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Braille e-reader concept a neat idea — for now
With the advent of Amazon's Kindle, we are all now only too familiar with the e-reader. The technology, which uses E Ink is the technophile's answer to a book (although this technophile would rather have her shelves groaning from the weight of the books she's accumulated during her lifetime). But what about a version of the e-reader for the visually impaired?
A Korean quartet of designers — Seon-Keun Park, Byung-Min Woo, Sun-Hye Woo and Jin-Sun Park — have come up with a concept for a braille e-book. Simple in design, the device uses electroactive polymers, which change shape when voltage is run through them, forming the raised braille letters. Since the traditional paper braille books for the blind are roughly double the size of normal books, this could be a muscle-saver for those of us who are unseeing or partially sighted. There's another picture below.
By Pennarin at 2:40 PM ON 04/20/09
I have muscular dystrophy, so no difficulty empathizing with other limiting conditions people may have, and this is a godsend for the blind.
I imagine the price of braille paper books to be prohibitive, and let's just say those braille automated machines (basically a braille display device) are bulky and noisy, kinda goes against the silence that comes when you read.
Hope they pull it off.
Software to convert into braille is a lot cheaper to make than actual printed books...er, make that embossed books.
By PTRICKY at 7:13 PM ON 04/20/09
Next stop: that sweet 3D map from the first X-Men movie!
By Holly at 5:14 PM ON 04/28/09
My daughter sent me a link to another site about the Braille e-reader, but it proved completely inaccessible, so I found your site on Google, and was able to read the article. Ironically, though, I am not able to comment on it, as you have no audio capcha. Were I able to comment, I would say this. (Editor's note: We helped Holly post her comments. We're also looking into audio Captcha. Apologies to her and our other sight-challenged readers.)
Braille books are a lot more than double the size of print books. For instance, the three books of the Lord of the Rings series are fourteen volumes, about a foot square, and three inches thick, taking up more than a shelf of a 30 inch wide bookcase. The Bible is usually around eighteen volumes, depending on the publisher, and takes up more than two shelves on the bookcase.
Amazon actually designed a reader that has synthetic speech, which serves most blind people well for leisure reading, but the author's guild had a fit, because they are stupid and think that sighted people might rather listen to synthetic speech than their over-priced dramatizations, which are abridged half of the time.
I'm not sure what Pennarin means by "those braille automated machines (basically a braille display device) are bulky and noisy," as I read books on my BrailleNote notetaker all the time with no more sound than your average keyboard, perhaps less, and it is only about the size of a large book. I carry it everywhere with no strain at all.
By Erin at 9:56 AM ON 11/03/09
I am a teacher of the visually impaired and I am fasinated by this device. I want to get my hands on it so bad. You need to get with HUMANWARE, the makers of Braillenote and get it into production.
on your cellphone!
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Erin:
I am a teacher of the visually impaired and I am fasinated by this device. I want to get my hands on it so bad. You...More »