[Electronics-talk] The first elevated-Pin Braille Smartphone Gets A Prototype

[Dave Bahr]

wow. how can I sign up to test the thing? Ok, India isn't exactly a hop 
skip and a jump from colorado, but that would be great to try. I think 
droyd would be the best os for it, apple is far too proprietary.
On 4/24/2013 8:46 PM, David Andrews wrote:
>
>>
>> The First Elevated-Pin Braille Smartphone Gets A Prototype
>>
>> Incoming text gets translated into braille through little pins, 
>> constantly moving up and down to convey what's happening in the phone.
>>
>> By Colin Lecher
>> Popular Science, April 22, 2013.
>>
>> With smartphone interaction mostly relying on sight, since there's no 
>> tactile difference to what's on the screen, some blind people have 
>> turned to apps to make up the difference. These apps can do some 
>> pretty impressive things, like determine the denomination of currency 
>> or read text out loud, rendering braille unnecessary for some tasks.
>>
>> But those were workarounds, to make up for the inability to create an 
>> actual braille interface. For about three years, a team of inventors 
>> in India have been working on a smartphone that can turn apps and 
>> text into braille. Now they've got a prototype.
>>
>> The phone, from the Centre for Innovation Incubation and 
>> Entrepreneurship in Ahmedabad, translates text into braille by 
>> elevating pins: after the text or email or webpage comes in, the pins 
>> form a braille version that the user can touch to read. It's not 
>> clear what operating system the phone will run on--Android? Something 
>> else?
>> but according to the Times Of India, it'll feature "all other 
>> elements" that your more traditional smartphone would have.
>>
>> The creators, led by inventor Sumit Dagar, are shooting for a release 
>> by the end of 2013. Starting price? Just less than 10,000 rupees, or 
>> about $185.
>>
>> [Times Of India]
>>
>> from:http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2013-04/inventors-make-braille-sm 
>>
>> artphone-blind
>
>
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