Braille Converter Eases Web Use
From: BBC News - 04/12/2007
By: Geoff Adams-Spink

A European consortium has developed a service that automatically converts
documents into Braille. Still in the testing phase, RoboBraille will allow
users to send plain text, rich text, HTML, or Word documents by email, and a
few seconds later receive the document as an MP3 audio file or as electronic
Braille that can be read by a tactile display or sent to a Braille printer.
"About two or three years ago we came to the conclusion that it's simply too
complicated for the average user to produce Braille," according to consortium
leader Lars Balieu Christensen, who also heads a Danish assistive technology
company. "We wanted to set up a system that was entirely automated, where the
user didn't need to know anything apart from an email address." Christensen
hopes to expand the service to include PDF documents. RoboBraille will be
free to individual users and nonprofit organizations when it is made fully
available next year. The service currently handles about 400 requests a day,
but is capable of processing about 14,000 Braille conversions a day. 

Read the entire article at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6542441.stm

Links:
Braille converter eases web use
http://softhail.com/news_abc?letter=B

Robobraille
http://www1.robobraille.org/websites/acj/robobraille.nsf

Users Flock to Free Document Conversion Service
http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=127