Hi Dark,
What you describe, a plastic that changes shapes and forms braille on its
surface is a patent that Apple has filed for a few years ago.
Here is the article I posted:
Possible Apple tablet multi-touch tactile keyboard detailed
Thursday, December 24, 2009
By Neil Hughes
Published: 08:40 AM EST
Apple's forthcoming tablet could employ a dynamic surface that gives users
tactile feedback when typing in order to identify individual keys, according
to a new patent application revealed this week.
Using an "articulating frame," the surface of such a device would create
physical bumps or dots for the user to feel when it is in keyboard mode.
Those surface features would retract and disappear when the device is not
being used to type. It is detailed in an application entitled "Keystroke
Tactility Arrangement on a Smooth Touch Surface." It is similar to an
application first filed back in 2007.
"The articulating frame may provide key edge ridges that define the
boundaries of the key regions or may provide tactile feedback mechanisms
within the key regions," the application reads. "The articulating frame may
also be configured to cause concave depressions similar to mechanical key
caps in the surface."
The tactile feedback keyboard is revealed as one anonymous source told The
New York Times that users would be "surprised" how they interact with the
tablet.
Another example in the application describes a rigid, non-articulating frame
beneath the surface. It would provide higher resistance when pressing away
from the key centers, but softer resistance at the center of a virtual key,
guiding hands to the proper location.
----- Original Message -----
From: "dark" <d...@xgam.org>
To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2012 6:44 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] N A Soft is back and I'm looking for sometesterswith
Braille displays.
Hi Tom.
Up until recently I would've fully agreed with you that despite advances
in computer technology, the instant access braille provides for lables and
other bits of information is absolutely irriplaceable. However, the
penfriend has largely for me replaced the function braille used to
perform, sinse all I need to do is stick a sticker on something, touch the
penfriend to it hit record and speak, which is actually far easier than
writing, cutting and correctly sticking a braille lable on something, and
in terms of cost, the penfriend machine itself cost less than a brailler
and it's lables are less expensive. It also takes far less time and can be
done with a none braillist, indeed I paid my research assistant for an
hour's work and got my entire unlabled dvd and cd collections done, ----
including all 7 seasons of star trek voyager and several rather large box
sets.
Undoubtedly, the penfriend labeling system isn't perfect. You can't for
instance avoid it speaking out the lable it reads, which would make
playing cards with it say pretty difficult, but I'm fairly certain a
version with headphones is just around the corner, also a version with
different levels of tactile labeling so that you could mark squares on a
board for basic layout and use the penfriend for specific square reading.
of course, if braille technology can catch up, then this situation might
change. For instance, the current braille display designs of about a line
of text represented by motorized pins are pretty much the same as they
were when first developed in the mid nineties. A few years ago however, I
did discuss with several engineers of specialist tech (it was at the Uk vi
tech sexhibition site village), the possibility of the developement of a
plastic which would tense when an electric current ran through it.
A sheet of this could be used with correct internal programming to create
an A 4 sized tactile display comparatively cheaply. under those!
circumstances, with large, relatively cheap displays able to show an a
full screen of infomation in tactile form i could see braille very muh
making a come back, sinse then any and all spacial information woule
equally available to a vi computer user, and in a far more efficient
method than with a screen reader.
Imagine playing chess on a computer with a real tactile board, or better
still, having a game like time of conflict where you could run your hands
over aa dynamic map overview and read the identity of labled units as they
moved around.
That sort of developement would be a total change, and not just in games,
sinse graphs, tables, pie charts, tree diagrams and other forms of spacial
representative data would be just as accessible to a vlind user, which
would have great applications for business, science, and goodness knows
what else.
Failing this sort of developement in technology though, I can see braille
being made completely obsolete in the next 20 years or so, sinse with the
rise of scanning and coding technology like the penfriend, even it's
essentially fast labeling functions will soon be things which can be done
far more easily via electronics.
Beware the grue!
Dark.
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