Guest Thinkers — December 10, 2010

Haptic Braille: A Portable, Mouse-Like Braille Reader

We’ve previously looked at several examples of Braille-centric design for the blind. Haptic Braille is an ingenious concept by Korean designer Baek Kil Hyun – a portable Braille translator and scanner. The mouse-like device is equipped with an optical character recognition (OCR) system and text-to-Braille conversion software that allow it to scan any printed surface, recognize the text characters, and translate them into tactile Braille on the surface of the device.

The device is made of biodegradable plastic and could offer additional carbon savings by eventually replacing the printing of Braille materials.

The project won the Design Concept category at this year’s prestigious Red Dot Awards.

via PSFK

Maria Popova is the editor of Brain Pickings, a curated inventory of miscellaneous interestingness. She writes for Wired UK, GOOD Magazine, Design Observer and Huffington Post, and spends a shameful amount of time on Twitter.

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