Archives: Episode

UEB Indicators: How to show capitals, bold, italics, underline and more (Extra 57)

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“This new braille has so many extra dots!” This is something we hear a lot, and it’s often followed by the question, “What do they all mean?”

This Masterclass will help to solve the mystery. James Bowden, Braille Technical Officer at RNIB, Chairman of the Braille Coding Group of the UK Association for Accessible Formats, and the UK Representative to the Code Maintenance Committee of the International Council on English Braille, described the common indicators in UEB and gave some real world examples of their use.

In particular, we covered:

  • Capital letters and block capitals
  • Making sure a word or symbol is not misread as a contraction
  • Italicised, bolded and underlined text

This session was recorded on Tuesday 16 May 2023. For further information please visit the Braillists Foundation Media Page.

CSUN 2023 (Episode 48)

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Dave Williams, Chairman of the Braillists Foundation, and Ed Rogers from Bristol Braille Technology discuss the braille products to emerge from this year’s event.

Programming for the Canute Console (Extra 56)

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There was a lot to cram into the last of our computer science-themed classes. We started with a quick refresher about what we’ve covered so far before taking a deep dive into what it takes to write software and build hardware with a particular focus on the accessibility elements of the process.

Six Dots to Success: What Braille Means to Me and Panel (Extra 55)

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The final recording from the recent Six Dots to Success conference held in collaboration with Sight and Sound Technology Ltd.

This episode features:

  • Options in Education with Braille with Alannah Moriarty
  • Panel discussion chaired by Roger Firman
  • Summing up

Six Dots to Success: Braille for Leisure (Extra 54)

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The fourth of a series of recordings from the recent Six Dots to Success conference held in collaboration with Sight and Sound Technology Ltd.

This episode features a recording of one of the breakout rooms.

Six Dots to Success: Braille in Higher Education and Employment (Extra 53)

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The third of a series of recordings from the recent Six Dots to Success conference held in collaboration with Sight and Sound Technology Ltd.

This episode features a recording of one of the breakout rooms.

Meet Hable One: the Portable Bluetooth Controller for your Smartphone (Extra 52)

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Hable One is a powerful, fun and exciting way for you to interact with your smartphone or tablet using braille. As well as being a fully functional braille keyboard, supporting both grades 1 and 2, it also serves as a wireless remote control for every aspect of your smartphone or tablet, from moving around the screen to selecting, playing and pausing music, dialling numbers and changing settings.

For beginner braillists, it is a uniquely satisfying way of putting your braille skills into practice. For more advanced braillists, it is a vital productivity tool. It works in partnership with the smartphone or tablet’s screen reader and supports all popular apps including messages/WhatsApp, Facebook/Messenger, Twitter, Spotify, mail, contacts, calendar, reminders and notes.

On Tuesday 21 February at 7:30 PM GMT, we were joined by representatives from Hable, who told us more about this innovative device. We learned how easy it is to set it up and saw some practical examples of how it works both as a keyboard and a remote control. There was also plenty of opportunity for the audience to ask questions.

Six Dots to Success: Braille at School (Extra 51)

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The second of a series of recordings from the recent Six Dots to Success conference held in collaboration with Sight and Sound Technology Ltd.

This episode features a recording of one of the breakout rooms.

Introducing Git (Extra 50)

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According to Wikipedia, Git is a distributed version control system that tracks changes in any set of computer files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development. Luckily for us it’s far more interesting than it sounds on paper as it was the topic of the third in our series of computer science masterclasses.

We started off by cutting through some of the technobabble typically associated with tools such as this and then got hands on with some simple examples using the popular Liblouis project. We built on our Linux skills from the previous class along the way and even did a little bit of programming before ending the session with questions.

Six Dots to Success: Welcome, Keynote and Braille for Beginners (Extra 49)

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)The first of a series of recordings from the recent Six Dots to Success conference held in collaboration with Sight and Sound Technology Ltd.

This episode includes:

  • Welcome from Sight and Sound CEO Glenn Tookey
  • Welcome from Braillists Chairman Dave Williams
  • Keynote speech from Peter White, Disability Affairs Correspondent at the BBC
  • Greater Indepenndence with Braille: a video by Red Széll