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in reply to Georgiana Brummell

Chewy design! 😁

This is similar but different to the Hackaday solution:

hackaday.io/project/191181-ele…

in reply to Georgiana Brummell

It would be worth his looking at the Sensorica business model:

sensorica.co/ventures

They only work on OSHW, but the people working on the hardware get paid for the designs, and, then use localised manufacturing for the distribution. 😁

It gets the overall energy-costs down per end-user, but still means that the engineers involved can get paid a fair rate. 😁

This entry was edited (5 days ago)
in reply to Georgiana Brummell

there's some dodgy JavaScript halfway down that page that crashes my browser 🙄

Anyway, this is the type of projects I'd definitely give to if they crowd fund!

in reply to Georgiana Brummell

thinkerbelllabs.com/ is another project/company in the same space, hoping to use the lower costs of manufacturing for lower pricing
in reply to Georgiana Brummell

this looks great but it's just a single module, right?

If someone wants to read braille, I imagine (but I don't know, I'm very happy to be corrected) they'll want to move their finger along the word or phase and be able to go back and forth if needed.

Wikipedia reckons most braille displays have 40-80 characters, while some note taking devices have less.

If he can still keep it cheap and robust with that many characters then great!

Amber (KittyGPT6.9) reshared this.

in reply to Sara Joy

@sarajw

This, and also, is 86% recognition enough for actual use ?

@hypra would you know that ?

There's also the question of the time needed to read (which I guess is related to the issue you're mentioning); though a 30$ braille reader would still be useful even if very slow I suppose, for those who have no way to afford the costlier ones.

@dandylover1

in reply to Georgiana Brummell

Why not boycott #mastodon for its insensitivity while you are at it?

You can write pages and pages of text and place it in an image, but actual characters in comments and "alt" boxes are restricted to a couple of paragraphs by default. And this is because they try to emulate twitter looks and functionality. 95% of server owners either refuse/defend the choice or pretend it is hard to change

#500characterlimit

@dandylover1

#fediverse the federation of thousands of owner dictators

498.49

This entry was edited (5 days ago)
in reply to Georgiana Brummell

I've looked at making a project before with a braille display and noticed the actual tiny blocks with their little pistons were horribly expensive. It does seem like a difficult manufacturing problem (since they have to be reliable) but I hope there's room for it to get cheaper
in reply to Georgiana Brummell

NGL, I really hope the kid makes it open source, because I feel like that's part of why a lot of the reader tech is so expensive, everyone ends up being forced to design their own without real competition to innovate
in reply to Georgiana Brummell

This would be awesome if it actually came to market, even if its like $200 or something,that's still a steal compared to any display on the market.
in reply to Georgiana Brummell

t.me/Elon_Musk_10_2

Thank you for your wonderful compliment! Can you actually message me here?

in reply to Caleb

@geekosupremo I sure hope he's successful. I've seen quite a few companies demo affordable Braille displays but none that came to market.
in reply to podfeet

@podfeet As it seems to be made of mostly commodity parts here’s hoping!
Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source
Steve Mann
@samanthaash That logic doesn't really hold up though. NVDA doesn't cost thousands and it actually works better than Jaws in a lot of cases.
Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source
Steve Mann
@samanthaash You don't know though if this new one would do that. this is a developer who's trying to come out with an inexpensive alternative to the displays that cost the same as your average transatlantic flight these days.
in reply to Georgiana Brummell

Is there any articles on this? I'm totally getting this young man recognized. And... it's about time!
in reply to Brian Moore

@bmoore123 Found it. This kid is cool! forbes.com/sites/kevinanderton…
in reply to Georgiana Brummell

@Jage <sigh> 1000s of these types of student projects haven't amounted to much... over the years...
@Jage
in reply to Jeffrey D. Stark

@JStark @Jage Yep, we get about 40 of these a year across the #OurBlind platforms, I do not know one that has resulted in any product. Also the $50 price listed above is for a single cell, which works out to $1000 for a 20 cell #BrailleDisplay, IE the same price as the #OrbitReader Q20.
in reply to D.Hamlin.Music

@dhamlinmusic @JStark Yup you're not wrong, I'm also not going to discourage someone from trying as the more people that work on this, the more likelihood of a breakthrough.
in reply to Jage

@Jage @JStark I think the more likely route for this is improving cheaper technology that's already in production, the Orbit electromechanical ones, and the magnetic resistance ones that I believe the BrailleMe used. Along with improved availability of long term loan programs like the #NLSEReader, and expanding grant programs like the Association of Blind Citizen's Assistive Technology Fund.
in reply to D.Hamlin.Music

@dhamlinmusic @JStark Thinkerbell, also in India, was showing a 32-cell display at CSUN that they were aiming for a $1,000 price point with a November release. It was also quite tiny and would definitely be something I would consider for a travel bag. It seemed a bit similar to the Orbit tech but quieter. I'm not sure if this is at all related to that.
in reply to Jeffrey D. Stark

I'll have to dig around, I am not finding much online.
This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Georgiana Brummell

@mcourcel This kind of thing has been tried any number of times now, and it always turns out to be nonviable.I'll believe it if/when I see it with a price tag and a "shipping now" label attached to it. I know you're a firm believer that braille displays are overpriced, but I also think that both you and your techie friend are being oversimplistic and over-optimistic. If you're paying workers any kind of a decent wage, the cost of labor alone is going to be way more than fifty bucks.