News

The Braillists will be taking a break over Easter. We will still be checking emails during this time, but not as frequently as usual. The Braillists Forum will remain active and we will continue to moderate this as appropriate.

There will be no Tuesday evening sessions on 15 April, 22 April or 29 April. We will resume Tuesday evening operations on 6 May with Braille for Beginners, and a Braille Bar will follow on 13 May.

Book Club will break up on Thursday 17 April for a two-week holiday, resuming on Thursday 8 May.

We intend to take this opportunity to resume publication of the Braillecast podcast. Please stay subscribed for new episodes over the Easter break.

As part of its recent restructure, RNIB has taken the decision to outsource its Personal Transcription service for braille and audio to a commercial company. Following extensive campaigning over the past week, this service will be underwritten in full by RNIB for the next year.

The “Save Our Braille” campaign, which was instrumental in achieving this subsidy, is now seeking constructive dialogue with RNIB to ensure free personal braille transcription remains indefinitely. It can be found here: saveourbraille.wordpress.com

HumanWare is thrilled to announce that TactileView, the leading tactile creation suite, is now included with the Romeo 60 and Juliet 120 embossers! This exciting new add-on allows you to create high-quality tactile graphics with HumanWare embossers, providing you with more tools to enhance your work.

TactileView offers an intuitive, screen reader-compatible interface that makes creating both simple and complex tactile graphics effortless. Whether you’re designing tactile maps, math diagrams, or other graphics, this tool streamlines the process, saving you time and effort. Plus, with TactileView’s extensive graphic catalog, you can easily modify existing designs and seamlessly integrate them with Duxbury.

Read the full announcement

On behalf of APH I am pleased to announce the release of BrailleBlaster 3.0.1. This release deals with the issues relating to math causing errors in the previous version which lead to that release being withdrawn. This release can be obtained at the BrailleBlaster website.

Unfortunately for Mac users, APH still has no Mac build of BrailleBlaster 3.0.1, for now you will need to continue using BrailleBlaster 2.1.9, find an alternative build of BrailleBlaster or build from source.

As this release is only about fixing the math issue, there are no further release notes this time.

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.