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By Ike Suarez correspondent
A team of computer engineering
majors, just graduated on March 29 from the Ateneo de Manila University, has developed a system to enable the blind to use
computers to become Braille-literate and fully utilize the Internet
the way other people do.
The Ateneo Braille System, as it
is tentatively called, started beta testing on March 5. If hopes of
its four-woman team of developers and faculty adviser are realized,
it could be commercialized within 2009.
Engineer Tristan Calasanz,
faculty adviser of the development team, told Tech Times that the
full technical details of the project could not yet be revealed.
Nevertheless, upon this correspondent’s prodding, he agreed to
discuss its broad outlines.
The goal of the project is to
help spread Braille literacy among the world’s blind people with
affordable computers, according to him. He added such affordability
could mean using obsolete PCs, even those running on old AT 286
processors, in cases where computers are a luxury to certain users.
Calasanz, who is both an
electrical and mechanical engineer, said the Ateneo Braille System
served as the capstone project of its developers in partial
fulfillment of requirements for their bachelor of science degrees in
computer engineering.
The four are: Giselle Mae Pacot,
Karina Palileo, Clarisse Eileen Sabulao, and Galilee Semblante. Last
year, they earned their first bachelors’ degrees in chemical
engineering, they being part of this Jesuit-run university’s
double-degree academic programs.
Calasanz, who is connected with
the Ateneo School of Science and Engineering, said R&D (research
and development) projects by its students are faculty-driven. Thus,
faculty members suggest to graduating students possible projects to
undertake.
He said he had already thought of
the system as early as 2004. But it was only now a group of students
had expressed interest in the concept.
Engineer Calasanz explained that
literacy for the blind is based on touch, their ability to
understand the textual meaning of the Braille dots when they feel
them with their fingers.
Thus, the system’s keyboards
have been developed by the team to be tactile-sensitive. So too are
the special monitors, which replace cathode-ray tube or LCD monitors
of typical PCs.
Engineer Calasanz said their
specialized peripherals were proprietary intellectual properties
whose full details would be made public in due time.
The computers use an Open Source
platform for the operating system. But built on top of this are
proprietary programs that make the tactile-sensitive peripherals
work.
A proprietary program built on
top of the operating system is also what allows the system’s users
to connect to the Internet. This consists of a text-based Braille
browser that “enables the blind to do all the good things people
use the Internet for, such as sending and receiving e-mails,
chatting, social networking, and surfing,” according to Calasanz.
He said the system had other proprietary features such as decoders
and multiplexes.
Calasanz said other developers
could add options to the system such as voice recognition features.
But the Ateneo developers deliberately avoided doing so, because
such features would increase the system’s cost of acquisition for
users.
Early this March, the Ateneo
Braille Project, along with other capstone projects with commercial
possibilities, were exhibited at the Ateneo campus in Loyola
Heights, Quezon City. The exhibit formed part of the soft launch of
the Ateneo Center for Innovation.
The center shall serve as
clearinghouse for investors and would-be buyers interested in Ateneo
R&D projects to meet developers and arrange for possible
commercialization.
The university has now adopted
the high-technology business development model pioneered by Stanford
University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and other
leading institutes of higher learning abroad. The same model has
been credited for the development of Silicon Valley, the
world-renowned IT hub in California.
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