Friday, August 7, 2015

New smartwatch displays texts in braille



A new smartwatch could allow vision impaired smartphone users to check their messages without having to play them out loud.
The Dot is a tiny wearable with perforated holes featuring magnets and pins inside that rise to form the content of messages in braille, making them much easier to read for the vision-impaired. So when a user receives a text message, corresponding dots pop up in braille and he or she can run their finger along the watch to read the text.
The device comes from a Korean startup of the same name looking to make new technology more accessible.

Often times, visually-impaired people rely on a smartphone's speaker to read messages out loud, but the method is not very private and could disturb others in public. However, the smartwatch allows visually-impaired users to read their texts discretely.
“Until now, if you got a message on iOS from your girlfriend, for example, you had to listen to Siri read it to you in that voice, which is impersonal,” Dot CEO Eric Ju Yoon Kim toldTech in Asia. “Wouldn’t you rather read it yourself and hear your girlfriend’s voice saying it in your head?”
Aside from text messages, the wearable also relays directions and can serve as an alarm. Of course, it tells the time too. There are other helpful features such as haptic engine to buzz on a user's wrist when a new message is received.
There's another big improvement with this device over existing tech: cost. A portable computer that can relay messages in braille can cost up to $3,000, while the Dot will retail for $300 when it launches in December. It will sync up with both iOS and Android devices via Bluetooth.