An interview with Peter Cracknell from Quantum RLV re the new Mount Batten Braille Tutor

Hi and welcome to another Vision Australia vision store product highlight demo and in this demo you'll be hearing an interview that I did on my Vision australia radio talking tech podcast on July 16, 2024. 

We have an interview from Peter Cracknell  manager of blindness products for Quantum all about the new Mountbatten braille tutor. If you'd like to find more about the Mount Batten braille tutor and also the other cool stuff that Quantum Technology actually sell their website is https://www.quantumrlv.com.au,  and then as they say on  with the show.
Oh and by the way smile, Vision Australia also sells the Mount Batten Braille Tutor as well
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We turn to our guest now, Peter Cracknell, who is Manager of Blindness and Low Vision Technologies with Quantum Reading Learning Vision. 

Good to have you with us, Peter. Thank you, Stephen. Good morning. Over to you, David.

 Moving on to our main topic, Peter, and I've loved the Mountbatten itself since 1991, which I think when it first came out. What's the main new whiz-bang thing happening with the Mountbatten Tutor now? 

Well, the Mountbatten Tutor, which is manufactured by Harpo in Poland, we used to manufacture that in Rydonmead in Sydney for many, many years. After the LS version, Harpo made the whisper at the Mountbatten Whisperer and now this new model, the Mountbatten Tutor. The essential purpose is much the same as it's always been, which is really focused around early Braille learning, usually for children, but not always. And that purpose still remains. And in fact, all of the features and commands that people might have known previously for the other models also in the Mountbatten Tutor. I guess one of the things that the new model does do is tries to put those sorts of commands and settings into a menu system that's a bit more intuitive. You don't have to remember the commands. You can just go through a spoken menu system, which is just a conventional menu system to adjust margins and translation formats and so on. And that is also shown on a liquid crystal display actually on the body of the machine. So that's integrated into the Mountbatten Tutor and that means that a teacher aid or a parent, they can actually navigate that. It also has spoken output of course, and more intuitively, don't change the settings to Braille translation grade and that sort of thing. Whereas before they would have to remember a particular command, which they would input through the keyboard. The keyboard has been modified. So on the older models, they had various keys that perhaps not so recognizable on a conventional keyboard, whereas with the Mountbatten Tutor keyboard, it actually follows the pattern of a conventional keyboard with an escape key, a backspace key, an enter key, a space bar and so on. Plus, of course, the traditional what we call the Perkins keys for typing Braille. And that keyboard is also detachable from the body of the Mountbatten Tutor, which gives just a lot more options for different configurations where perhaps a child couldn't actually line up as they straight on. They might want to have the keyboard at a slight angle or perhaps it might be easier to operate if the child was in a wheelchair or something like that. 

So Peter, I've got a few quick questions, I guess. Number one is if you know how to use the earlier versions of the Mountbatten, which to me is electronic Brailler, which was actually very, very cool. I'm sure if you know that, then you know how to basically use the new Mountbatten Tutor. Yes David, that's absolutely right. If you ever operated a previous model, there'll be absolutely no difficulty operating this one. It could be that you had remembered some of the commands like the FE command or something like that, and you can type that straight in and away you go. You can also plug in a regular keyboard as well, David. So just a regular QWERTY keyboard USB and operate it through the regular QWERTY keyboard. 

That was funny because that was going to be my second question. You bet you took it. So my third question then is, I remember in the old days we had the Mimic which was a little plug-in little LCD display. I'm assuming the LCD display in the Mountbatten Tutor now. That's also effectively your Mimic, so you can see what's being Brailed as well from a sighted person point of view. Absolutely. It has some Mimic function, so a sighted person can actually review what's being typed in regular text. In addition to that, it also shows the menus in print, so you can actually operate it with no knowledge of Braille through that LCD display. So yes, it is actually putting the MIMIC into the case, but in addition to making it a LCD display. 

Yeah, far more superior. 

Can you link it up to anything like a PC or an iPad, an iPhone or an Android phone? Yes, in a couple of ways. You can link it up via USB to a laptop and run a program called MBCom  as we could on our previous models. That's for file transfer and also act are basically an embosser from your computer. But in addition to that, and I think perhaps in a more valuable way, you can connect an iPad or an Android device to the Mountbatten Tutor just using a Bluetooth connection and that will allow file transfer and embossing and that sort of stuff. But more importantly, it allows a non-Braille person to be able to type on the iPad, just tap on onto the iPad and have it immediately embossed in a proper grade, your chosen grade on the Mountbatten Tutor and vice versa. When the Brailler is Brailling, it will back translate into regular print on the iPad. So you can have those back and forth conversations. You can study a particular article from on your iPad and you can just paste it into the chat area and it will emboss on the Mountbatten Tutor. 
Sounds fantastic. Now if people are interested in finding out more about the Mountbatten or getting their hands on it, what's the best way to contact Quantum? 

Just a couple of ways. One would be to contact Quantum and we can demonstrate, we can also trial the unit. We have people who apply for it through NDIA, through NDIS and they'd need to trial that of course to compare it to other options. And of course, Vision Australia through the Vision Australia ATS teams and their occupational therapy teams, they can also demonstrate and assess people for the Mountbatten Tutor. 

Okay and cost wise, how much does it cost outright? 

It's $7,990. I should just say David that we are due for a price increase across the board so it may go around about $8,000. 

Yeah okay. Is there a landing page on the Quantum website that people could type in a direct link to jump to information about Mountbatten or is it just easy to search for Mountbatten on the Quantum website? 

It's easier to search for Mountbatten on the Quantum website, yes. We do have it under our blindness section under Braille writers. We also sell the TatraPoint as well which is a mechanical Braille writer. Indeed, 

yeah love that little thing as well. 

All right Steve back to you. Thank you David. David speaking there with Peter Kraknell from Quantum Reading Learning Vision.