Tag: Braille

If you’ve ever wondered how blind people play tabletop and RPG games, here’s your answer. Braille dice. A lack of sight doesn’t have to keep you from enjoying a good game of D & D. These cool dice were created by Jack Berberette as part of his Dots RPG project, which is all about making tabletop gaming more inclusive to the blind.

Two 20-year old students of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Goa, India are working on a device that aids in learning Braille. Sanskriti Dawle and Aman Srivastav’s Project Mudra – mudra means “sign” in Sanskrit – is a device powered by the Raspberry Pi, with custom software made using Python.

A couple of years ago we learned about Plan.B, a concept for a map for blind people. The idea behind that system was sound, but I thought the execution left much to be desired. I like this other concept called Blind Maps much more.

I get a headache every time I try to figure out which plug belongs to with gadget or appliance on the power strip. We’re already blessed enough that we’ve still got the gift of sight to figure things out (at least with something like those Dotz Cord Identifiers.)

This interesting concept is called the DrawBraille phone, created by Shikun Sun while he was studying industrial design. It’s basically a haptic phone that uses a braille board as a display. Braille boards mechanically raise dots so that visually impaired and blind users can read using their fingers.

Have you ever wondered if visually impaired people could use the iPad? Well, thanks to this concept, they might be able to do so, hopefully cheaper than those braille displays that are available (some of them can cost up to $10,000).

I could never imagine what it might be like to be blind, but I can only think that it would be incredibly challenging to function in today’s increasingly visual world. Imagine trying to use the flat touch buttons on your microwave without being able to see them.

Mobile Internet is great – you can check your email, read the news, reserve seats at restaurants, and even check for parking spots, all from your smartphone. Not that I enjoy any of that fantastic futuristic stuff here where I live, but it’s nice to know that theoretically, I could.

I’m amazed every time I see blind people walking around on their own using only a cane to guide them. But what if there was also a way to make the sight-impaired “see” the surrounding geography?

Touchscreens these days mostly allow us to use our fingers like a mouse cursor – point, click, slide etc. Designer Seonkeun Park wants to make a phone for the blind, with a screen and keypad that can form Braille symbols.