Braillecast

Did you know you can connect a Bluetooth keyboard or braille display to any iPhone or iPad? It’s a great way of improving your productivity and efficiency. However, there are some features which don’t have a keyboard shortcut assigned to them by default, and others where the default keyboard shortcut is hard to remember or difficult to press. In this episode, we bring you highlights of a seminar r...

Apple released the latest versions of its flagship operating systems, including iOS and iPad 26 for the popular iPhone and iPad product lines, in September 2025. Amongst the many new features are a significant number of improvements for braille users in VoiceOver, the built-in screen reader. In this, the second part of a two-part series, Matthew Horspool will devote the entire session to Braille A...

Apple released the latest versions of its flagship operating systems, including iOS and iPad 26 for the popular iPhone and iPad product lines, in September 2025. Amongst the many new features are a significant number of improvements for braille users in VoiceOver, the built-in screen reader. In this, the first part of a two-part series, Matthew Horspool will lift the lid on what is new and changed...

Join Ed Rogers of Bristol Braille Technology as he lifts the lid on Canute Scientific, the next generation of multi-line braille technology designed specifically for blind people working, studying or exploring Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM). Based on the already popular Canute Console multi-line braille workstation, but with an upgraded system board, new chassis, greater connect...

Regular Braillecast listeners will know that I visited Australia and New Zealand in 2024, and we featured a number of interviews from that trip in the weeks that followed. One interview that we didn't feature at the time was with Scott Erichsen, an Australian assistive technology expert, musician and all round braille enthusiast. As a musician, he is an accomplished jazz and classical pianist and...

The “old-fashioned Perkins” is a term we hear (and perhaps use) a lot. Whilst it is true that it was invented over fifty years ago, the evolution in braille writing in the period leading up to the first Perkins Brailler being sold was immense, with dozens of braille writers coming to market. Some of them survived; some of them have been almost completely forgotten; but all of them have a story to...

Victorian Britain was a heavily visual era. Sighted people gained access to the Penny Post, and the ability to communicate with friends across the nation with relative ease in an alphabet which was already well-established. On the other hand, for the blind community, many different tactile alphabets were invented simultaneously to address their exclusion from this culture, and blind educ...

Most of us by now have heard of the BrailleNote, Brailliant and Mantis, three of the leading braille products manufactured by HumanWare . Last year, they also launched Monarch, their brand new Dynamic Tactile Device, allowing multi-line braille and tactile graphics to be rendered on the same refreshable surface. In this episode, we catch up with Braille Product Manager Andrew Flatres. Links of Int...

Many listeners to this podcast will already be familiar with the Orbit Reader, which has been available in the UK since around 2018. Orbit Research have since expanded their product portfolio to include a range of other braille input and output devices. However, RNIB recently took the decision to discontinue Orbit products, leaving many customers anxious and disappointed. One company which has ste...

Bristol Braille Technology CIC is a not-for-profit organisation and the inventor of the Canute 360, designed in close collaboration with the Braillists' community as the original affordable multi-line Braille display. Their latest product, the Canute Console Premium, is a tactile workstation for viewing and editing text, tables, charts, vectors, maps and code over nine lines—or 360 cells—of refres...

Paige Connect is an affordable adaptation for your classic braille writer that connects it wirelessly to any phone, tablet or laptop for instant braille translation and gamified learning . The Paige Connect board is posted to you in a package that fits through your letterbox and simply replaces the base of your braille writer to transform it into a Bluetooth keyboard. This makes it compatible with...

Sight and Sound Technology is the leading supplier of assistive technology in the UK and Ireland, offering assessment, technology solutions, training and lifetime support so that their customers are able to make best use of the technology. They represent some of the world's biggest names in the assistive technology sector and are master distributors for many innovative new low vision and blindness...

In this episode, we take you to New College Worcester and our first ever conference for World Braille Day. We feature recordings from both the morning and afternoon session, including: Welcomes from the Braillists and New College Worcester Keynote speech from Eleanor Stollery Overview of the exhibitions and acknowledgement of sponsors Orientation to the programme Future plans for the Braillists

You might be familiar with many functions of the Canute 360 from Bristol Braille Technology , but did you know it can work seamlessly with the widely popular Duxbury Braille Translator ? When connected to a Windows machine, the Canute can output Braille text in real-time using Duxbury's six-key Braille entry, or display any translated text loaded into the application. This added functionality can...

The 40th Assistive Technology Conference from the Centre on Disabilities at California State University, Northridge took place in Anaheim, California from Monday 10 to Friday 14 March 2025, 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...

The Third Tactile Reading and Graphics Conference took place at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ , Amsterdam, the Netherlands, from Monday 2 to Wednesday 4 June 2025. The event brought together over 400 participants from around the world to discuss braille, tactile graphics and much more. The host organisations were Bartiméus , Koninklijke/Royal Dutch Visio and Dedicon . In a special event on Tuesday 17...

Our Chairman, Dave Wiliams, was thrilled to have addressed the American Council of the Blind (ACB) at their 64th Annual National Conference & Convention held in Dallas, Texas. On 10 July 2025, Dave delivered the keynote speech at the annual Convention banquet to a sold out audience. He called for greater investmentt in braille as a proven literacy tool that can transform the lives of blind peo...

You’re invited to pull up a chair at the Braillists’ Christmas party, where a friendly cast of characters discuss the games they play after Christmas dinner. Card games, board games, dice games and everything in between, we’ve got you covered. We discuss where to buy specially adapted games and how to adapt your own. And because it’s Christmas, the whole cast is in the same room! Grab a mince pie...

The latest in our occasional series showcasing historical braille shorthand codes which you might still find useful today: Braille, User-Oriented Code (BUOC) was a code written by the late Australian, Rebecca Maxwell, with the support of Australian Braille Literacy Action (ABLA), formerly the Australian Guild of Business and Professional Blind. It was last revised in 1998 and includes a number of...

USB, or Universal Serial Bus, has been a feature of braille displays for over twenty years. Originally a standard for connectivity, it has evolved over time to also provide power and charging capabilities. However, if USB is supposed to be Universal, why are some chargers faster than others, and why won’t some chargers and cables work at all? On Tuesday 29 October 2024, we unravelled the answer to...

Reading aloud is a skill that is both terrifying and liberating. Adding braille to the mix presents unique challenges that can often get in the way of recognising significant progress. Along with reading speed and fluency, the one question we hear most often is: “How can I improve my ability to read aloud?” Building on the topics from her popular masterclass, Revitalise Your Braille Reading Techni...

We are excited to announce the launch of a new eBook! Whether you’re new to braille or you’ve been using braille technology for decades, choosing your braille display can be daunting. They’re so expensive, there’s so much to consider, and just when you thought you’d investigated all your options, you come across another one you hadn’t heard of before! Braille On Display has been helping prospectiv...

Braille Screen Input has been overhauled! iOS and iPad OS 18, released on Monday 16 September, include the biggest refresh of Braille Screen Input since the feature was first introduced in iOS 8. Although you can, for the most part, still use Braille Screen Input as you always have done, the new functionality in Apple's latest flagship operating systems is a source of much excitement throughout th...

The Braillists Foundation prides itself on being a grass roots organisation; led by braille users, for braille users and, by extension, by blind people, for blind people. The Tactile and Technology Literacy Centre , based in Auckland, New Zealand, has a similar mission to the Braillists, and we find out more about them in this episode.

We start this episode in conversation with Maria Stevens, Chair of the Braille Authority of New Zealand Aotearoa Trust . We find out more about the work of BANZAT, the standards it has created and how it is helping to promote braille across New Zealand. We also discover more about the relationship between BANZAT and the Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities . Afterwa...