Dan,
There are always researchers working on tactile actuator tech that
might be able to form much better Optacon III displays. I'm always
trying to track and stay in touch with the researchers for most of
the relevant projects. Of course, we will be glad to let the list
know if any of these developments ever matures to the point that they
are likely to turn into a product. Some of the currently more
promising technologies are using EAP (Electro Active Polymers) and
some are using MEMS (MICROELECTROMECHANICAL
SYSTEMS).
The EAP systems typically employ strong electrical fields to warp the
shape of small bits of soft plastics.
The MEMS use standard chemical etching and IC fabrication techniques
to build thin films of arrays of tiny electromagnets and other
components. These MEMS tactile arrays could be fabricated in ways
similar to the way we make integrated circuit chips.
As mentioned before on this list, developing a camera can be done
easily with off-the-shelf parts. That would be the easy part.
Although the design of the camera, controls, software, power
supplies, and packaging would be pretty simple and straight forward
(not that I am saying it is trivial), the major challenge for a new
Optacon development is coming up with a good tactile display technology.
Although these developments sound promising, please do not hold your
breath or get your hopes raised too soon.
Cordially,
Noel
-
Noel H. Runyan
Phone: 1-408-866-7564
-
At 03:18 PM 11/20/2019, Dan.tevelde@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
I think scanners have the same relationship with the optacon as audio books
do with Braille. Audio books are nice if you want to listen to text quickly
but for getting all of the details and remembering them, there's no
substitute for Braille. I use various scanning applications on my iPhone
and they have their place. I don't use or like Android apps at all but
that's another story.
One use of the optacon I found unique in high school was reading books and
dictionaries in Spanish. I was able to ask people about special characters
and they would understand what I was referring to. This is not the case
now. I remember when the National Library Service adopted UEB as a Braille
standard. The first time I saw German and Spanish special characters in UEB
Braille I didn't know what they were. I had to guess. There was nobody
around who knew UEB Braille to tell me what the character was. That would
not have been the case if I had been using an optacon. I could have taken
the book or magazine to someone and asked them.
This is why I think the development of a new optacon is still important.
With all of the projects to make multi-line Braille and graphics displays
you would think someone could design a small tactile array the size of the
one used in the original optacon. We have the tools and the technology.
It's just a matter of someone doing the work. I think the hardest part
would be designing the feature set, and doing the software development. We
could refine haptic technology which is already used on mobile devices to
represent charts and graphs. This technology could be refined and built
into any device we could develop. It just takes some imagination and lots
of money. I'm disappointed that no organization of the blind expresses much
interest in supporting a new optacon. I don't have the expertise to take on
such a project.
Dan
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