Braille Tablet Being Developed For the Visually Impaired (VIDEO)
A new Kindle-style tablet is being developed by researchers in Michigan that would display full pages including graphs and spreadsheets for the visually impaired.
By Chandra Lye | Jan 14, 2016 02:37 PM EST
Kindle-style Braille e-reader
Researchers at the University of Michigan are hoping to develop a Kindle-style e-reader for the visually impaired. (Photo : University of Michigan)
An advanced Braille-equipped e-reader may soon be available for the visually impaired thanks to a research project at the University of Michigan. Currently, similar devices can only display one line at a time, but researchers have been working on creating a device that could display full pages, The Daily Mail reports.
"You can't do much with a single line," Alexander Rossomanno, a graduate student assisting on the project said. "It's hard to read for one... but also, you can't do things like graphs, you can't do spreadsheets, you can't do any kind of spatially distributed information."
The device will rely on pneumatic technology, which creates a series of bubbles that either inflate or not creating the Braille characters, according to FOX News.
Prices for a Braille device begin at $3,000 and can go up to $55,000 but those on the project hope to make such technology more affordable. However, project lead Sile O'Modhrain said she didn't expect such a device to be on the market for at least five years.
"We are currently developing the low-level components that will become the basis of this new display technology," she explained to FOX News. "You could think of this like developing the technique for displaying pixels using liquid crystals."
The project has been given nearly $515,000 in grant funding, according to the University of Michigan. It is expected to wrap up at the end of September.
http://www.hngn.com/articles/169753/20160114/braille-tablet-being-developed-visually-impaired-video.htm
