Researchers at the University of Michigan have created a braille tablet using pneumatics tech where air or fluid is used to create braille words. Blind users can use a computer that creates braille line by line and that is a very useful tool in of itself, but this tablet would work much like a Kindle or iPad. Having a portable reader that can create usable braille content for blind users would be an amazing tool that lifts many limitations and provides a better experience for blind users. Check out the video below to see how this works.
Reading a computer screen in Braille is a cumbersome process today. The visually impaired people who rely on the system of raised dots only have access to one line at a time. Beyond that, current systems don’t translate charts or graphs. A team of researchers from Michigan Engineering and the School of Music, Theater and Dance are working on a solution. Their technology, which has been described as a leader in the field, relies on pneumatic use of liquid or air to shrink the mechanism and expand it so it can display more at once. Their goal is for it to display the equivalent of a page of Kindle text at once.
Technology like this is exciting and much more revolutionary than any iPad or Galaxy Tab announcement. Projects like this are what keep innovation alive and we love to see this over the latest mass market iOS or Android device. This is particularly going to create a buzz with those users who need braille to read and interact with literature. We’re excited to see how this research project turns out and we’ll keep updating as much as possible.
What do you think of a braille tablet? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
[button link=”https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/braille-tablet-blind-readers” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Cosmos Magazine[/button]Last Updated on January 23, 2017.
