Want to feel and see a Braille watch? Hear the news read from any section of a daily newspaper? Hear a machine tell you whether your bill is $1 or $5?
The National Federation of the Blind will hold a free two-hour tour of its International Braille and Technology Center, 1800 Johnson St. in Federal Hill, at 9 a.m. Saturday.
"People are surprised at what we have here," said Patricia Maurer, the federation's director of community relations, who will lead the tour. "Whether they're sighted or blind, it's great encouragement to them."
The center contains "the world's largest and most complete evaluation and demonstration laboratory" for computer technology used by the blind, said her husband, NFB President Marc Maurer. Available for inspection will be dozens of devices such as those using synthetic speech, the Internet, Windows, vTC Braille and other computer technology.
The national group's headquarters will also show up-to-date tools for blind people. Newsline is a daily synthetic speech recording of The Sun and other newspapers.
The public is also invited to the meeting of the Greater Baltimore chapter of the national organization, to be held at 1 p.m. that day. Among the topics will be legislation in the General Assembly session that ended yesterday.
The nonprofit group, providing support and information to blind people, has more than 50,000 blind and sighted members in 700 local chapters.
Information: 410-659-9314.
Pub Date: 4/14/98
