Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Affordable Braille Displays?

It appears that an affordable full page Braille display may be close at hand.

In Sean Brewster's article  In Pursuit of an Affordable Tablet for the Blind   in the MIT Technology Review we are shown the work of University of Michigan researchers looking to create a pneumatic full page Braille display.

Braille displays are at present prohibitavely expensive. A single line display at the moment can cost over $3,000 taking it out of the price range of most individual blind or vision impaired users. The researchers are working on a full page renewable Braille display, which could open up a whole new world for users of Braille text books, or manuals. At present a full page display might cost over $50,000, , so unless you know the winner of the Powerball mega lottery this week, this item is a definite luxury.

Using pneumatic miniaturization researchers estimate the cost of the new Braille display could mean that a finished product may be available at a cost of less than $1,000. Little more than the price of a tablet or even a high end mobile phone.

What do you think? Would you consider buying one of these affordable Braille displays?

Tell me in the comments below.

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