CSUN Round-Up 2024 (Episode 54)

The 39th CSUN Assistive Technology Conference took place from 18 to 22 March in Anaheim, California, hosted by the Centre on Disabilities, Division of Student Affairs at California State University, Northridge. There were many exciting braille product announcements at the conference, and the latest prototypes of previously announced braille products were also exhibited.

In this episode, we are joined by a panel of braille experts who attended the conference. They will help us unpack the announcements and share their thoughts on the products they saw.

If you are planning to attend any of the Sight Village exhibitions in the UK, this episode will help you decide which products you might like to see for yourself.

Products discussed in this episode:

• Monarch from APH and HumanWare
• BT Speak from Blazie Technologies
• Orbit Speak, Orbit Reader Q20 and Orbit Reader Q40 from Orbit Research
• Cadence from Tactile Engineering
• Optima from Orbit Research and Access Mind
• BraillePen24 from Harpo
• NewHaptics
• Paige Connect from Paige Braille
• Braille eMotion from Hims
• OneCourt
• Various accessibility efforts from Procter and Gamble and Sony
• Braille guide dog name tags from Elegant Insights

On the panel:

• Chancey Fleet (chanceyfleet@mas.to on Mastadon) from the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library
• J.j. Meddaugh (jage@mas.to on Mastadon) from A. T. Guys and Blind Bargains, home of the Blind Bargains Qast which is soon to return
• Judy Dixon, President of the International Council on English Braille