Braille Mitra 1aunched, can read 11 Indian languages

EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE PUNE, MARCH 12

CITY firm Automatic Control Equipments (ACE) launched `Braille Mitra,' a braille reader with a capac­ity to read up to 11 Indian languages and has 2MB memory. The machine, dri­ven by a micro-computer chip, allows the visually- im­paired to read line by line af­ter the software format of the Braille book is loaded into it.

While this square pan­elled machine costs around Rs 62,000 (an upgraded ver­sion costs Rs 92,000), it can be used to read any number of books. A Braille book on the other hand costs at least Rs 700 and has a limited shelf life as the embossed dots flatten with use.

"The manual procedure to convert into Braille is te­dious and it takes a couple of months to convert books into Braille using thick em­bossed paper. A 100 pages printed book becomes 400 pages of Braille. With fre­quent use, the dots in the book flatten and have a lim­ited shelf life," said Meena Joshi, consultant for ACE.

Last year, Modular In­fotech Private Ltd had cre­ate software to translate English and Indian lan­guages into Braille. "The vi­sually challenged can store these books in a pen drive and load them as they re­quire," said Joshi. Out of the 1.6 crore visually challenged people only around 251akh are literate: Technology im­proves the chances of the vi­sually challenged to be bet­ter read and opens opportunities, she said.

"The 16 braille characters per line machine costs Rs 62,000, while the 32 braille characters per line costs Rs 92,000," said Raghunandan Joshi, chief architect of Braille Mitra and Chief Technical Officer of ACE.

The company has tested the machine for at least five Indian languages, however in principal the machine can read up to 11 Indian lan­guages.Joshi said.