Sumit Dagar, an interaction designer has spent around three years developing a smartphone which is specifically designed for the blind and will be known as the Braille-enabled phone. The smartphone (when developed) will become the world’s first phone enabled with Braille, the script which helps blind people read and write.
If everything goes according to plan, Dagar hopes that the smartphone will to hit stores by the end of this year. This has been possible due to award money from Rolex. Dagar has also joined hands with Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and LV Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad to develop a prototype. The smartphone has a haptic touchscreen which elevates and depresses the content that it receives and then transforms the data into touchable patterns.
The capabilities of the phone were demonstrated during a 2011 Ted Talk. Dagar said that blind people will actually be able to touch real time images of a person on video chat and also follow the facial expressions of the person.
Dagar went on to explain how blind people can interpret maps, play games and do several other things, which can be done on a normal smartphone by normal people.
