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

[Baracco, Andrew W]

About 10 or 15 years ago, Alva Access had a product called the MPO or
mobile personal Organizer. It contained a fully operational cell phone,
a Perkins style keyboard for text entry, and a 20 cell Braille display.
All of the phones's functions were accessible via speech and Braille,
and it also contained a small suite of apps to organize personal info.
It was truly ahead of its time. It's downfall was that it cost $4000.

Andy


-----Original Message-----
From: Electronics-talk [mailto:electronics-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of David Andrews
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 7:47 PM
To: promotion-technology at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Electronics-talk] The first elevated-Pin Braille Smartphone
Gets APrototype


>
>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-brail
>le-sm
>artphone-blind


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