During 2013 when my my son was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour, one of the effects of the tumour was a dangerous pressure on his brain which ultimately robbed him of his sight. As a result we’ve been learning a whole new world on a daily basis and how to engage our boy with the world and thankfully there are devices emerging like the Blitab that can help him engage with the world and continue his learning.
Braille is generally presented as static type, like a printed page for fully sighted people. The main reason being it needs to be tactile, making a dynamic display technically very challenging and in the case of something like a Braille Note (a Notebook for blind users) very expensive running at over $5000.00.
Some exploration of the internet has revealed a new, Android powered player in this space which caught my eye: The Blitab. It’s a fascinating device that offers half traditional screen for users with at least partial vision and half Braille display which allows those with heavily degraded, or no vision to read on the device. Utilising the Android open base, the Blitab has gone a long way to making the Internet connected world truly accessible to the vision impaired users.
Given my personal situation, I’ve put in to become a tester for the Blitab and to assist the development of the product for their intended users. IF you know anyone who can benefit from this technology I’d urge you to let them know about it too.
Let us know how the Blitab benefit you or someone you know?
That’s awesome!