[Blindmath] Optically Actuated Tactile Displays

[Susan Jolly]

The Braille 21 conference has just released its program abstracts as doc 
file.  I thought the following abstract would be of interest to list 
members:

Cf.  http://www.braille21.net/en/programme

Optically Actuated Tactile Displays
Branislav Mamojka (Slovak Blind and Partially Sighted Union, Slovakia)

There are still missing commercially available large area dynamic tactile 
displays providing access to high-resolution graphic and braille in real 
time for blind people. This problem is not solved by actually available 
displays in the form of a braille line. The objective of the project NOMS 
(Nano-Optical Mechanical Systems) is to solve this problem by using haptic 
actuators that can be activated optically. These will require no hard to 
assembly, complex, moving mechanical parts and have the potential for much 
finer resolution than the current technology. Recently developed carbon 
nano-tube enriched photoactive polymers provide the basic technology for 
this purpose. There will be presented current NOMS results of material 
research and integration of those nano-composite materials into haptic 
displays and discussed their advantages for blind people.
This article presents the current state of the NOMS project which is partly 
funded by the European Commission (www.noms-project.eu).