Haptic Braille Lets the Blind Read your Books

This mouse-like device puts the printed word at a blind man's fingertips.

Braille not only allows blind people to interact with our sight-oriented world, but also lets them enjoy literature just like any regular optically-unchallenged guy. However, this meant that we had to translate every single novel into braille format, which can be daunting.

Designer Baek Kil Hyun came up with a solution, called the Haptic Braille. Think of it as a handheld scanner that converts print to braille instead of 1's and 0's. The haptic surface raises the appropriate dots to provide the reader with a tactile translation of the written word. This lets blind people read regular books and newspapers without having to wait for the braille edition.

For his conceptual efforts, Baek won an award from the Red Dot 2010 awards under the Interaction and Communication category.

[source: Red Dot]