm just looking around to see what's out here, and there's not a huge number of things, not as many as there would be if you were right in a busy downtown area. But in terms of businesses, restaurants and gas stations and those kinds of things, we'll be able to tell what's nearby. We'll do another sort and see what's in the area. (Synthesized Voice.) Macken Music. (Synthesized Voice.) Now, the interesting thing about this information is, you don't necessarily have to be headed to one of these things for it to be valuable to you. The way that most sighted people orient is by knowing familiar landmarks, familiar businesses, mountaintops, things that just look familiar to them. And when they get into an unfamiliar area, they get out of their comfort zone, then they know, "Hey, I'm lost. I need to do something about this." So this kind of information is operating in the back of your head. It's your subconscious. It's keeping track of when you're comfortable and when you're not. And a blind person doesn't really have this capability as much because we don't have the information to operate with.
Okay. Which way are we headed now? (Synthesized Voice.) We're just circling around in the area here. So we're going east, and our speed (Synthesized Voice). So that's kind of interesting, just to know what's nearby, which way we're headed, how fast are we going, and it gives us a sense of our environment. So that a blind person can now look around and extend beyond our tactile senses, which is normally how we're going to perceive the environment, or, if you're low vision, you might be able to see that there's a building there but not be able to identify the name of the business itself.
(Synthesized Voice.) I'm going to set that Radisson west door, since that's where we'll end back up, in the parking lot. (Synthesized Voice.) I'll switch to the clock mode so you can see that, once you get a little bit more precise, you can use the clock rather than right, left, front, back. (Synthesized Voice.) So it's telling us that it's at 12:00 o'clock, and it's also telling us that it's west. (Synthesized Voice.) And this is Version 1 of the BrailleNote GPS, which has a 700,000-points-of-interest list, and in Version 2 we will also have street maps so you can find out exactly what street you're on. These are all national databases that we license, and then the BrailleNote is the way of conveying the information to the user.
(Synthesized Voice.) "Arrived." So just as the BrailleNote was telling us left, the blinker went on in the car. So it's kind of nice to be able to know what's around. Also, this is a way that when a driver's occupied with dealing with traffic and all the complexities of driving, a blind person can be a back seat driver.
Another important feature in today's portable information world is e-mail and Internet, and it's particularly nice to be able to have that in a wireless fashion. When you're on the go in a car, when you're walking around, sitting at a bus bench, you can make your calls easily with your cell phone, but now, when you connect this to your BrailleNote and you have the proper service, you can also have wireless connection to either e-mail or Internet. For example, right here in the BrailleNote menu, I have the e-mail (Synthesized Voice), KeyMail, as we call it. And I'm going to hit C to connect. (Synthesized Voice.) I'm going to call the cell service. (Synthesized Voice.) "Connected." (Synthesized Voice.) Log on, connected. So now I can download my e-mail, I can get onto the Internet, and just sitting right here in the car driving around, I can access all sorts of information. I don't have to be tethered to a phone line somewhere.
(End music and ID.)
Program end music and ID:
You've been listening to a broadcast of STAR Point, a production of the MN STAR Program, a System of Technology to Achieve Results. If you would like to provide feedback, be a guest on our show, or if you'd like to find out more about the STAR Program, please visit our Web site at www.admin.state.mn.us/assistivetechnology. My name is Earle Harrison. Thank you for listening.