Hello list, Although I am sure in the coming months we will see some
exciting software upgrades for the BrailleNote family of products I feel
I
must express my concern on the lack of modern day hardware for the
BrailleNote/VoiceNote family. I would welcome comments from all users on
this subject. I would like to note although I talk about software
development I am not a developer so comments from software developers
would
be welcome. I feel if I am going to use this platform as a business tool
in
coming years it is necessary for me to make my views known on the
limitations of the current hardware as I see it. Therefore, I am putting
my
comments on this list so we can hopefully establish some dialog on this
topic. Before I point out the negatives with this unit I would like to
mention some of the positive points these units have to offer.
1. The BrailleNote has a good clean simple interface. It is nice to be
able
to work with the same type of menu structure regardless of the
application
you are in.
2. Braille support is consistent throughout the suite of applications.
3. The Braille display is very good. I do not have any complaints here.
4. Good battery life. It is nice to be able to charge this unit up and
have
enough power for a week of usage. No extra batteries are necessary. This
is
a good thing.
5. I like the ability to be able to turn the unit off and still be in the
last application used when the unit is powered back up. This is very
good.
6. I like the idea of having a 32 cell Braille display in a compact unit
that can fit into a book bag or briefcase.
Now I would like to talk about the problems I see with the current
hardware
configuration as it stands now.
1. There is No USB connection. if a user wishes to connect the
BrailleNote
family to a modern day laptop it is necessary to use bulky USB to Serial
adapters to make this happen. The main problem with serial connections is
that they are very slow and not suited for transferring large files in
the
multimegabyte size. My current dell laptop does not have a serial port
built
in making this task a cumbersome process for when one wants to use the
Braille display of the BrailleNote or transfer a file from the unit. Yes,
I
know a flash card reader will solve the latter problem and I do have one
of
these.
2. No blue Tooth connection. If one wishes to run the excellent
BrailleNote
GPS product from Sendero group it is necessary to carry an extra battery
box
containing a serial to USB adapter for the EarthMate GPS receiver. If the
BrailleNote family could support Bluetooth the user could do away with
the
extra battery/cable kit and just carry a compact Bluetooth receiver. The
Bluetooth connection could also be used for use of the Braille display on
the PC.
3. No modern day processor - As I understand it the BrailleNote family
currently runs on the MIPS platform at 133 MHZ. I can see this presenting
problems for developers who wish to develop software to run both on the
BrailleNote Family (MIPS) and the new PK (XScale). If Humanware's goal is
to
have third party developers write software for there products it would
make
much more sense to have both products running on the same or similar
hardware platform. This is currently not the case. Why should developers
have to deal with two platforms and maintain two code bases to write
software for a very small number of users? How difficult will it be for
Humanware to have a trained support team to deal with each platform? This
in
the long run is going to drive up the cost of development. The main goal
should be to bring the cost of software development for these devices
down.
Given the current hardware state of this product I do not see this
happening
anytime soon.
4. The BrailleNote family currently has no way to input and output stereo
audio. The ability to input and output stereo audio would make it
possible
for truly accessible recording software to be written giving the blind
user
a truly accessible digital recorder. I don't know of any hardware based
digital recorder which will allow the blind user to do basic things such
as
set and read input levels or see how much time or space is left on a
flashcard. Voice over IP is another issue. Given the fact that it is
possible to have voice over IP applications such as Skype run on handheld
pocket pc devices I feel this will become an important issue as Voice
over
IP becomes more prevalent in the work place. Devices like the
BrailleNote,
given the right hardware and software, could really shine in these areas.
My
use of Skype on the Pc, even with scripts for my screen reader, has not
been
the most straight forward experience.
5. The current serial and parallel ports should be done away with. Given
the
fact that most of the current crop of laptop computers do not come with
these ports indicates that the market is not looking for such legacy
hardware anymore. We would be much better off if we could connect to
modern
day USB printers. hard discs, audio devices, barcode scanners, and the
list
goes on.
I look forward to people's comments on the future of this product. I feel
the BrailleNote could have a lot more potential if resources were
directed
to the above areas of improvement.
Doug
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