Author: Matthew Horspool

2025 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Satisfaction Survey

Attention: All Users of APH Products! If you have purchased APH products and services to use in education or rehabilitation settings, we want to hear from you!

This brief survey is conducted annually and is designed to accomplish several key goals:

• Give users an opportunity to share their experiences with APH products and services.
• Help us coordinate priorities and improve our product development processes.
• Collect performance data as required by the federal Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA).

Follow the link below to complete the survey and learn more.

All individual responses will remain confidential. Your feedback about our performance and product effectiveness DOES make a difference.

Survey response deadline is Friday, October 10.

Start the 2025 GPRA Survey

HumanWare recently announced firmware version 2.5 for the Brailliant BI X, Mantis Q40 and Chameleon 20. Download the release notes for more information.

We are very happy to share that Paige Connect is now officially available in the U.S. through the American Printing House (APH).

Federal quota eligible
$339

A digital reading format for braille publications, eBraille focuses on adapting braille for reading in refreshable braille displays with different line lengths. Using an EPUB 3-compatible file set based on the Open Web Platform — using technologies such as XHTML and CSS — to encode braille in semantically enhanced markup and allow it to adapt to the different capabilities of braille reading devices. The file set is designed for both packaged distribution to end users and deployment to the web for online and downloadable reading.

Composed of 91 people throughout the blindness or low vision field, the eBraille Working Group represented more than 50 organizations in 16 different countries.

Read this article to learn more about eBraille 1.0

The East Bay Center for the Blind in Berkeley, California in 2021 launched Learn-at-Home” braille initiative allowing blind and visually impaired individuals to learn braille on their own. The Center provides this braille education tuition-free and it’s available for all adults all over the world. Any adult interested in learning braille can fill out our online enrollment application and receive the course materials as “free matter for the blind”. Use this link to fil out our enrollment form.

In addition to offering braille courses, we also run two weekly webinars promoting braille literacy, each on Thursdays and Fridays.  Our Thursday webinar is called “I Love Braille”, in which, participants discuss braille-related issues at all levels. Our Friday session titled “I Learn Braille” are especially geared to helping beginner learners. We allow participants practice braille letters and words with lots of fun activities. WE have received positive and encouraging feedbacks for these zoom meetings. These webinars are available all over the world for all, blind or sighted, who would like to login. Episodes of both webinars are also archived on our web site.

Here are the links to login:

• I Love Braille
  Meeting ID: 822 9799 7659
  Passcode: 1961
• I Learn Braille
  Meeting ID: 893 5042 8550
  Passcode: 123456

For more information, send your email at: [email protected].

Unlimited is offering ten awards totalling £413,000 to disabled artists across England, Scotland, and Wales – now open for applications.

With amounts ranging from £15,000 to £80,000, these commissioning awards will support the creation of extraordinary new work in artforms including theatre, dance, music, visual arts, literature, and combined arts.

Authors who write their literature in braille are welcome to apply.

Find out more.

As we approach the end of the summer term, many of us are preparing for time away from home. Whether you’re going on a long holiday abroad or something more local, there’s bound to be some braille somewhere.

In this masterclass, prolific traveller Connor Scott-Gardner will share his experiences of where he has found braille on his travels and what steps he has taken to prepare himself to make the most of it.

Register for the Masterclass here.

To join by phone, please use these details:

• Phone number: 0131 460 1196
• Meeting ID: 834 7980 2001
• Passcode: 123456

Don’t forget to come and see Chantelle, Matthew and others from the Braillists team at Sight Village Central on Monday (10:00 AM-4:00 PM) and Tuesday (9:30 AM-3:30 PM).

Further Information and Free Registration

Address: Eastside Rooms Conference Centre, Woodcock Street, Birmingham, B7 4BL

Braillists Stand: table 56, isle 5.

Other Exhibitors of Interest

• All Formats Transcription Services, for your braille transcription needs
• ClearVision Project, children’s books in simultaneous braille and print
• Dolphin Computer Access Ltd, developers of Easy Converter, which produces a wide variety of accessible formats including braille
• HumanWare, for the BrailleNote Touch Plus, Mantis Q40, Brailliant BI20X and BI40X, Monarch, and Tactile View software, Zychem products and Index and Enabling braille embossers
• jw.org, producers of braille resources for Jehovah’s Witnesses
• Professional Vision Services, distributors of the B.Book and B.Note from Eurobraille and the Braillex series from Papenmeier
• Sight and Sound Technology, for Focus braille displays, the BrailleSense 6 and 6 mini, Braille EMotion, QBraille XL, Orbit Slate 340 and 520, Canute 360 and Canute Console, Braille Doodle, Hable One, Paige Connect, TactiPad, Pictures IN A Flash and ViewPlus braille embossers
• Torch Trust, producers of braille resources for blind christians
• VisionAid Technologies Ltd, for the DotPad, Activator/Activator Pro and other products from Help Tech, Tactonom tactile graphics tablet, and the Logickeyboard Braille Keyboard

Seminars

• Tactile Tactics to Bolster your Braille, Seminar Room 1, Monday at 1:35 PM and Tuesday at 1:45 PM
• Celebrating 200 Years of Braille: Past, Present, and Future, Seminar Room 1, Monday at 2:15 PM and Tuesday at 9:45 AM

Braille and Beer

Hosted by Bristol Braille Technology at: Sacks of Potatoes, 10 Gosta Green, Birmingham B4 7ER (just a 4-minute walk from the Sight Village venue), Monday at 4:30 PM.

For more details on any of the above, visit our News page or check out last week’s Newsletter.

Sight Village are excited to be trialling NaviLens codes in Birmingham this year!

NaviLens uses smart QR-style codes which can be scanned from a distance using a smartphone to receive instant, spoken information, making navigation easier and more independent. If this sounds familiar, you might have come across a NaviLens code on your Kellogg’s breakfast cereal.

Simply launch the NaviLens app and pan your phone around the room. As soon as a NaviLens code is detected, you will be given information about what it has detected, how far away it is and in what direction. As you move around, the direction and distance will automatically update to match your location.

A number of codes will be placed around the Sight Village venue by the event organisers, and we will additionally be displaying a NaviLens code at our stand.

We hope this will help you find your way around Sight Village more effectively. If you’re able to try it, please do let ourselves and the Sight Village team know what you think. Your feedback will help shape how the Braillists and Sight Village use this technology in the future.

Download NaviLens for free on the iOS App Store | Download NaviLens for free on the Google Play Store

To celebrate this year’s Sight Village Central exhibition, Sight and Sound Technology are excited to be bringing you exclusive limited-time-only discounts from their partners!

Always hugely popular, the HIMS range offers solutions for those in education or the workplace, ensuring that you can work or study efficiently and maximize your productivity with Braille.

Get 20% Off selected HIMS products: BrailleSense6, BrailleSense6 Mini, QBraille XL, Braille eMotion.

The discounted prices are available from Tuesday 1st July, in-person during the event, and for a limited time after the event online, and over the phone.

Discounts are only available directly from Sight and Sound Technology.