October 11, 2011 02:05 am EDT

Student spends summer turning a tablet into a Braille writer, says mowing lawns is for chumps

Lots of us spend the summer by the pool, sipping Mai Tais and working on our tans, but Adam Duran had better things to do with his vacation. Instead of engaging in such lethargy, Duran attended the Army High Performance Computing Research Center's summer course held at Stanford, where he and his mentors developed a Braille writer app for tablets. You see, the average 8-key Braille writer is a custom laptop that costs $6,000, so given the paltry pricing on today's slates, this new solution is considerably more economical. Users place their fingertips on the display and the app populates keys underneath them, rendering tactile indicators of the keys' location unnecessary. Plus, the virtual keyboard provides a custom fit for your phalanges no matter how big or small they may be. The project has some "technical and legal hurdles to address" before it's made available to the masses, but here's hoping they can clear them soon. Video of the app in action after the break.

Continue reading Student spends summer turning a tablet into a Braille writer, says mowing lawns is for chumps

Student spends summer turning a tablet into a Braille writer, says mowing lawns is for chumps originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 22:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

PermalinkGizmodo | Stanford University ||Comments

Original Link: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/10/student-spends-summer-turning-a-tablet-into-a-braille-writer-sa/

View Full Article

Engadget

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics. Engadget was launched in March of 2004 in partnership with the Weblogs, Inc. Network (WI

More About this Source Visit Engadget