Concept Braille E-Reader – A Very Cool Idea
April 20, 2009 by tcgames
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.
Yet another reason why such a device would be useful to the blind (as opposed to audio books): Some people, including my elderly father, being long-accustomed to reading by touch, find it difficult to concentrate on sound input alone. He gets far more out of a book that he can read with his fingers, and thus has pretty much given up on audio books. Also, some blind people have limited hearing as well, particularly if they are elderly.