The BrailleNote Apex BT 32 braille notetaker provides wireless access to the web and connects to peripherals such as printers, braille embossers, and flash drives. It also serves as a braille terminal through which blind and visually impaired computer users can access and navigate their PC.
It's essentially a shell laptop: a braille keyboard and refreshable display bolstered by basic digital communications and web functions.
Would you spend $5,495 for such a device? Most blind people can't.
For braille literacy to reverse its decades-long decline, we need an innovative device that makes braille accessible and portable -- and priced so blind professionals can afford them and businesses can't call it an unreasonable accommodation.
Do you ever see the price of this device or similar devices coming down to something reasonable? In thinking about other products like Dragon for Voice Recognition and Tobii Eye Gaze systems, we have seen those come in to the mainstream technology world, which of course has fueled the price decline. My thinking is this is a product and device that will probably never make it to the mainstream, because of the limited number of people who use it, so I’m guessing the price will remain fairly static.