A BrailleNote is a computer made by HumanWare for persons with visual impairment

Visual impairment

Visual impairment is vision loss to such a degree as to qualify as an additional support need through a significant limitation of visual capability resulting from either disease, trauma, or congenital or degenerative conditions that cannot be corrected by conventional means, such as refractive...

s. It has a braille keyboard, speech synthesizer, and a 32- or 18-column refreshable Braille display

Refreshable Braille display

A refreshable Braille display or Braille terminal is an electro-mechanical device for displaying Braille characters, usually by means of raising dots through holes in a flat surface. Blind computer users, who cannot use a normal computer monitor, use it to read text output...

, depending on model. There are many other products with a similar name, including the BrailleNote GPS.

BrailleNote can use only the software provided by the manufacturer, although this can be upgraded.

Use of BrailleNote is suggested by the State University of New York

State University of New York

The State University of New York, abbreviated SUNY , is a system of public institutions of higher education in New York, United States. It is the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States, with a total enrollment of 465,000 students, plus...

 Center for Assistive Technology and is sometimes purchased by colleges for use by the disabled. The BrailleNote product series, introduced in 2000, is regarded as being the first of its kind.

It is possible to obtain a visual interface to the data on a BrailleNote by attaching a computer with a terminal emulator

Terminal emulator

A terminal emulator, terminal application, term, or tty for short, is a program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture....

 such as Hyperterminal.

mPower

The BrailleNote mPower has 128 megabytes of onboard memory and uses DiskOnChip memory to avoid losing data if power is lost.

Apex

The newest model of BrailleNote is called Apex and is a thinner and lighter version of its predecessors. It runs Windows CE 6. It uses the i.MX31

I.MX31

The Freescale i.MX31 is an application processor, consisting of anARM1136JF-S processor core with some additional peripherals. It is part of Freescale's i.MX range of ARM9/11-based multimedia application processor family. It is intended for use in low-power applications needing high performance...

 processor. It usually sells for about $6,000.

Software and supported formats

The Apex's internal software suite is called KeySoft, which includes a word processor

Word processor

A word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....

, book reader, Web browser, email client, voice recorder, media player, and an XMPP

Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol

Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol is an open-standard communications protocol for message-oriented middleware based on XML . The protocol was originally named Jabber, and was developed by the Jabber open-source community in 1999 for near-real-time, extensible instant messaging , presence...

-based IM

Instant messaging

Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...

 client called KeyChat (which can also be used with popular non-XMPP protocols such as MSN

Windows Live Messenger

Windows Live Messenger is an instant messaging client created by Microsoft that is currently designed to work with Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Xbox 360, Blackberry OS, iOS, Java ME, S60 on Symbian OS 9.x and Zune HD...

 but this is complex to set up). The book reader supports English text files (it can convert these to Grade 2 braille

Grade 2 braille

Grade Two English Braille is an extension of the basic Latin alphabet Braille. It has 250 symbols for letters, punctuation marks, composition signs, numerals, contractions, single-cell words, and short-form words/abbreviations....

 automatically if required), Braille ASCII

Braille ASCII

Braille ASCII is a subset of the ASCII character set which uses 64 of the printable ASCII characters to represent all possible dot combinations in six-dot Braille...

 files that specify the dot patterns precisely (these usually have the extension

Filename extension

A filename extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file applied to indicate the encoding of its contents or usage....

 .BRL or .BRF), and audio books including the DAISY

DAISY Digital Talking Book

DAISY is a standard for digital talking books. DAISY books are typically used by people have "print disabilities," including blindness, impaired vision, dyslexia...

 format.

Connectivity

The Apex has Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...

, Bluetooth

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a proprietary open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, creating personal area networks with high levels of security...

 and USB

Universal Serial Bus

USB is an industry standard developed in the mid-1990s that defines the cables, connectors and protocols used in a bus for connection, communication and power supply between computers and electronic devices....

 connections, including a USB client port for ActiveSync

ActiveSync

ActiveSync is a mobile data synchronization technology and protocol developed by Microsoft, originally released in 1996. There are two implementations of the technology: one which synchronizes data and information with handheld devices with a specific desktop computer , and another technology,...

 and for operation as a Braille terminal for a computer. It is capable of interfacing with Bluetooth GPS

Global Positioning System

The Global Positioning System is a space-based global navigation satellite system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites...

receivers.