New Graphic Displays for the Blind

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from Spain have invented a new mechanism for graphical tactile displays for the blind. The displays use metallic films featuring various shape memory alloys which are produced layer by layer on silicon wafers using thin film technology. Display pixels are generated when the metallic film adjusts its curvature partially, similarly to bimetal snap plates for temperature switches. The movement of the films is then transferred to the touch panel via plastic pins und thus can be detected by the user."

Comments

Interesting stuff

[mistersooreams]

You might wonder why these devices need to be so complex when Braille is just a series of dots. The thing is that Braille is a lot more complex than people think. (I think this is interesting but apologies if it's a little off-topic.)

Type I Braille is basically a 1:1 mapping of letter onto 2x3 arrays of dots. It's not much more than a font, but this is what people tend to think of as Braille.

Type II Braille uses a lot of abbreviations, and is rather more complex to read. For example, certain punctuation marks coincide with word abbrevations, and only the context serves to differentiate the too.

Type III Braille is still more complex and is almost like a whole other language. I don't know much more about it than that, but anyone who does can add to this.

So you see that the increasing complexity of these devices actually makes life a lot easier for blind computer users. I wonder how many blind people read Slashdot?

Re:Pin thingy

[ajlitt]

What's novel about this approach is that it is mechanically simpler and potentially cheaper to manufacture than current Braille readouts (which, as far as I can tell use many small solenoids). Also, since the display elements are bistable (that is, requires power only to switch up/down states, but not to maintain them) power consumption is minimal and portable PDA-like devices would become smaller and more practical.