BOOKS THAT TALK.

Shannon News, 23 April 1929, Page 3

BOOKS THAT TALK.

GOOD NEWS FOR THE BLIND. A Napier resident a few years ago, was threatened with blindness, but fortunately the disease was partially arrested. During the time of his treatment, and since he had often wondered why the principles operating the gramophone were not applied to some device by which blind people could hear their books and other printed matter read to them. As most people know, the Braille system in use by the blind is extremely cumbersome, consisting as it does of an arrangement of raised signs which have to be laboriously learnt and spelt out by fingertouch. The signs are necessarily large, so that any small book of printed matter in ordinary t} r pe, when produced in Braille form results in a number of large and heavy volumes. It seemed to our informant that, if the cylinder phonograph records thell in use could be elaborated, they could be made to read aloud as well as sing. The more recent development, by which we get the talking films, lias now made this possibility much clearer. There appeared to the local resident, however, no sign that the new departure was being applied to other purposes than that of the talking picures. He therefore wrote Mr Clutha Mackenzie, asking him if he knew whether- the idea had been taken up and, if not, whether it was not worth while looking into.

The Napier man, however, was late in the field, as so often happens, when a number of people independently seize upon nil idea.. Mr Mackenzie’s secretary writes: — “Your letter arrived just after Mr Mackenzie had left Auckland en route to the Old Country. - He,had already been in correspondence with interested persons in England about the possibilities of talking films, and intends to pursue his inquiries- in this direction while he is at Home. In thepneantime, I enclose a newspaper cutting from the London Tinies, which may interest you.” The newspaper cutting referred to contains the report of a lecture on “Modern Talking Films” which, with a demonstration, -was given at a recent meeting of the International Photograuhic Congress. The lecturer was Mr*C. F. Eiwell, technical adviser to the British Photofilms Company,. Limited. The lecture itself is, of course, rather technical, though experts in photography should find it quite clear. Simply put Mr Elwell said that after (long research -work it had iiow r bees, made possible for a very long gramophone record to be made on a very. short piece of film. The film on which the reading 'of a novel could be recorded would be small and inexpensive when compared with, the bulky and costly books now used by the blind. A gramophone, capable of playing continuuously for 11 hours, with the use of only 1000 feet of film had already been developed, also a machine for reading novels to the blind. These, he said, would, no doubt, be placed on the market shortly. This is good news not only for the totally blind, but also for the many thousands of elderly folk who in the evening of life are often compelled to sit idle in the half-light because the ordinary print tires them, even with the aid of glasses.