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

[Christopher Chaltain]

I think this is a great technological achievement. I do question one 
statement though and that is that apps like those used for currency 
recognition were developed simply as work arounds to the lack of a 
braille interface. I think such apps have their own merit and would 
continue to be useful and developed even with the advent of a braille 
interface.

On 04/24/2013 09:46 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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-- 
Christopher (CJ)
chaltain at Gmail