Convenient and easy-to-use for most, touchscreens naturally lack practicality to one specific group of people: the blind. However, Stanford Unversity summer student Adam Duran has devised an app that finally allows blind people to use touchscreens, and specifically, tablets.
Circumventing the issue of touchscreens lacking Braille, the app allows users to simply place their fingers anywhere on the display screen and the standard 8-key Braille configuration finds and adjusts itself to the location of the fingers. If orientation is lost, users can simply reset by lifting and lowering their fingers back down onto the screen.
Even with this app, tablets still offer limited capabilities for the blind. However, Duran’s development can’t be overstated—it finally gives folks an affordable option for typing besides the traditional, $6,000 Braille writer.
See the app in action above.
[via Engadget]
