The question of the target market is an important one to consider. It seems
there is some consensus that Braille input is a likely candidate. I have used
such devices ever since the Blazie Braille 'n Speak came out, and as a Braille
user since birth I can understand why many of us feel comfortable with that
approach. However, the fact is that the large majority of blind persons do not
share our experience, and with the advent of the IPhone and Android phones more
and more blind users are used to those devices, specially the voice input
facilities that they provide. I think a totally voice driven product would
reach many more blind persons and may circumvent all the hassles of
keyboarding. In fact, I would hazard a guess that speech driven i/o is the
wave of the future. With the advances of Artificial Intelligence driving
personal assistants like Alexa I see a move to computers that respond verbally
to commands and other robot functions. Be that as it may, a Personal Perky
device might do well to see how feasible it is with today's technology to
produce a totally hands free voice driven computer for the blind. Some may
recall that talking books for the blind later inspired talking books for the
sighted. I do not think it is unrealistic to imagine a similar progression
with talking interactive computers which at first are developed for the blind.
Designing such a computer using a raspberry like device as its base would be a
revolutionary concept. I think it would attract funding more readily than that
currently under discussion.
David
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