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

[David Andrews]

I don't remember the exact pin count in the optacon, but it wasn't 
thousands, only a couple hundred I think.

Dave

At 06:39 PM 4/24/2013, you wrote:
>Sounds pretty neat. Reminds me of the old Optacom which too used
>hundreds/thousands of tiny electronic pins to tactually form regular
>alphabet characters.  I wondered then why wasn't that technology used to
>form the Braille characters ... Thanks for sharing ... John g.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Nfbktad [mailto:nfbktad-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Todd
>Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 3:55 PM
>To: 'NFB of Kentucky, Technology Assistance Division'
>Subject: Re: [Nfbktad] The first elevated-Pin Braille Smartphone Gets A
>Prototype
>
>How exciting this is, and very reasonably priced!! Thanks for sharing,
>Tonia.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Todd
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Nfbktad [mailto:nfbktad-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Gatton, Tonia
>(OFB-LV)
>Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 11:58 AM
>To: 'nfbktad at nfbnet.org'
>Subject: [Nfbktad] The first elevated-Pin Braille Smartphone Gets A
>Prototype
>
>
>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