The business card of KGS Corporation president Takeo Kurematsu bears transparent braille stickers that spell out his name and particulars to people with impaired vision. The stickers were printed using the company's own Braille Labeler, a light-weight stand-alone device that enables even those unversed in the tangible writing system to print characters, numerals and symbols in braille. It is hard to imagine a business card making a more impressive introduction to a company's products or philosophy.

     Founded in 1953, KGS Corporation built its reputation on the design and manufacture of electromagnetic actuators and solenoids, in which field it draws customers from a wide range of industries. Since the 1980s KGS has been bringing its solenoid technologies to bear in the design and manufacture of products for visually impaired people, or "VIPs" as the company calls them. These products include braille cells, tactile graphic displays and braille displays.

     KGS holds a 70% share of the world market for braille cells, the main components of the braille displays used by thousands of visually impaired people worldwide to read the contents of a conventional computer screen, by touch in braille. KGS braille cells are used in displays manufactured by companies overseas as well as in its own proprietary braille displays. When one considers that there are about 305,000 vision impaired people in Japan (Ministry of Health and Labour figures for six levels of sight loss, 1995), and only 10% of them can read braille, the potential market for braille cells and displays appears large indeed. According to the Royal National Institute of the Blind in the United Kingdom, worldwide there are at least 42 million people who are blind, and many more who are partially sighted.

     Says Kurematsu, "Using some braille displays, visually impaired people can now comfortably read books in braille on the train, remote from the PC. Some portable braille displays can also handle clock, calculator and calendar functions. With a braille display, a visually impaired person can now pretty much master any language-based workplace or school task. And by connecting a braille display to a PC, visually impaired people can enjoy the Internet and exchange e-mail."

     In April of this year, Mainichi Newspaper Inc. began the publication of its Tenji Mainichi Japanese braille newspaper on the Internet. Using KGS's "Braille Note" or "Braille Memo" displays exclusively, users can read the news in Japanese braille directly, without the "mistakes" often made in translating Japanese text, with all its homonyms, into braille. This Mainichi-KGS collaboration is the world's first example of braille dissemination over the Internet.

Embracing Braille

     Unlike motors, which use electrical power to produce a rotary motion, solenoids - a coil of wire usually in cylindrical form - act like magnets, so that a movable core is drawn into the coil when a current flows. Solenoids are used as switches or controls in all manner of electronic equipment. In braille displays, they are used to raise and lower pins to display a series of conventional six-dot or, increasingly, eight-dot braille cells.

     More than 20 years ago now, Japan's National Research Institute commissioned KGS to manufacture equipment that could be used for research into how stimulus from pin pricks to the skin is transmitted through the nervous system. Says Kurematsu, "This involved 200 solenoids being moved along a person's back, but being made of steel, the equipment was heavy and noisy. In an attempt to remedy this problem we looked into new materials, and came up with the idea of using piezoelectric elements [which generate voltage when pressure or a vibration is applied to them]. We knew that by connecting these solenoids to a computer, we could display braille. PCs were not in widespread use in Japan at the time, and we couldn't see an immediate domestic market for such a braille display. However, we thought that the idea might sell in Europe, and so we approached a Dutch company."

     In 1995, Kurematsu was appointed president of KGS Corporation. Kurematsu promptly moved the company's assembly base for braille cells to the company's subsidiary in the Philippines, a decision designed to generate an instant cost advantage. As the company had been recruiting graduates from universities in the Philippines for some years before that, it received cooperation from local universities and government officials.

     "We never had any quality problems. Additionally, we are constantly working to make products smaller and lighter by looking at using piezoelectric element materials and by working on the dimensions of braille cells. The pins in our displays deliver a tactile force of around 18-20 grams on the fingertips, providing the right level of sensitivity for ease of reading, and our products can be finely adjusted. Now KGS cells have an established reputation, and in terms of performance and price, are considered the only effective choice.", Kurematsu says.
Beyond Braille

     Of course, there are many things in this world that cannot be expressed through letters alone. "About six years ago, I was on a plane returning from an overseas business trip and was thinking about something someone had said about not being able to read diagrams and shapes, and I was wondering what could be done. It was then that I came up with the idea for the tactile graphic display."

     Using the same piezo actuator technology employed in its braille cells, KGS developed prototype modules of 64 pins that in theory could be combined to produce ever larger displays.

     KGS had long produced its prototype and was searching for a commercial partner when an employee of the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), who was blind, visited the KGS head office. "He told us that he wanted to work as a satellite controller, but to do this he needed to be able to ascertain a satellite's position and issue instructions. He'd heard about our graphic cell prototype and wondered if the cells could be used for satellite tracking."

     Two years ago now, KGS developed its first working tactile graphic displays. NASDA purchased two of them. On a screen 15 centimeters long and 20 centimeters wide, 3,072 pins are spaced 3 millimeters apart, each with a reaction time of one third of a second.



     "The [Australian FedSat] satellite launched last December by NASDA's HIIA rocket is being tracked using one of our tactile graphic displays," Kurematsu says with evident pride. "The satellite's position and altitude is traced on a map by pins that are continually raised and lowered using our technologies."

     In March of this year, KGS exhibited its "Dot View" tactile graphic display at the CSUN(California State University at Northridge)'s annual international conference "Technology and Persons with Disabilities," where the product was very well received, according to Kurematsu. The technology is impressive indeed. The second hand of a graphic cell "clock" sweeps smoothly over the Dot View display, and viewing any such graphic is no more demanding than looking at an LCD screen. Blind individuals can now read what clock looks like by feeling the tactile images displayed on the Dot View device in realtime. The image on the display can even be enlarged or reduced.

     KGS does not concern itself solely with the development of new products, however. Building on the success of the "KGS Accessibility Forum," which was held for the tenth time this year for the purpose of introducing the latest technologies and promoting discussion among interested parties, KGS in April launched the KGS International Forum.
     Says Kurematsu, "There are some people that see KGS products when they go overseas and only then realize that the products are Japanese. The KGS International Forum will enable young researchers and people with visual impairments to disseminate information around the world. Our support of this Forum is not a business venture."

     Kurematsu is determined that braille culture be promoted. "With the availability of voice synthesis on PCs, there are more and more people who don't want to go to the trouble of learning braille. But reading and writing is how we learn things. It is difficult to concentrate and study just by listening to something. Braille displays make braille more accessible. If braille could be used on equipment as small as PDAs, it could be used all the time. For that reason, we have to keep looking at the possibilities for making braille display equipment smaller and lighter," Kurematsu says.