ViewSonic set to drop ViewPad 10e tablet in Europe

ViewSonic's new budget-friendly, high resolution tablet features the same IPS display technology used in its award-winning monitors

Taiwan's ViewSonic has applied the same IPS (in-plane switching) display technology used in its award-winning monitors to a new tablet heading for European users. The screen of the budget-friendly ViewPad 10e is said to have the same pixel density and resolution as Apple's iPad 2, and like the ARCHOS G9's, the Android tablet makes do with just the one front-facing camera.

ViewSonic's latest tablet addition features a 9.7-inch screen, with 1024 x 768 pixel resolution at 132 ppi with a 400-nit brightness rating, that should cater for outdoor as well as indoor use. The ViewPad 10e runs on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) - with the company's ViewScene 3D custom user interface - and is powered by a 1GHz Cortex A8 processor supported by 512GB of DDR3 system memory. There's 4GB of internal solid state storage with Micro-SD card expansion, HDMI and USB connectivity, and it comes with 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0/2.1 with EDR wireless functionality.

There's no mention of access to Android Market via the 241.6 x 188.6 x 9.1 mm (9.51 x 7.42 x 0.35-inch), 620g (21.8 ounce) ViewPad 10e, but users will find the Kindle app ready to use and thousands of compatible apps available via the 1Mobile Apps Store. Rounding off the specs is a 1.3 megapixel camera to the front, stereo speakers and a 3.5mm audio jack, and a 5400mAh Lithium-Polymer battery which ViewSonic says is good for over 200 hours on standby.

There's no official word on pricing or availability at the time of writing, but according to Dutch site PortableGear, the ViewPad 10e will be priced at EUR249.95 (about US$345).

Source: Pocket-lint

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Student-made tablet app may make dedicated Braille writers obsolete

The touchscreen Braille writer lets users position their fingers anywhere on the tablet display

Undergraduate student, Adam Duran, made excellent use of his time at Stanford University, where he attended a two-month summer course organized by the Army High-Performance Computing Research Center (AHPCRC). Together with his mentors, Adrian Lew and Sohan Dharmaraja, he created a potentially game changing application that should make the lives of visually impaired people both easier and less expensive. The application turns a tablet into a Braille writer and thus saves the blind from having to purchase a device that may cost up to ten times more than a tablet.

Some Braille notetakers are essentially specialized laptops with limited functionality that tend to come with a steep price tag, with some costing up to US$6,000. Although some attempts at writing a tablet application that would make dedicated devices obsolete had been made before, none produced a result that would match the user experience. Simply using the standard eight-key Braille keyboard layout doesn't do the trick. The biggest challenge is allowing a blind person to correctly position his or her fingers over the virtual keys on a completely smooth glass panel.

This problem could be easily overcome by an appropriate tactile feedback technology, or at least that is what Microsoft engineers seem to think. The Redmond based company has already filed an appropriate patent application for their still-to-be-developed tactile feedback technology that uses plastic cells sprayed with a flexible polymer. If Microsoft is to be believed, those pixel sized bits of plastic would be manipulated with UV light and would be used to convey a whole array of textures.

It all sounds great, but it's a bit to early to celebrate. Even if we live to see Microsoft bring this technology to fruition, it's difficult to say whether it is ever going to make its way into a portable tablet. The patent application clearly states that the technology is being developed for use in Microsoft Surface - a table-sized behemoth tablet used in corporate environments and public spaces.

Apps4Android Inc has a different, considerably less high-tech take on finger orientation on a flat touch screen. The company's Braille Keyboard "Screen Protector" is basically a transparent plastic stencil with a finger positioning design cut from it. This simple yet effective solution gets the job done in that it allows a blind person to use a tablet as a Braille notetaker. However, it is still far from perfect. First, the user has to buy an additional piece of hardware (the stencil) and deal with the hassle of applying it, adjusting it, washing it etc. (let's remember we are talking about an accessibility accessory for the visually impaired). Second, It has the disadvantage of constraining the user to pre-defined finger spaces, disregarding the users' typing preferences and habits.

Both these grievances are neatly addressed by Duran's ingenious app. Instead of asking the person to conform to the keyboard layout, the Stanford summer course team made a keyboard layout that conforms to the person. All the user has to do is touch eight fingertips to the screen, and the appropriate keys are automatically assigned. This means that the application is fully customizable and it accommodates varying finger shapes and sizes. The app menu can be accessed by shaking the device and navigated by dragging a finger across the screen.

Here's some video of Duran demonstrating the application.

Share Tweet Tags» App» Blind» Stanford University» Tactile» Touch ScreenUser Comments (2) 

Looks simple and effective. Good job folks.

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