Communications of the ACM
World's First Smartphone For the Blind, Made in India
A new smartphone for the visually impaired features a touchscreen that converts text and pictures into Braille and raise patterns.
Credit: The Times of India
National Institute of Design post-graduate student Sumit Dagar has led the development of a smartphone for the visually impaired.
The prototype features a touchscreen that converts text and pictures into Braille and raised patterns. "We have created the world's first Braille smartphone," Dagar says. "This product is based on an innovative touchscreen, which is capable of elevating and depressing the contents it receives to transform them into touchable patterns."
The device uses Shape Memory Alloy technology, which is based on the concept that metals remember their original shape, or expand and contract to their original shape after use. The smartphone's screen has a grid of pins that move up and down as needed. The grid also has a Braille display, where pins come up to represent a character or letter. The screen itself can elevate and depress the contents to form patterns in Braille.
"The response during the test has been immense. It comes out as a companion more than a phone to the user," Dagar says. "We plan to do more advanced versions of the phone in the future."
From Times of India
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