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Smartphone For the Blind Invented In India
hypnosec writes "The world's first smartphone for the blind that features a display capable of converting text and pictures into Braille and raised patterns has been invented in India. Based on Shape Memory Technology – a concept whereby metals expand and contract to retain their original shape – the phone's screen has a grid of pins. These pins move up and down based on the text or display to be represented."
You're just holding it wrong.
If it's a grid of pens, a lot of gestures based on swiping seem slightly risky because it could end up taking off a chunk of skin under a very rare corner case.
1) Braille is read by running your fingers over the bumps. If there was a chance of slicing off skin from swiping over these pins, then it fails at the basic intended purpose of displaying braille in the first place.
2) A lot of the gestures you're thinking of only make sense for the visual display on the phone. swiping a on/off switch to on only makes sense if you can make the visual connection to a switch metaphor from the graphics. This inherently doesn't work if you're blind since the metaphor is completely visual (and wouldn't carry over to a tactile experience well). Not to mention the OS would have to distinguish between a gesture operation vs a sweeping finger that is just reading the braille.
It doesn't look like it's something you could throw any OS on and have it work as some sort of accessibility assistant for everything, but it's a technological advancement towards having both a portable text/image -> braille converters (the article looked like the phone could OCR off the camera and produce braille from that), as well as the hardware base for a more blind-friendly smartphone + OS.
These things already exist. Make sure your websites are accessible for blind people.
iPhone already has a good accessibility system for blind people. You can drag your finger across the phone, and it will read whatever you are touching in a computer voice. It's amazing to watch a blind person using an iphone with it.
Android has a similar system, except it's better because it's open to third parties, and worse because it is buggy.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You mean like electronic ink?
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But, you say, how can I test websites for the blind since I am not blind?
Close your eyes for a few seconds and think about it.
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1) There is no money in this for Apple, Samsung, Nokia and others, this is a niche phone for a minority of people.
2) Accessible phones in the usual UI way with readers have been around for a while as well as computers.
Problem with web content is that some authors don't make it accessible to other types of user agents (beside the usual keyboard/mouse combo) by adhering to the WWW Web Accessibility Guidelines, which is a shame for these guidelines aren't all that hard to implement and it's just a little bit more planning ahead, which in the end, makes it easier to deal with your site's content in the long run.
What is nice about this new smartphone is that blind people can now deal with a smartphone with their own braille reading skills and thus can operate the device in silence, instead of being read the display like other smartphones with content readers.
Imagine the battery life on a device that never had to light up a display all the time.
Yes, imagine the battery life on a device that is using mechanical parts for display purposes. What used to be 6 hours battery life may now mean a 30 minutes battery life. Imagine all blind people fighting each other for the last electrical outlets at malls, conferences, and coffee shops.
It will be very interesting to say the least.
In my side by side tests, the VoiceOver built into iOS curbstomps the similar products on Android.
Yes. Unfortunately I would never suggest Android to a blind person.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
If there was a chance of slicing off skin from swiping over these pins, then it fails at the basic intended purpose of displaying braille in the first place.
Very true.
My blind friend once picked up a cheese-grater by mistake. She said it was the most violent book she'd ever read.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."