Braille keyboard provides new features
March 11, 2006
UAB professor Jordi Roig de Zárate, with the new keyboard.
Researchers have developed a new Braille computer keyboard with features that are particularly useful for transcribing scientific texts and musical scores.
Researchers from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and the Organizacion Nacional de Ciegos Espanoles developed the keyboard, which combines the function and movement keys of a conventional keyboard with eight Braille keys that allows the user to write in any language, a news release said.
The new computer keyboard also gives blind people the ability to work with mathematical formulae and score writer programs. Until now, assistance was required from a sighted person to perform that kind of task, the release said.
The keyboard allows for product upgrades as new features are developed in the future.
The researcher group is currently working on other projects to enable blind people to work autonomously with technological applications, including an automatic conversion tool for websites and touchable screens that raise the information so that it can be felt.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
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