Have anybody considered/tested others ways of displaying Braille?

E.g. 1. use lots of tiny heat emitter in place of dots

2. use heat/electrically deformable material(e.g. nitinol coil) to create the bump?

3. use tiny air valve to inflate little dots

//I'm sure there is more, add your ideas on the comments and i shall add it to this. (responding to —ldischler: Your suggestions will not be deleted, and your annotation won't be deleted. I just want to encourage community contribution to people who will be developing these things)
-- mofosyne, May 31 2010

Use Static Charge Braille_20display_2...g_20static_20charge
[MisterQED, Jun 03 2010]

http://en.wikipedia...ble_Braille_display [goldbb, Jun 07 2010]

The NIST Braille Wheel http://www.itl.nist...e_reader-May04.html
[goldbb, Jun 07 2010]

//I'm sure there is more, add your ideas on the comments and i shall add it to this.//

And once you incorporate the annotated ideas, you can delete the annotations. Good plan! ;)
-- ldischler, May 31 2010


lol don't worry, I won't! geeze chill!
-- mofosyne, May 31 2010


There are already Braille transcribers, which consist of an array of pins driven by solenoids, in a little cluster. They can display Braille characters.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 31 2010


However these display are pretty expensive, and is also pretty large.

There has got to be alternative ways to do this, that is either cheaper, or smaller/compact, or both
-- mofosyne, May 31 2010


The basic braille transponder is pretty small and cheap - it's basically the size of a die. But yes, interesting to consider other options.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 31 2010


What if the Braille weren't exactly bumps or dimples but were a definite change in texture or somesuch? I'm thinking some kind of electrostatic or nitinol-like carpet that sticks straight out under charge but flattens smooth with none.
-- RayfordSteele, Jun 02 2010


[RayfordSteele] kinda like a kindle for the blind?

Actually that would be pretty cool.
-- mofosyne, Jun 03 2010


I don't know where I read it but someone somewhere describes the realistic possibility that a blind person could read the words off the pages of a book just by detecting the differences in heat radiation hitting his forehead given by the black ink.
-- daseva, Jun 03 2010


Only if you put a headline under the grill and then pressed it to your forehead. The words "bollocks" and "focus" spring to mind.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 03 2010


I suppose there's always the possibility of selectively blowing through little airholes, like on an air-hockey table but much smaller in size, to inflate / deflate bumps or dimples as you scan across.

But that sounds mechanically complicated. Better would be a electromagnetic dimple system of some type.
-- RayfordSteele, Jun 03 2010


Was starting to post an anno, but spun a different idea. (link)
-- MisterQED, Jun 03 2010


According to Wikipedia, two groups, Leuven University in Belgium, and NIST, are developing rotating-wheel Braille displays, which would be smaller and simpler, and (once in production) cheaper, than conventional displays.
-- goldbb, Jun 07 2010



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