BrainPort lets the blind see with their tongue |
We’ve seen many devices to help the blind, but this is one of the coolest. BrainPort was first introduced in 2006. The idea was that it would allow users to regain some vision via a camera and electrical impulses sent to the tongue. Now we learn that the device may actually be available commercially very soon.
The BrainPort decodes signals from a camera on your head and transforms them into electrical impulses that hit your tongue, but gently, not joltingly. The impulses are then experienced as spatial awareness and even give one the ability to read text. Pretty amazing stuff.


Here’s a concept that would really help the visually impaired and blind. The Touch & Go navigation system is a combination of a hand gadget and an earpiece that will give you directions as a relief map on its wearable navigator with tactile display.
This isn’t the first
We all take our sight for granted and tend to forget how fortunate we are that we can experience an entire visual existence that those with no sight will never know. For the blind, content on the web is like a giant gaping void that they have no way of navigating. Monitors are useless for conveying info to the blind. They basically live in a different world just parallel to our own. One that we will never know.
Typically, translating any book into braille more than doubles its thickness. But with e-books that doesn’t have to happen. Designer Seon-Keun Park, Byung-Min Woo, Sun-Hye Woo and Jin-Sun Park want more blind people to be able to enjoy books, so they created this Braille e-book concept.
The iPhone has never really been a friendly device for the blind, so this case designed by Bruno Fosi is fairly impressive. The Silicone Touch covers the iPhone’s screen and features a selection of bas-relief buttons that correspond to menu items in a custom app.
Auguste Reymond has a brand new Classic quartz watch in the Braille Hi-Touch. You wouldn’t know it at first glance, but it’s designed especially for the blind, allowing the visually impaired to read the time with their fingertips via raised hour-markers and special hands. A hinge at 10 o’clock gives easy access to the dial. And it also happens to look good for those who are seeing it from afar. No word yet on pricing and availability.
Apple has reached an agreement with the Massachusetts attorney general’s office and the National Federation of the Blind and they will make the iTunes service more accessible to the blind. It will be called iTunes U and that area of the iTunes Store will feature educational content from colleges and universities for the blind from December 31st onward. That’s just the beginning. 












