FW: USA: Online book-sharing service for the blind borrows a page from Napster

[Janina Sajka]

Ooops. Sorry folks, somehow between the time I read the message I was 
replying to, I managed to push a button and reply to the wrong message.

If that doesn't make sense, just know that this message had nothing to do 
with speakup or this list. It was one of those inside AFB discussions that 
got inserted in the wrong place.

Sorry.
 On Fri, 15 Mar 2002, Janina Sajka wrote:

> OK. Next problem! <grin>
> 
> Full page braille displays have long been a kind of holy grail that we 
> dream of and can't attain. As things stand, a single line display is 
> horrendously expensive.
> 
> We need a breakthrough. We need two breakthroughs, actually:
> 
> 1.)	Price. Anything we know today says this would go through the 
> ceiling--tens of thousands of dollars, at least;
> 
> 2.)	Complexity. I don't know that we understand how to build anything 
> this complicated and keep it controlled. Current single line displays are 
> already very complicated, mechanically--which is why they're so expensive.
> 
> My conclusion: Were we to make breakthroughs on the above two points we'd 
> want a full page braille display before this kind of unit.
> 
> 
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina at afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org