The latest in our occasional series showcasing historical braille shorthand codes which you might still find useful today: Braille, User-Oriented Code (BUOC) was a code written by the late Australian, Rebecca Maxwell, with the support of Australian Braille Literacy Action (ABLA), formerly the Australian Guild of Business and Professional Blind. It …

USB, or Universal Serial Bus, has been a feature of braille displays for over twenty years. Originally a standard for connectivity, it has evolved over time to also provide power and charging capabilities. However, if USB is supposed to be Universal, why are some chargers faster than others, and why won’t some chargers and cables work at all? On Tu…

ACB Braille Forum November December 2024.

Reading aloud is a skill that is both terrifying and liberating. Adding braille to the mix presents unique challenges that can often get in the way of recognising significant progress. Along with reading speed and fluency, the one question we hear most often is: “How can I improve my ability to read aloud?” Building on the topics from her popular m…

We are excited to announce the launch of a new eBook! Whether you’re new to braille or you’ve been using braille technology for decades, choosing your braille display can be daunting. They’re so expensive, there’s so much to consider, and just when you thought you’d investigated all your options, you come across another one you hadn’t heard of befo…

ACB Braille Forum October 2024

Braille Screen Input has been overhauled! iOS and iPad OS 18, released on Monday 16 September, include the biggest refresh of Braille Screen Input since the feature was first introduced in iOS 8. Although you can, for the most part, still use Braille Screen Input as you always have done, the new functionality in Apple's latest flagship operating sy…

ACB Braille Forum September 2024.

The Braillists Foundation prides itself on being a grass roots organisation; led by braille users, for braille users and, by extension, by blind people, for blind people. The Tactile and Technology Literacy Centre, based in Auckland, New Zealand, has a similar mission to the Braillists, and we find out more about them in this episode.…

We start this episode in conversation with Maria Stevens, Chair of the Braille Authority of New Zealand Aotearoa Trust. We find out more about the work of BANZAT, the standards it has created and how it is helping to promote braille across New Zealand. We also discover more about the relationship between BANZAT and the Round Table on Information Ac…

Last time on Braillecast, we heard from Ben Clare about the challenges facing Pacific Island countries in terms of access to braille, and Ben's experiences of visiting those countries to deliver training. One of the larger Pacific Island countries is Samoa, and thanks to a substantial fundraising effort, the Samoa Blind Persons Association were abl…

Australia and New Zealand are the two most well-known countries in the Pacific Region, the area between Australia and Hawaii. The region also includes many other countries including Fiji and Samoa. Many of these countries are on small, remote islands in the Pacific Ocean. They are difficult and expensive to reach, with total populations often of 10…

Braille isn’t just for books! It can also be found on household products and signs; in restaurants, museums and theatres; and your personal and confidential documents can also be sent to you in braille. So how do you find it? Who do you ask? And if you think the braille you’ve found could be improved, how do you make your case without upsetting peo…

Do you need an easy way to identify your shampoo from your hair removal cream? Do you want to avoid accidentally feeding dog food to your dinner guests—again? Does your granddaughter complain that you’ve covered up the print label on her favourite midnight snack with your “special dots”? Our sense of touch can give us much more information about ou…

This session, presented by Saima Akhtar, is designed to give you a Whistlestop tour of the fundamentals of Arabic braille. Rest assured, it’s not nearly as complicated as you think. By the end of the session, you will have more insight into the following areas: The origins of Arabic braille Common misconceptions around the structure and layout of A…

Many braille displays include an SD or Micro SD card slot. However, when it comes to purchasing a suitable card, there are so many options! Which is best, and which work with your braille display? In this session, we were joined by friend of the Braillists Ben Mustill-Rose to help make sense of them. He covered: Technical terms – SD, Micro SD, SD H…

Braille Forum July-Aug 2024.

According to its website, “BrailleBlaster™ is a braille transcription program developed by the American Printing House for the Blind to help transcribers provide blind students with braille textbooks on the first day of class.” It uses markup from source documents to automate formatting, and provides “tools to make advanced tasks quicker and easier…

Sometimes, you just need a BRF file with no fuss, even though you know it might have the occasional error or won’t be formatted quite as you’d like. RoboBraille is one solution to this problem. It works with a large variety of file formats including PDF, Microsoft Word and plain text, and converts them to braille within a matter of minutes. Best of…

Following our exploration of braille translators during National Braille Week, we were delighted to be joined by esteemed assistive technology pioneer Dean Martineau. Dean is a long term braille user and has spent many years developing his own personal braille shorthand system. In this Masterclass, Dean introduced us to the Biblos braille translato…

For many years now, Sight Scotland have championed National Braille Week, an opportunity to celebrate braille usage and raise awareness of the importance and value of braille. It runs in the second week of October, to coincide with World Sight Day. In 2023, we celebrated National Braille Week at the Braillists by running five Masterclasses, one eac…

A message from our Chairman, Dave Williams, to thank our many volunteers this National Volunteers Week.Av The Braillists Foundation

For many years now, Sight Scotland have championed National Braille Week, an opportunity to celebrate braille usage and raise awareness of the importance and value of braille. It runs in the second week of October, to coincide with World Sight Day. In 2023, we celebrated National Braille Week at the Braillists by running five Masterclasses, one eac…

ACB Braille Forum June 2024

For many years now, Sight Scotland have championed National Braille Week, an opportunity to celebrate braille usage and raise awareness of the importance and value of braille. It runs in the second week of October, to coincide with World Sight Day. In 2023, we celebrated National Braille Week at the Braillists by running five Masterclasses, one eac…

For many years now, Sight Scotland have championed National Braille Week, an opportunity to celebrate braille usage and raise awareness of the importance and value of braille. It runs in the second week of October, to coincide with World Sight Day. In 2023, we celebrated National Braille Week at the Braillists by running five Masterclasses, one eac…

For many years now, Sight Scotland have championed National Braille Week, an opportunity to celebrate braille usage and raise awareness of the importance and value of braille. It runs in the second week of October, to coincide with World Sight Day. In 2023, we celebrated National Braille Week at the Braillists by running five Masterclasses, one eac…

Supernova is a screen magnification and screen reading package from Dolphin Computer Access Ltd, based in Worcester in the UK. Braille display support is a core part of its offering, but we don't hear very much about it. In this session, we were joined by Aj Ahmed, proprietor of AAT Solutions, an independent provider of assistive technology trainin…

Acb Braille Forum May 2024

If you have a new braille display and you’re struggling to connect it to your computer, iPhone or iPad, or you have a new computer, iPhone or iPad and you’re struggling to connect it to your braille display, this session is for you. We covered: The pros and cons of Bluetooth and USB Pairing and unpairing your braille display via Bluetooth Drivers a…

Many screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA, make use of the popular, open source Liblouis braille translation engine as part of their braille display support. In this session, we explained and demonstrated how to harness the power of Liblouis braille tables to implement additional contractions in your screen reader of choice. If you use a long wo…

“What’s wrong with grade 2?” In many cases, nothing. It strikes a good balance between compactness, readability and lack of ambiguity. However, in some cases, a code which is even more compact than grade 2 is extremely advantageous, especially when information needs to be written down at speed. The Braille Shorthand Code was one attempt at creating…

iOS 17 was released last September, bosting a number of significant braille enhancements. In this Masterclass, we were joined by Scott Davert to find out more. Scott is well regarded in the blind community as an expert in braille on iOS. He regularly contributes braille-related content to the AppleVis website, and presented a series of three Master…

The 39th CSUN Assistive Technology Conference took place from 18 to 22 March in Anaheim, California, hosted by the Centre on Disabilities, Division of Student Affairs at California State University, Northridge. There were many exciting braille product announcements at the conference, and the latest prototypes of previously announced braille product…

ACB Braille Forum April 2024

Getting tactile diagrams at University is often not as easy as it should be. However, the Open University has an excellent reputation for accessibility, and has developed robust processes for students to request diagrams and for those diagrams to be designed and produced. This session was presented jointly by Jeff Bashton, former Visual Impairment …

Bristol Braille Technology CIC recently released version 2.1 of the firmware for Canute 360, the world's first multi-line braille E-reader. Canute has come up in conversation many times before, but never specifically: what is it, and what can it do? In this episode, we sit down with Ed Rogers, Managing Director of BBT, to find out. Links of interes…

The braille community is buzzing about the next generation of braille display: multi-line devices which can show anything from tables to tactile graphics at the press of a button are now a reality, and enthusiastic early adopters around the world are putting the technology through its paces. These multi-line braille displays will, sooner or later, …

ACB Braille Forum March 2024

ACB E Forum February 2024.

It's an exciting time for braille as we approach the 200th birthday of the braille code, and the International Council on English Braille will be celebrating in style this year with its eighth General Assembly, the theme of which is "Two Centuries of Braille". It will take place from Saturday 25 May to Thursday 30 May at The Grand Millennium Hotel …

The Braillists Foundation held a face-to-face meeting at the 83rd annual convention of the National Federation of the Blind at the Hilton Americas-Houston hotel, Texas, in July 2023. Our Chairman, Dave Williams, was there with a microphone to soak up the atmosphere. We spoke to: Bristol Braille Technology CIC Hable A Cubed Design Ka Li (consulting …

As the days get shorter and the nights get colder, a few people joined us for a cosy fireside chat to round off the year on Tuesday 19 December. How do you write and address your Christmas cards? How do you know whose Christmas presents are whose? And what part does braille play in all of this? We were joined by our expert Braille for Beginners tea…

ACB Braille Forum January 2024

ACB E-Forum for December

"ACB Forum November 2023. Find out more at https://acb-braille-forum-and-e-forum.pinecast.co

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could just pick up a tablet of sorts, draw on it, and have the drawing in a tactile form? And wouldn't it be even more wonderful if you could simply erase the drawing and start over if you didn't like it? The Braille Doodle does just that, and we catch up with the Touchpad Pro Foundation to find out more.…

If you've been following Braille Skateboarding for a while, you know that Dani and Aaron Kyro are an absolute delight when they're together on screen. In this episode, we get to know them even better as they answer listener questions, spill some Braille video tea, talk about their favorite skateboarding tricks, share their visions for the future of…

Have you ever downloaded a book from Bookshare or Reading Services, but struggled to extract the zip file? Have you ever had a BRF file emailed to you, but not been able to copy it to your braille display? Does your braille display only support text or BRF files, but you want to read Word or PDF files on it? If you can answer “yes” to any of these …

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