Skip to Content
Uncategorized

Fingers Do the Reading

Computers are just as important to people who are blind as they are to the rest of us. But current systems of translating screen displays into the raised dot letters of the Braille alphabet are pretty clumsy: They require nearly 500 moving parts called actuators to display entire pages at a time. Now comes a device, invented by John Roberts and colleagues at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Md., that uses as few as three moving parts.

A stream of Braille letters formed along the edge of a rotating wheel is the basis for the new display. Each turn of the wheel presents a new line of Braille text. Fingers held just above the rotating wheel read the dots as they go by. A commercial Braille wheel using this design could be about the size of a portable CD player and much cheaper than current displays. Software has been written for the wheel to display scrolling text from electronic books.

Deep Dive

Uncategorized

Capitalizing on machine learning with collaborative, structured enterprise tooling teams

Machine learning advances require an evolution of processes, tooling, and operations.

The race to destroy PFAS, the forever chemicals 

Scientists are showing these damaging compounds can be beat.

How scientists are being squeezed to take sides in the conflict between Israel and Palestine

Tensions over the war are flaring on social media—with real-life ramifications.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.