The Evolution of Braille Displays

On this episode of Change Makers, learn about how far braille displays have come, and where they're going.

On this Episode (In Order of Appearance)

• Mike Hudson, APH Dot Experience Curatorial and Content Lead
• Willow Free, APH Global Innovations Product Manager 

Additional Links

• Meet Monarch

Transcript

Narrator: 0:00

<silence> Welcome to Change Makers , a podcast from a PH. We're talking to people from around the world who are creating positive change in the lives of people who are blind or have low vision. Here's your host.

Sara Brown: 0:15

Hello and welcome to Change Makers . I'm APH's Public Relations manager, Sara Brown . And on today's episode, we're learning about the history of Braille devices. They've been around for about 50 years and have come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. We're gonna learn about their past and their future. Up here to talk more about their past, I have experience curatorial and content lead. Mike Hudson here. Hello, Mike, and welcome to Change Makers.

Mike Hudson: 0:48

Good morning, Sara.

Sara Brown: 0:51

Would you like to introduce yourself and let our listeners know what it is you do at APH?

Mike Hudson: 0:57

Sure. So , um, you know, for , uh, gosh, the last 19 years I've worked in the museum at the American Printing House for the Blind. And currently my big project is obviously working on The Dot Experience , um, writing labels and researching objects, and , uh, getting ready for , uh, you know, what is gonna be a pretty exciting 2026.

Sara Brown: 1:17

Wonderful. And this podcast is celebrating the , the 50th anniversary of Braille devices. So we're 50 years in, but let's go back to the beginning. Do you know when the first Braille devices came out? When they came on the scene ?

Mike Hudson: 1:34

Sure . So really, you know, from the, from the beginning, even Louis Braille was looking for devices, right? To make , uh, to make the use of braille easy. Okay? So we're familiar with braille writers and, and, and braille slates, you know, that make it quick for you to be able to, you know, write , uh, but, but how do you make it quicker to read the first efforts? Uh, there happened at IBM , uh, surprisingly enough in the 1950s. Yeah. And , uh, and this was kind of a device that used a , uh, uh, data that had been stored on a punched paper tape. And then the braille would be , uh, created on a rubber , uh, uh, belt. And this rubber belt would, would roll through a little window, and the device would raise the braille, it would roll underneath your finger, and then it would flatten out as it went back down underneath the device, and then new braille would be created. Um , and they never really came up with a really practical model of that. Um, and it really wasn't until the 1970s that the first commercially available refreshable braille display, like what we we think of today , uh, was invented by a guy named Oleg Tretiakoff in , uh, in France. Um, it, it turns out <laugh> as, as we are here in our Olympic month, you know, that so many inventions , uh, that have been useful for people that are blind, actually come surprisingly from Louis Braille hometown or home, home country of France. But , uh, tradeoff , um, was using these little six dot electronic braille cells that were operated by a principle called Piezoelectric. And in , uh, a Piezoelectric , uh, cell, when you shock the thing with just a little bit of electricity, it changes the shape of this little reed . And when that reed changes shape, it pops the little pin up, right? And so you could raise and lower the pins with these Piezo electric cells. And in, in truth, today , uh, even, you know, what, 50 years later, most of the , uh, refreshable braille displays that we use use Oleg Tretiakoff's principle Piezo electric cells, very kind of expensive. Uh , each individual cell's kind of expensive, which is why we typically only see very short , uh, uh, electronic cells. But , uh, Oleg Tretiakoff marketed his device as the digit cassette, okay? The digit cassette. Why cassette? Because , uh, you know, today we deal with amazing amounts of data that's being stored on hard drives, and it's being stored on the cloud. Uh, but back in the seventies , uh, Oleg Tretiakoff's device stored its data on audio cassettes, okay ? Uh, we used audio cassettes for years and years at the printing house to produce talking books, right? Uh, and so literally you take an audio cassette, clunk, almost down into what looked like a , a , uh, a cassette recorder, but then it had this , uh, braille keyboard and a refreshable braille display. So Oleg Tretiakoff, you know, he's, he's invented something amazing, right? You can, you can take braille notes, it stores it, and then it can give them back to you. You can edit them. It's a, it's a braille note taker. So he comes to the United States, and he goes to one of the largest companies then working on accessible technology. It was called Telesensory Systems. And , uh, Telesensory Systems looks at Oleg Tretiakoff device , uh, you know, he's really trying to break into the American market, and they go, ah , you know , nah, we're not interested. So Oleg Tretiakoff goes back to France, right? Well, in the meantime, the , the people at, at , uh, at Telesensory take his idea and come up with their own device, and they call it the Versa Braille . Okay? We, we have both digit cassettes and Versa Braille in the, in the collection, surprise surprise, the Versa Braille stores. Its information on audio cassettes, and it has a, like a 2020 cell refreshable braille display , and a, and a Braille keyboard. It doesn't look anything like traded cost device, but it operates exactly like traded cost device. And , uh, so the Versa Braille is actually , uh, it's introduced, oh , you know, 79, 80, 81 , and it's the first American made , commercially available , uh, refreshable braille display, and quite expensive. And , uh, but , uh, actually it's used , uh, there are photographs , uh, of , uh, in our proofreading department of our proofreaders proofreading braille on, on the , uh, on the Versa Braille. So , uh, and that's kind of the beginning. That's , uh, that's 80 81, you know, the National Library Service actually tries to, they, they're thinking about like getting rid of paper braille at that point. Fifty, you know, 40 years ago, they're, they're thinking of getting rid of paper braille, and they're just gonna produce all their books on the Versa Braille. But when they tested a bunch, they find that , uh, you know, even as we know today, paper braille still , um, uh, is people prefer paper braille. So anyways, so that's kind of the beginning.

Sara Brown: 7:01

We have these devices on the market back in the eighties, late seventies, eighties. Mm-Hmm , <affirmative> , what was the cost and how big were they ? Can you talk about what they looked like?

Mike Hudson: 7:11

Sure . So Versa Braille , uh, was about, I would say 15 inches wide , um, maybe about six inches deep. And , uh, oh , uh, uh, eight or 10 inches wide. It was heavy, but it came with a carrying handle. It was intended to be portable. Uh, and, you know, portable in 1980 and portable in 2024 are very different things, right? We, we stick our cell phone in the po in our pocket, and we've got access to, you know, an amazing amount of information. But, but for, for people that were buying , uh, a device like Versa Baille was a really a miraculous device. It , it , it , it , it , it , it weighed, I think , um, eight pounds, something like that. Um, but it, it could store amazing amount of information. You could put whole books, you know, into it. Uh, you could take notes and then , you know, get the information back. And, and we, we, we don't even think about that today. We do it routinely, right? We, we , we pick our phone up and we, you know, we , we speak , uh, a message and the phone turns it into electronic, and then whoop sends it through the internet, and somebody gets it, right? But, but back then, this was pretty, pretty, pretty cool stuff. So, and it costs about $3,000, which , uh, was a lot of money in 1980. Uh , it's a lot of money now, but , uh, we wouldn't think twice about paying $3,000 for a computer today. But back then, that was, it was almost impossible for any individual to be able to afford one. If a , if your , if you weren't rich, you know, then your , your employer had to buy one for you. You couldn't afford to buy one yourself.

Sara Brown: 8:50

Wow . And just think, we don't bat an eye paying $1500, $2000 for a phone. Yeah. Yeah . Now, but that, that was, that was a lot of money back then. Back in those days. It was, it was. So talk about what, what they do compared to today's devices.

Mike Hudson: 9:06

Okay? Right. So, well, first it's miniaturization, right? A modern refreshable braille device is light, and it's a lot smaller, and you put it on a strap and you know, you're carrying it around or in your pocket, and you don't even think about it that much. Um, it's slow, it's loud. Um, you know, I don't wanna date myself, Sara, but I remember when a 20 megabyte hard drive was, you know, huge, right? Data took up a lot less space. Uh, we weren't creating files then that were, that are as big as the files. We routinely, you know, like my cell phone will take a photograph that is many megabytes large, right? Um, well , you couldn't fit even one photograph that you take on your, on your phone today onto a, a digit cassette or a, or a, or a , uh, or a , or a Versa Braille. Um, so they , they , they had a lot fewer capabilities. Now, gradually, you start to see applications get added, right? Like a calculator, a , um, a , uh, a fi a more sophisticated filing system. Uh, the word processors get smarter and smarter, and you're, you're able to do a lot more editing , um, and , uh, play games. Uh , you know , today's devices are really miracles of, of both miniaturization and function. They do many, many things. And you've obviously, you had no internet access. There was no internet, right? But today to modern, you know, braille note takers, you can, you can browse the internet. Uh, and of course, with devices like The Monarch, which is a real game changer in terms of its identity as a full page refreshable, braille display, that can also , uh, include graphics. I mean, none of that was even imagined by , uh, the people who were working with these early devices.

Sara Brown: 11:11

So, when these Braille devices come out on the market back in the late seventies, eighties, mm-Hmm , <affirmative> , mm-hmm , <affirmative> , what's the reception? Was there like, "oh my gosh, this is what we've been waiting for?" Or was it, "what is that?" And "why do we need that?" If we're content with, you know, sometimes change, people are , can be reluctant to something new.

Mike Hudson: 11:27

Sure. Well, there's a lot of, there's a, I know that , I don't know exactly the right answer, Sara. I, I know that there's a lot of excitement. They're widely advertised. Uh, if you look in , um, not, not just magazines that are dedicated to people that are blind, but , um, you know, popular electronics magazines, they're being advertised in there, and they're being sold. Um, you , you talk to a super user like , uh, Larry Skutchan or like , uh, at , uh, National Library Service at Judy Dixon. I mean, you , you'll see photographs of, of, of national meetings, and they've got them already, you know, they're, they're, they're on a, you know, a quarter around their neck, and they're carrying around taking notes. Um, and they're big, and they're bulky, but they're extremely useful. Um, imagine, you know, we, we talk about this in terms of braille. Braille allows you to record information that then you can get back later, right? Whether you do it with a braille writer or with a Braille Slate, you know, you don't have to remember everything. In fact, that's the, that's the value of writing, right? Of the written language. Like, you don't need to know by heart every recipe that your grandmother used. You can write them down and stick 'em in a book, and then later you can get them back, right? Or, or they're on a book shelf . So that's the power of writing in general. That's the power. That's what braille gives to people that are mind . But the refreshable braille display, the braille note taker , um, lets you carry it with you wherever you go, right ? So now your bookcase is in your pocket, and , uh, you can go to a meeting, you can take notes. You don't have to remember everything that was said. Uh, now, now, at the same time, people are also using audio to do these same things. But , uh, when you turn it into a digital format, you can export it to somebody else. You can , uh, you know, people that are , uh, suddenly computer programming becomes a legitimate profession for people that are blind or low vision. Uh, and you see this, again, again, you taught , you do oral histories with people , uh, uh, who grew up , uh, in the eighties and nineties, and there are computer programmers , uh, and that had , that wouldn't , that was, you know, that was very difficult prior to that. But now that you've got the same tools that everybody else is using , uh, you're , you know, you're not looking at a monitor, right? The, the terminal part, the , and when I say terminal , I mean, how you get the information back out is on your refreshable braille display. But nonetheless, you can get the , the same information. Now, let's, let's talk about how exciting that is. Now, I write an essay in college in Braille. I compose it in braille, okay? But I use, because I'm using braille, I'm using all the same grammar spelling, I'm using all the same conventions that everybody , uh, who's using print is using. I email it to my, my professor, they get it as print. Okay ? There is , there is no difference between the assignment that I turn in and the assignment that my sighted classmate turns in to the professor. It's just an article. I've , an essay I've written. Now, they grade it, right? They send it back to me. I read it in braille, right? All of their comments and everything were done in print. But I read it in Braille. And, and so, you know, we use much more sophisticated , uh, devices now. But, but the principle is the same. That, that I have just leveled the playing field in terms of data manipulation , um, text manipulation, all these amazing tools that we use. Uh, I , I'll tell a story on myself. When I was in college my freshman year, I was, I , I was and am, by the way, a terrible typist. Uh, are , are you a good typist, Sara?

Sara Brown: 15:22

Yes. But that was back in the olden days when they made me take typing class.

Mike Hudson: 15:26

<laugh>. Yes. Well, I took that same class, but I was not good at it. It was not my genius, right? So, so I had to type a paper for the very first time. I , I sat all night long trying to type a single copy of the paper without any mistakes. But when you come to the note taker, the braille note taker, or even, you know, a computer that we, a site person would use, you don't have to do that, right? You correct all the mistakes on the fly using your, you know, it , it saves all , everything you typed, you don't have to type it again and again and again. So , uh, I guess all I'm saying is that it's a real game changer. It's a real leveling of the playing field for people that are blind or low vision.

Sara Brown: 16:05

So the, how has the demand been for these device devices? Has it been consistent, or did that increase as we as a society got more exposed to consumer technology?

Mike Hudson: 16:15

I think so. I think so. But for people who were super users who were, you know, who were in fields that needed to be able to do this, without those devices, they would not have been able to enter certain fields. And so, so for those folks, it became just a part of daily life. Um, I, I literally remember going to a meeting in, gosh, sometime around 2006, 2007 in Cincinnati, and there was a young lady there who had four different refreshable braille devices on, on, on straps around her neck. Each one, you know, did some one thing better than the other, I guess. Um, but , uh, you know, I would say for your average consumer, I don't think refreshable braille necessarily really made a big difference for them. But for anybody who was going to school, who was going to college, who was in a information heavy field, who was in a , a technical heavy field, those devices became a , a daily part of their work life . And, and businesses began to purchase them for their employees , uh, so that they could do certain jobs that they couldn't do without 'em.

Sara Brown: 17:28

Are there any components of early braille displays seen in today's braille displays?

Mike Hudson: 17:35

Definitely. That , that Piezoelectric cell is still something that's very commonly seen. Um, now, we did a project with Orbit , uh, a few years ago , uh, that came up with the Orbit 20, which, which is a fairly, the whole idea was to come up with a very inexpensive braille display. And that display uses a totally different technology , uh, called micro machines. Um, and , uh, instead of using the, the , it was a lot cheaper than the Piezoelectric. And, and to tell you the truth, Sara, I, I , I , I'd have to admit, I don't really know a lot about the super secret technology behind the Monarch. You know, what, what makes it possible to produce a device that's as powerful and as sophisticated as the Monarch, and do all the things it does without it costing much, much more than it costs. So, so yeah. I, I need to, I need to, I want to know, I want to know more about the mark and what the science is behind that. So with , uh, you know, obviously there's, you know, proprietary things and everything like that involved, but we need to get one of the engineers from APH on to , to talk about what makes it so special in that regard.

Sara Brown: 18:48

What do you see for the future of Braille devices, especially as we morph, especially as we've evolved to something as powerful and amazing as the Monarch, but what do you see for the future?

Mike Hudson: 19:00

Well , um, one thing that I think we are , we already see and have seen is this idea that , uh, people who are blind or low vision are not , uh, tied to one particular technology. So they use a audio in lots of ways. Uh, you know, people use their cell phones , you know, to voice control , uh, their television or the radio or media that they wanna listen to. They voice control messaging using a , um, um, you know, the internet to send messages very fast. But Braille remains a very powerful tool in that toolkit , right? So we're going to use, we're going to use paper braille, we're going to use electronic braille, we're going to use audio , uh, we're gonna use all these things that are available. Um, they're getting smaller and smaller. They're getting lighter and lighter. Um, you know, the , the , the , the thing that the iPhone really demonstrates is that if you design it so that anybody can use it, everybody uses it. And you don't necessarily have to be a tech wizard. And I think one of the stumbling blocks that our industry has struggled with over time is that we make devices that you have to be very technologically astute to operate. Um, you know, from my own generation, I think back to programming the VCR, right? It was hard <laugh>, and if you knew how to do it right, you're a genius. Uh, and so I think we are, so, I , so I think we're, we're moving to smaller devices, lighter devices, cheaper devices, more capable devices, but also devices that you, that anybody can use. And when we get there, when we get to the point where the, you know, the braille note taker is so easy to use that anybody can use it, then we'll really have arrived. And that's, that's, it's, it's hard. It , it's, it's, people don't think sometimes that you can, that inventing things is easy. It is not. There are so many , uh, you know what , we're from Kentucky. So we talk about sometimes things in terms of horse racing, but, you know, there are many, at the end of the race, there's one winner, but there are many horses trailing, and some of them are trailing way behind. But at the beginning of the race, no one knew which horse was gonna win. Everybody bet on, on different horses. And technology's a lot like that. Uh, when you start out, lots of people have different ideas about how it's gonna be done. You know, refreshable, braille like that too. If you look back in the history, there's lots of really weird ideas. Like, you know, I was talking about the visa graph, you know, using music to, to communicate language. No one knew at the beginning which one was gonna be the winner. And that's true today. So picking winners in technological , uh, development is really hard. It's hard for the printing house. Um, you know, we, we want to produce a product that's easy to use and inexpensive to use, but at the beginning, you don't know which one is gonna be. And so a lot of money gets spent on research and development of products that end up sitting on my museum shelf, right? Where you can go, oh, look at this. Look at what they did. This is cool. But it didn't work. Right? It didn't work. Or people didn't like it, or it felt funny, or it was slow. Or the first year it came out, it was buggy and it got a bad reputation, and so it, it, it died. Yeah . So we, we are , uh, you know, the whole technological , uh, you know , technology amazing. You talk to anybody who's buying a low vision, they'll tell you technology is a very important part of their life. They'd use it all the time. Um, but the struggle to get something that's easy use and small and cheap, it's tough.

Sara Brown: 22:49

Now , is there anything else you'd like to share or say about braille displays or the , just the evolution or the history of them?

Mike Hudson: 22:56

Well, I just want to gush about the Monarch. Uh, you know , uh, when we, when I first started working at APH and I was given tours to people who would come, we'd go through the factory, and I would talk about how the holy grail of, of braille displays was a full page display that that could all , and , and at that point, I didn't even, I didn't even think about graphics. Um, and now we literally have something that's reliable. We're , you know, it's, we're still testing it, but , um, everybody I've talked to, teachers, students, consumers that get their hands on one, they're very excited about it. I mean, this is literally , uh, at, at its most basic level, it's a Kindle , uh, uh, a book nook for, for people that are blind, you can have as many books as you want on it, read 'em anytime you want , uh, just like other rail displays. But then you add in the idea of the graphics. Um, and , uh, uh, you know, we're, we're obviously at the, at the very ground floor of creating a graphics library, so that if you're interested in snails, you could go somewhere and, and, and download pictures of, of that, or, you know, I mean, think about what the, i , I mean, a cell phone does for you. It allows you to, I don't know about you and your friend Sara, but how many times did we sit around and we answer an argument with , um, you know, oh , we'll go on the internet and we'll find out, you know, when this happened, or, or who invented this or what, right? Yep . So much information is available to us, but a lot of it's visual. A lot of it's visual. And so the, what the Monarch promises to do, in addition to providing, you know, access to all this information, is also to, you know, provide instant access to tactile graphics. Um, and it just has so many different applications for both education and recreation. I'm just very excited about it.

Sara Brown: 24:44

Absolutely. And I would not be a good podcast interviewer if I didn't ask you what's new with The DOT Experience. Is there anything you can share with that?

Mike Hudson: 24:53

Oh, man. Yeah. The Dot Experience is, obviously, it's our new museum installation at the American Printing House. Uh , the elevators are going up right now , uh, the, the , the elevator tower. Uh , if you've ever been to a tour of the printing house before, you know that our front elevator was about, I don't know, five feet by five feet, and you've ever been in there with five or six people, you know, it was pretty claustrophobic. So the new elevator, I, I , you know, I'm geeking on an elevator. I know, but it's gonna be big enough , a little big . It's gonna be big. It's gonna be big enough for, you know, tour groups to get into. And so watching that go up , um, watching the framework of the building , uh, be erected in the front yard is just, it's really exciting.

Sara Brown: 25:38

And is there anything new that you could share about the displays that people will get to see and touch and feel in the museum?

Mike Hudson: 25:46

Sure. So the, you know, obviously our goal is to make The Dot Experience the most accessible museum for people of all abilities , uh, that's ever been built. And so , uh, every object, every graphic that goes into the, into the museum has to be carefully evaluated because it has to be accessible. If we can't make it accessible, we are literally not gonna put it on display. So if it's an object, can it itself be touched? Or can we build a really nice replica of it that gives you the same information? Um, how do we deliver the , uh, audio descriptions for the photographs? 'cause everything has to be described. Um, there will be nothing that will be out of reach or invisible to you that you will not be able to access the content. And that's, that is a daunting challenge , uh, that is also very exciting. Um , and so we're working with a prototyping group of people with lots of different abilities here , uh, in the Louisville area. And so everything that , uh, our, our designers that saw ad , like come up with, has to be physically examined , uh, by people. Um, and, and not, and , and , and, and our prototyping group is widely drawn. So , uh, it's people with low vision. It's people who have never had any vision. It's people who have just lost their vision. It's people who are using a wheelchair. Uh, it's people using a dog guide or using a cane. And that , and believe me, you , whether you use a dog guide as your primary O&M technique, or whether you use a long cane, it, it changes the way you experience the exhibit. It does. Absolutely. Um, and so , uh, you know, people who are deaf or hard of hearing , uh, we're working a lot on creating what I call an "uncluttered sonic landscape." And so one of the most important principles that we're working on is creating, if there's an audio visual , and we're gonna use a lot of audio visual too, but we don't want 'em to bleed in on each other. So we're spending a lot of time looking at materials and, and speakers and the way they're directed, and the way the floor reflects sound, and, and , uh, and then getting real people into those test areas. Uh, so it's, it's real people telling us, "yeah, this is working," or "that label's at a bad height," or, "I, I don't like the angle of the braille. It, it , it's causing fatigue in my wrists." And these are all things that any other museum in the world, you know, if they wanna make it accessible, they think they can use a checklist and they can just check things off and say, "we did this, we did this, we did this. It's accessible." But that's not actually, that's not actually a good way to do it because , uh, the best actual question is, "is it usable?" "Is it, is it user friendly?" "Do people enjoy being there?" "How quickly do they get tired?" Um , uh, and these are only questions that can , can be answered by actually mocking spaces up and then getting real people in there, people with different abilities, because all these people are experiencing the museum in a different way , in different ways. And , uh, they bring different strengths , uh, uh, to, to the , uh, museum experience. And so, anyways, I , you , you , as you can tell, I'm pretty excited about that I experience and , uh, and the work that we're able to do , uh, to, to make sure that , uh, everybody feels welcome. And, you know, that is our big , um, that's one of our big slogans, right? Everyone welcome. And , uh, and so it's, it's super important that when you come to the dog experience, that you feel like that we thought about you in advance and we're prepared for you, and that it wasn't a surprise that you showed up and that we're, we're excited that you're, that you've come to enjoy this, this incredible story. Um, and obviously I've been working a lot on Helen Keller , um, and Helen's my gal , and I'm really excited about us putting together the best, largest, most comprehensive Helen Keller exhibit , um, that's ever been put together.

Sara Brown: 29:54

Well, we can't wait for that. And anytime you have updates, you know, you are more than welcome to come on and share them with us. That's great . So Michael, I would love to thank , I'd like to thank you for coming on Change Makers and talking to me.

Mike Hudson: 30:06

Thank you very much, Sara.

Sara Brown: 30:10

Now to talk about the future of Braille devices, I have Global Innovations Product Manager, Willow Free here to tell us more. Hello Willow, and welcome to Change Makers .

Willow Free: 30:22

Thanks. Thanks for having me, Sara.

Sara Brown: 30:24

Always glad to have you on. And before we get started, can you just introduce yourself and let our listeners know who you are and what it is that you do at APH?

Willow Free: 30:34

Uh, sure. I'm Willow free, and I've been at APH for 12 years. I started as a braille transcriber and still consider myself to be a braille transcriber. Uh, but I've also worked with our technology both as a, a tester, so quality assurance, and also as a product manager, and I really focus on braille and technical graphic technology. But now my, my job title's Global Innovations Product Manager. And so I'm working on a lot of things, but I still have that focus on braille and technographics.

Sara Brown: 31:05

And talking about braille technology, we just spoke with Michael Hudson about the history of braille devices, but can you talk about the evolution of the technology in Braille devices?

Willow Free: 31:17

Absolutely. Um, so I may cover some of the same things as, as Mike, but like the Versa Braille was the first braille, you know, braille display available in the United States, and it was basically a suitcase that you had to carry around, and it only had 20 cells, so very limited space to read. It was just a single line. And over time, braille displays got smaller and smaller. Um, the price went down on them, but, you know, obviously not as much as we would want. And this high price was really because of, there was this over-reliance for a really long time on the Piezoelectric braille cell. We still use these cells, they're called Piezo cells, typically. Uh, and Piezo just means to squeeze, and they're really reliable. Uh, they refresh quickly, but they're expensive and they're complicated. Um, not that long ago, a single Piezo cell was over $75. That's just since I started at APH that , that they were $75 and adjusted for inflation. It's, it's, you know, that's over a hundred dollars per sell . So, I mean, just to have a 40 cell Braille display, you're gonna spend $4,000 just on the cells , and you haven't even added the chips. The , the buttons, the, the testing, the Bluetooth, the Wi-Fi, you haven't added any of that stuff yet. Um, so they can get really pricey. But the other thing about them is their size. So the Piezo cell is about two inches long. And basically at one end you have the chip that runs the whole thing. And then you have these like plastic bars that go from the chip to the actual pin that you can touch. And like the top, the top bars are shorter than the, the bars at the bottom , uh, because they have to go underneath them. And so they're, they're a little bit wide, they're two inches. And that's why we never really had multi-line displays before. You know, we've got the Monarch and we're gonna get into the Monarch, but with that two inches of space, there wasn't like a realistic way to stack them and get that multi-line effect like we're able to get today. And on top of that, you know, thinking about each one, each cell costing potentially, you know, a hundred dollars , uh, something like the Monarch would get very, very expensive very quickly. Um, so that's like the big development. As far as like the history of bra displays, it was this reliance on the Piezoelectric cell . And it started with, you know, there's kind of three types of displays. There's the standalone display, and that's meant to be used with a screen reader. There's kind of what we have, like the hybrid display that's like the mantis and the chameleon where you have some local functionality , um, but you also still would get a lot of your use using the screen reader. And then you have the note taker. And the note taker is really like, as close to a completely standalone device as you would get , uh, while still also having that access to the screen reader . I also want to touch really quickly too, because I think it's important to mention, you know , I mentioned how you could use braille displays with screen readers, and that's really the biggest change in braille technology, is the screen reader, is the explosion of like smartphones and everyone having a smartphone. Because, you know, if you have a smartphone, you've got a screen reader , uh, you've got a braille display, you can pair those together, and now you can get all of this braille that you never had before. It's automatically translated. There are limitations to that, but it's still, you know, braille is braille , uh, at the end of the day. And it's better to have braille than to not have braille. So that's probably the biggest, the biggest change.

Sara Brown: 35:12

So were these braille cells too that, you know, are pretty much adjusted for today's inflation a hundred dollars? Were they bulky or reliable or...?

Willow Free: 35:23

Uh, reliability's definitely gone up over time. Um, they're very reliable today. Um, the big problem you'll run into with them is, you know, over time like grease from your fingers, dirt, things like that gets on the pens. And then as the pens go up and down, it can actually pull some of that down with it. So it's not so much that the cell is failing, it's that it's pulling down all of this gunk with it. And that as that builds up over time , uh, it can cause the, the cell to fail. Um, they, they are fairly large, they're definitely larger than a monarch cell. The dot cell that we use, like for each Piezoelectric, you could stack up three of the dot cells.

Sara Brown: 36:11

Yes, that's big then. Because I've seen those Monarch cells and those are pretty small <laugh> , so yeah . Wow. Okay. So we've got the Monarch cells . Talk about the technology seen in today's devices then.

Willow Free: 36:24

Yeah, so this really like started with the transforming braille group. The transforming braille group was something, you know, APH was a key part of that group. And the whole goal was to develop and fund , uh, a new braille cell technology. And I really think that was a success because from that we got this, all of these new types of braille cells, it was like it kicked off this revolution in braille technology. And so, I mean, you know, now you've got like, electromagnetic is a really popular way to make braille cells. Uh , there's some stuff like the Canoe, which has like spinning wheels. And so the left side of the cell is one wheel, the right side of the cell is the other wheel. And then it spins to create all the different braille configurations, which is just, you know, a neat idea. Uh, and there was even one that worked off of tiny explosions. Don't ask me to describe how it worked, 'cause I don't know how it actually worked. I just know that it relied on combustion , uh, which, you know, made it not quite the ideal solution for K through 12. Don't wanna kill kids wait minute .

Sara Brown: 37:31

Yeah . Like combustion... as in like , um, combustion engine?

Willow Free: 37:35

Yeah, yeah. Like tiny little explosions to like move the cells. And like, there's all sorts of ideas like that that happen. And I, I love that people are thinking about these things. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> . Um, but there are , there are a lot of instances where you get an idea and yes, it technically works, but it's not something that you could ever like, produce on any kind of scale or Yeah . Yeah. But I love , I love that people are thinking about these things. I mean, I would've never, I would've never thought of that <laugh> .

Sara Brown: 38:06

My gosh, I just heard combustion. And wait a minute, when I hear combustion, I think the , in a car , some mobile explosions and who wants a little kid having something like that in their hands ?

Willow Free: 38:16

Yeah, exactly.

Sara Brown: 38:18

We've come a long way.

Willow Free: 38:20

Yeah. And there's a lot of things you gotta think about when you're developing cell technology . Like, you know, it's not just like move the pins up and down, it's also like, you know, "how high can you go?" "How, how loud is it?" You know, if your braille display's too loud, there are a lot of kids out there that aren't gonna want to interact with that display. This is a really common problem that I hear about from teachers "is the students got a braille display, but it's too loud or it looks too weird and they don't want to take it out of their backpack because they , you know, they're in a , a general education , uh, class and they don't wanna be singled out." You know, kids don't want to be seen as different and they don't want to be drawing attention to these differences. So you gotta be thinking about how loud it is, how big it is, you know, does it look like something people would want to carry around? Like, I do think some companies make the mistake of thinking, the appearance of the device doesn't matter. But you know, the students, especially the students that still have some vision, you know, they're gonna, that's gonna be a consideration of are they wanting to use this device? The, the Mantis was so popular because it well is so popular because it just has this like, sleek look and it's got the QWERTY keyboard and it's just a, a nice device that you can use. And it, it really does look like a device that anyone could be using, not like a specialized device. Um ,

Sara Brown: 39:44

And you know, I remember hearing too that kids love to be able to switch out, couldn't they? Is that the device where you could switch out the colors?

Willow Free: 39:52

Uh, that's the Chameleon where you could switch out the colors and Yeah, the kids liked that too. And I mean, there have been also modular braille displays , um, which is an interesting solution. And then the other thing you gotta think about is heat. You know, are you letting off a lot of heat? Because a lot of times braille users will have the device in their lap or every , you know, a lot of folks when they present will have the braille display like hanging from their neck so that they can just reach down and, and access their braille display while they're talking , uh, when they don't have a stand. So, I mean, there's just a ton of things you gotta think about beyond just moving the pins up and down and the cost . There's a bunch of considerations that go into it,

Sara Brown: 40:32

You know, I like hearing that because I feel like some people that wanna have have opinions and thoughts, they don't understand what all has to be taken into consideration and thinking about that. You're absolutely right. If the device, if they're wearing it around their neck, it's, it's absorbing their body heat. So, and it's generating heat.

Willow Free: 40:53

Yeah.

Sara Brown: 40:54

The fingers are their fingers sticky can, there , is there the membrane? I know that's what the Monarch has to prevent the oil from going down in there . Now where does the Monarch land in terms of Braille devices?

Willow Free: 41:07

So the Monarch's really revolutionary, you know , uh, we've been waiting for this technology for a long time. I say waiting, we've been actively working towards this technology this whole time. But it was really all about getting that smaller braille cell. So now that we have this, it's an electromagnetic cell , um, it's about as big as the braille cell itself. That's why we're able to stack them like right next to each other, other, and they're equidistant. So traditional braille, there's different space in between inside the braille cell than there is between one braille cell and the next , uh, we are slightly adjusting that so that every uh, column is the same distance apart. And what's so great about this is, you know, we've gotten really good feedback on that, that the braille still feels good. They're still able, you know, it's still very readable. Um , people like it. But then it also allows us to do tactile graphics. You know, I mean we've kept talk , we've been talking about braille displays, you know, what's the evolutions of braille technology? The Monarch goes a step further and it's braille and tactile graphic technology. And so you're able to do 10 up to 10 lines of 32 braille cells, and that's 3,840 pins. And it's super reliable. It refreshes very quickly. Overall, it's just this, I mean, I am , you know, I know I'm biased 'cause I work here, but I'm very, very impressed with it. And I just think it's just this wonderful thing. And it is gonna introduce a new level of interactivity to tactile materials that has never really been seen before. Like a new availability of materials and the ability for the user to actually interact with those materials. 'cause they're not just dealing with paper anymore. They're not just dealing with thermoformed tactile graphics that are static. You know, now they can have graphics that are more interactive.

Sara Brown: 43:04

How is the technology in the Monarch different than what's been done?

Willow Free: 43:08

Well, so it's smaller and that's really the big thing. And the other cool innovation is it does have this membrane, you mentioned that earlier, and it's this thin membrane and it's, it's designed to keep all of the, you know, the dirt, the oil. If you spill something, please don't spill anything on your Monarch <laugh> . Uh, it's designed to keep all of that out of your brow cells. And so we've had , uh, so much, they've been very, very reliable. Like we had our field tests, you know , students and teachers all over the country , um, putting the monarch through its paces for many weeks, and we didn't have a single stuck pin. We had completely 100% reliable pins. And, you know, that's, that's amazing, especially for a relatively new technology. And so yeah, it's just introducing these new possibilities and the technology itself. So the hardware of it is impressive. So, you know, you've got the smaller cell, you've got the equidistant , uh, but I think the software too shouldn't be forgotten about. There's lots of cool things going on inside the Monarch. And the Monarch really is more on the note taker side of things. So you can use it as a standalone device, and we're working on screen reader support as well, but just being able to access multi-line braille. So I set up to 10 lines. You can actually zoom in, you know, with the plus button and add additional space between each line. So the braille stays the correct size, but you get additional space between each line. So you can go from 10 lines per page to eight to six. And when you get to six, I mean, that is essentially double spaced braille, double spaced braille has to be specially made today. So like if I had two students that were reading the same book, one reads double spaced, one reads single spaced, I would basically have to transcribe that twice. Like, yeah. So now instead of having to transcribe it twice, you just have this one file and you just press the plus button a few times and then that adds the space that you need. Um, we've got the math features. So the , the big wow moment when we present on the Monarch is the ability to just put in a math equation into the key math app and then graph it instantly. This is something that students have never been able to do. Um, accessing information like that used to require, like if you were lucky, maybe you had an embosser that could do it for you. So you generate them and then you'd have to wait and emboss them . You check it out and then you, you, okay, maybe I need to make a change. And so you make a change to your equation and then you, then you emboss that and it just takes all this time. Um , now, you know, and that's if you're lucky. That's the other thing. That's if you're lucky, if you're, if you're like most students, you know, you're working with Wikki Stix, you're working with, you know, very , um, manual , um, kind of old fashioned tools to make and understand math , uh, graphs. And so now you've got instant access to graphs and just the, the possibilities there. I remember being a kid, and I get it, I'm kind of a nerd <laugh> , but I remember being a kid and like having the TI-84 calculator and just putting in graphs and seeing how they interacted and seeing what kinds of shapes I could make and the ability to do that. Yeah, you're having a little bit of fun, but it's getting you interested in math. It's getting you to start seeing those relationships between how the equation changes and how it changes the graph. And you're not having, you know, I would almost feel like I might be inconveniencing someone if I wanted to make a slight change to my equation just to see it embossed again. You know, I would be afraid to even ask. I would be afraid that I would be bothering them <laugh> . And so now I don't have to do that. Now I can just make my equation, make some changes. I don't have to rely on anyone else. I'm doing it all on my own. And I think that's an amazing thing.

Sara Brown: 47:14

You know, it sounds like too that you are getting a , a piece of independence. You can make your own tweaks to graphs and see how they interact with each other without, like you said, without having to go interrupt somebody to emboss it. But you, you're doing it and you get to see it and it's all you. And that's something that, you know, as I, I remember playing on my TI-83 <laugh> graphing calculator and , and back when I remember had to do all that stuff and put it in and see what the graphs look like and tweak it and , you know, that was me. I didn't, so it's almost giving, it's giving the students... Giving the users some independence. Now, what do you see for the future of technology for the Monarch and Braille devices?

Willow Free: 47:54

I mean, the, the main goal is to get those cells to be even smaller, to get them to be less expensive , uh, to improve refresh rates. Um, I think that's where we're all looking and a lot of the other changes are gonna be happening in the software, you know, so today tactile graphics are pretty static. You know, you just get what you have embossed and then you can check it out. Um, with the Monarch, you're gonna be able to zoom in, you're gonna be able to pan around , uh, you're gonna be able to get those extra details. And we hope to add other features as we update the software. But I, I like to think about like the tactile graphics of the future. So, you know, as I said, kind of a nerd, but I like playing around with Google Maps. I find it really interesting to see how big the world is and to see, you know, all these relationships. And so with the Monarch , uh, and displays like it in the future, you could have like a tactile graphic app , uh, that was a , almost like the Google Maps. So you could start seeing the relationships between, you know, different countries and how if you zoom in on this country, you get to your city and your state, and then you can zoom in on your city and you can find your house and you can see all these relationships like understanding maps. There are a lot of people that are blind that are really into maps, but I don't think it's something, you know, unless you have great access to tactile graphics, I don't think it's something that you can easily get. And so anything we can do to make that more available. Um, another example is the Periodic Table. If you wanna start an argument with some braille transcribers, ask them how they would transcribe the periodic table, because there's all sorts of ways you could do it. They're like, "what information do you emphasize?" "Do you emphasize the letter?" "Do you emphasize the atomic weight?" Uh, do you, "you're not gonna fit the whole thing on one tactile graphic. So how do you split it up?" "So you have one side here and one side there." "How's the student gonna be able to understand it?" Uh, "what about the atomic number?" Like, you're not gonna be able to fit all this information, so at some point you have to decide what do you emphasize? Um, with something like The Monarch, you could have all the information and the user could say, you know, we could develop a periodic table app that allows you to say, okay, turn off the atomic number. I don't wanna see that turn off the atomic weight. I don't wanna see that. I just wanna see the letters. I just wanna see how they relate to each other. Because the Periodic Table's a really fascinating thing because the, the place, the the element is on the Periodic Table tells you a lot about its relationship , uh, to the things around it. So just being able to do things like that for the first time, having that opportunity is an amazing thing and it's gonna, I think, have this huge effect on education generally. And I'm, I'm, I'm just excited to see where it goes.

Sara Brown: 51:00

You know, every time I hear you speak about the Monarch or Greg speak about the Monarch, that's Greg Stilson . Um, I get excited. I mean, I'm already excited about it, but just hearing you and hearing Greg speak about it, it's more things that I did not even know. And or when you're explaining things, I'm like, "oh man, I bet that is pretty cool." Especially the Periodic Table, you know, I know what it looks like, but you're right. How do you break it up in the chunks, like you said, and "what's, what's the, what's the main part?" "What's the most important or the most emphasized part?" You're right, I don't how do you decide, but that's gonna be really cool if you get it and you do the app and you can turn off the weight or whatever you need just to focus on what you need. That that is, that is truly amazing.

Willow Free: 51:43

That's just one example of where we could go Mm-Hmm , <affirmative> like as far as being able to give the user those kinds of choices.

Sara Brown: 51:50

Wow. Just choices. And that's what's important too, is choices. Now is there anything else you would like to share or discuss before I let you go?

Willow Free: 52:02

Um, the only thing right now is we, we have published the first public working draft of the EBraille specification. Uh, we're really excited about that. It's, it's pretty technical, but it's, the main thing is it , it tells, it tells how the EBraille spec is packaged, what kind of like metadata, so, you know, title, author, et cetera. Uh, the , you need to make , uh, an official EBraille. And we're getting feedback on that and it's super exciting to see people , uh, commenting and all the folks that we've had involved all over the world to create this new braille , uh, document type. Uh, just super excited about that. And, you know, talking about choice , uh, EBraille , uh, is gonna bring a lot of choice to users of being able to decide how their braille is formatted. If they want to be able to read braille from other , um, other countries, other braille regions, but keep the Braille formatting that they're familiar with. Like there's all these different options with EBraille that were never present before and it ties in really well with the Monarch and with this future of braille that we're headed toward .

Sara Brown: 53:09

Well, Willow, thank you so much for coming on Change Makers and talking to me today.

Willow Free: 53:13

Thanks so much, Sara.

Sara Brown: 53:16

I've put a link in the show notes about the Monarch for anyone wanting additional information. Also, do you have a podcast suggestion? Let me know. Send an email to changemakers@aph.org and as always, be sure to look for ways you can be a change maker this week.