Author: Matthew Horspool

If you are registered for our Braille for Beginners On Demand course, our next Office Hours session will take place on Tuesday at 7:30 PM. Please look out for a reminder email containing your unique joining link. If you have not received it by Tuesday lunchtime, please write to [email protected] for assistance.

If you are new to braille and not registered for Braille for Beginners, please consider signning up at www.braillists.org/beginners.

For people not following Braille for Beginners, your next session will be next Tuesday. Please see next week’s Newsletter for more information.

If you are a long-time follower of Sight and Sound across our various social channels, then you’ll know that we’ve had the hugely popular Hable One device in our portfolio for the last few years. Now we’re delighted to add the Hable Easy!

The Hable Easy is a small, easy-to-use device that helps people who find touchscreens hard to use. With just eight buttons, you can control your phone or tablet without complicated swiping or tapping. Each button has a specific job, so you can open apps, send messages, and even use voice commands with ease.

The Hable Easy makes using a smartphone or tablet simple and fun for everyone, and works with both VoiceOver and TalkBack. Just connect the Hable Easy to your phone or tablet with Bluetooth, and you’re ready to go! With just a press of a button, you can make calls, send messages, and enjoy music or videos.

Join us for this Webinar Wednesday event, when Hable’s Cofounder Freek van Welsenis will tell us all!

Register for the Hable Easy Webinar

Registration is now open for the summer term for the Braille And Tactile Skills courses at Adult Learning Lewisham, starting on 28 April 2025.

These courses take place on Mondays either between 10AM and 12:30PM or 1Pm and 3:30PM. Terms are eleven weeks long and are held at the Brockley Rise centre in South East London: 2 Brockley Rise, SE23 1PR

No previous knowledge of Braille is required, course fees are means tested  and many applicants receive free or discounted places depending on their income. We are a friendly and supportive group, and all learners work at their own pace towards their individual goals. We have lots of great group discussions about various topics related to visual impairment and use things like tactile games to make learning fun and to foster new friendships and connections.

To register, please call: 02083143300 Monday to Friday between 9am and 4pm to make an appointment for a pre-course assessment with supported learning, or you can email: a href=”mailto:[email protected]”>[email protected]

Episode 8 of the BANA Braille Bits podcast features an interview with Braillists’ Chairman Dave Williams. He talks about his work with RNIB on Braille200 and the Braillists gets a mention too.

by Michael Whapples

I am pleased to announce the release of BrailleBlaster 3.0.0. This major version bump is to indicate BrailleBlaster reaching a new milestone in its life as it becomes open-source under the GNU Public License. With new packaging bringing automatic updates and Linux AARCH64 support, as well as many improvements and bug fixes we recommend all users to upgrade. As usual you can get BrailleBlaster from the BrailleBlaster website. For full details of what has changed please see the below release notes.

Unfortunately for Mac users, we do not currently have a release for you, this will be coming soon.

BrailleBlaster 3.0.0, March 26, 2025

Welcome to BrailleBlaster 3.0.0. With this release BrailleBlaster is open-source and is now released under the GNU Public License (GPL). This license change now means that users will have the freedom to make modifications to the software and they can contribute back to the project to improve things for the whole BrailleBlaster community. Whilst making the license change, we also took the opportunity to redo our build and packaging process. This should make it easier for us to produce new releases, will offer better user experience and automatic updates as well as better compatibility with some security software. Unfortunately it does mean, if you have BrailleBlaster.2.1 installed you should uninstall that before installing BrailleBlaster 3.0.0. As usual there have been a number of other improvements and bug fixes as well, so review the below release notes for full details.

License and packaging

• BrailleBlaster now under the GNU Public License V3 (GPL3).
• Users who use the installer options will now get automatic updates happening in the background.
• Fixed some issues when using BrailleBlaster with some security software, such as quicker start up when using certain VPN tools.
• Packages available for Linux AARCH64 systems such as the BTSpeak and RaspberryPi.

Math enhancements

• Now able to paste math equations from other websites and sources. Do not have to highlight the equation and click on Math Translation Toggle. Now use Ctrl+Shift+M to paste Math from another source.
• Nemeth Code Change Indicators are working when the translation settings are set accordingly and when Math translation toggle is used.
• Fixed issue when typing a line of text on first line of document then entering on a second line using the ASCII Math Hub, the first line of text stays on first line and second line is the inserted ASCII math.
• Following UEB Guidelines for Technical Materials The blank line is working in the Spatial Math Editor for UEB Matrices.

UI enhancements

• Issue with Braille Preview not working when using some .xml files has been fixed.
• A Disable Status Bar Item is available in the Settings Menu tab.
• Status bar cell information indicates which view the cursor is in whether it is in the Print view (Text) or Braille View.
• The ability to add Unicode Braille is now an option. When you highlight the braille in the braille view and right click, there is an option to Copy in Unicode.
• Selecting all or Ctrl+A will highlight text in the text fields now in both the Ascii Math Hub and Correct Translation dialogs.

Translation enhancements

• EBAE Profile has been added to the Translation settings profiles.
• Uncontracted change translation is correct. No grade 1 indicators when the translation is changed to uncontracted. Single letter contractions changing to whole uncontracted words do not show a grade 1 indicator.
• The Contraction Relaxer in Tools has been added.

Other improvements and bug fixes

• When attempting to emboss a brf which does not fit on the paper, an alert window appears that is titled “Document larger than embosser paper.” The window either allows the user to continue with the process or to stop to avoid any embossing issues or problems.
• Nimas files opens without the presence of the Default style at the top
• The backspace key causing an error when you press on it and erase text or when you press on it when Braillblaster is first loaded is functioning normally.
• Other various bug fixes and performance improvements.

The DAISY Consortium is pleased to announce the eBraille 1.0 Candidate Release. Whilst feedback is still encouraged, it is likely that this will closely resemble the final eBraille 1.0 specification.

Writing on the eBraille Mailing List, Willow Free from APh acknowledged those who sent in feedback, including James Bowden and John Ylioja, and to Matt Garrish and the other eBraille Editors for incorporating that feedback and getting the candidate specification published.

Galloways is proud to partner with the Lancashire & South Cumbria Cancer Awareness and Screening Participation Small Grants Scheme. Together, they are committed to making a meaningful impact on cancer awareness, screening participation, and early diagnosis within the blind and low vision community. By providing information on common cancer signs and symptoms, as well as details about the screening process, in large print, audio, and braille formats, Galloways ensure that blind and partially sighted individuals can access the information they need to stay informed and proactive about their health.

For your free braille guide in the post, please email Neve Whiteside-Sutton or Holly Atkinson or call 01772 744148.

Last week saw the 40th CSUN Assistive Technology Conference take place in Anaheim, California, bringing together manufacturers, distributors, educators, researchers and users from all over the world. As ever, a wide variety of braille products was on show at the exhibit hall, and the conference programme featured several braille-related presentations including research on how the length of a braille display affects reading speed, reflections on 200 years of tactile literacy, and the first public draft of the new EBraille specification.

In this session, we’re excited to be joined by the team from Double Tap, the popular technology show from Accessible Media Inc. Steven Scott and Shaun Preece both attended CSUN for the first time this year. They will tell us about the braille products they saw and share their perspectives on how CSUN compares with exhibitions like Sight Village in the UK.

We will also be joined by Australian assistive technology expert and braille enthusiast Scott Erichsen. Scott has been at the forefront of the development of braille technology for over twenty years as a user, a private beta tester and a distributor, and will tell us about the new and improved products in the exhibit hall. He will also share his insights into how the braille technology industry is evolving and the part that CSUN plays in driving innovation forwards.

Register for Perspectives from CSUN here.

To join by phone, please use these details:

• Phone number: 0131 460 1196
• Meeting ID: 898 9330 6464
• Passcode: 123456

After much user testing and discussions, the first ever silently described silent film screening will be taking place on Friday 21st March in the beautiful Scottish town of Bo’Ness (an easy 30 minute journey from Edinburgh or Glasgow). The newly restored 1917 feature film, ‘The Pride of the Clan’, stars Hollywood royalty, Mary Pickford as Marget MacTavish and encompasses clan politics, daring sea rescues, quaint island customs, a thwarted romance and a rag-to-riches storyline, along with, of course, some highland dancing.

The live music accompanying this film will be provided by the extraordinary duo of musicians and silent film accompanists Stephen Horne and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry who, between them (and often in the same performance) play harp, flute, piano and accordion.

Patrons can bring their own wifi-compatible refreshable braille device, or opt to request a headset to receive good old fashioned audio description (itself a rarity for silent film, and itself a unique experience combined with live music), which will also be available through the HippFest at Home online offering for 48 hours after the event.

Tickets (for both in-person and online) are on sale through the HippFest website.

Polly Goodwin says: “I would be so very grateful if you could share this invitation with anyone you think might be interested. My hope is that we get an audience excited to try out this new experience, and even more excited to give me frank and full feedback afterwards to further develop the process of opening up a unique part of cinema to people who are blind or have low vision.”

If you are interested in attending please contact Polly Goodwin.

Join Peter and Andrew for an exclusive look at the first Monarch firmware update.

Discover the exciting new features in our first update, including KeyMail, Internet browsing, and a preview of the highly anticipated eBraille experience.

Don’t miss this opportunity to see how Monarch continues to evolve!

Register here