A touch-screen phone for the blind
Updated : Thursday April 2 , 2009 1:07:20 PM
ISLAMABAD: Scientists have now created a vibrating touch screen phone that can simulate Braille characters and bring the benefits of touch-screen technology to visually challenged people.

Taking a major step towards presenting Braille characters on mobile, Jussi Rantala of the University of Tampere in Finland and colleagues tried to display these dots on a touch-screen device, BBC radio reported.

The researchers used a cellphone which has a piezoelectric material built into the touch screen that vibrates when an electric signal is applied to it.

In Braille, letters are encoded using a two-by-three matrix in which each character is represented by a different configuration of raised and absent dots.

The experts installed software that represents a raised dot as a single pulse of intense vibration, and an absent dot as a longer vibration made up of several weaker pulses.