Since another cool (and related) project on Hackaday.io had trouble with patents (http://hackaday.com/2016/06/27/the-politest-patent-discussion-oshw-v-patents/), I did a few searches to find potential conflicts with my bubble Braille display idea. (My compliments to Paul and Vijay for handling this so well, and for independently working on really neat solutions to a problem!)

Unsurprisingly, I found some other teams with similar ideas. One team from the University of Michigan (http://www.gizmag.com/pneumatic-braille-tablet/41384/), and another from North Carolina State University (http://www.gizmag.com/full-screen-braille-display/14664/).

In the interest of not directly competing with those, I probably won't do any more work on that portion of the project. For the greater MBrailleW project, I may just incorporate something from Vijay or one of the other teams.

It seems like my one-handed keyboard design is still fairly unique, so I’ve been thinking about that again. Vijay is working on a keyboard too, (https://hackaday.io/project/10745-braille-keyboard-for-the-blind), and I expect our different approaches will appeal to different people.

I have a start to the software side of the keyboard, and I need to take the time to draw out my schematic for the hardware.

Have a great day!