[Nfbf-l] first ever Braille Smart Phone could hit stores later this year

[Sherri]

First-ever Braille smartphone could hit stores this year
Touch screen transforms images and text into touchable patterns, enabling 
users to interpret facial expressions, maps, and graphics.


by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore
April 23, 2013 12:30 PM PDT

During a video chat, a visually impaired user can touch the real-time image 
of a friend's face and follow that person's facial expressions.

(Credit: Sumit Dagar)
An interaction designer who makes sci-fi short films has spent the past 
three years developing what he says is the world's first Braille-enabled 
smartphone. He said that if testing goes well, the phones could hit stores 
by the end of this year.

Thanks in part to award money from Rolex, India-based designer Sumit Dagar 
has been collaborating with the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and L V 
Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad to develop a prototype. The smartphone 
employs a haptic touch screen that elevates and depresses the content it 
receives, thereby transforming the data into touchable patterns. Yes, this 
phone is essentially a shapeshifter.

Dagar demonstrated the phone's capabilities during a 2011 Ted Talk. (See 
video below.) He noted that visually impaired users would be able to touch 
the real-time image of a person on video chat and follow that person's 
facial expressions. He also showed how the technology would help users 
interpret maps, play games, and more.

The hardware comprises a sophisticated grid of tiny pins that move up and 
down to accommodate text and images. It uses shape-memory alloy technology 
to expand and/or contract to its original shape after use.

"Technology is giving everyone superpowers, but many blind people are not 
able to tap into these cool, new features, and the technology is making them 
even more disabled," Dagar said in a Rolex interview. "So I decided to do 
something that could reach out to this population."

No word yet on what the phone will cost, but I'm going to recommend that 
early adopters insure their phones.

Sumit Dagar - Touch screen phone for the visually impaired. - YouTube frame



Sherri Brun
flmom2006 at gmail.com
Character is the side of yourself you choose to show the world.
Integrity is what you do, what you say and how you act when you think no one 
is paying attention.
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