Video: Nokia Braille Reader makes SMS tactile
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Sep 18th 2009 5:56AM
posted Sep 18th 2009 5:56AM
Nokia labs is serving up a potentially helpful application for the blind and visually impaired. The beta app makes SMS messages visible through tactile feedback on a Nokia braille reader developed in partnership with Tampere University and the Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired. It runs in the background and automatically opens when a new SMS is received. It's available to download and test on Nokia devices based on S60 5th Edition. Check the demonstration after the break, maybe someone you know could benefit.
This doesn't seem very practical, letter by letter is painstaking. I have a blind friend, and he would prefer to use a normal speech application. Much quicker to hear those long SMSes.
Blind and deaf people could find this useful, or if blind finds himself in a too loud area to listen text to speech. Or what about those that understand braille and want to read messages without taking phone out of the pocket? :P
That app may be impractical, but it has it's uses.
"if blind finds himself in a too loud area to listen text to speech"
Headphones...
@LondonConsultant
Not in a meeting.
And as mentioned before, blind and deft people can benefit from this.
Teleprompter reflecting in glasses, fail.
Cool, but why not talk? a) Hold down CALL key until voice recognition system kicks in. b) Say name. c) Confirm with a YES or NO. d) After callee picks up, chat away. No faffing around with texts. I mean, how can a blind person TYPE a reply!?
i agree, i don't know why any blind person would even want to use SMS. And i also imagine it's very hard for them to use touchscreen phones, making this app even more useless.
You obviously have not met plenty of blind people who has proven to be very capable of using products designed for the none-visually impaired.
What kind of jerk would send text messages to their blind friend. Give the blind person a break and just call them.
What kind of jerk would not let impaired people enjoy the same things as unimpaired. There are reasons why SMS is preferred in certain situations. Are you the kind who wants his jerk friends calling you for each and every small matter they might have? Like a random short joke for instance?
Some are blind AND deaf, so this could be useful for them.
Also, I'm sure many blind people would love to not play out loud their text messages in public places, or be forced to put earbuds on to hear text messages privately in public areas.
A whole lot of ignorance in your comments people.
Stupidest comment yet on Engadget, and there are plenty of it.
Blind people (or indeed any other people with disabilities) can do a lot more than you think (yes, including surfing the web).
Automatic text messages. You get updates service providers for international roaming as a sms message.
There's other automatic sms messages too. There's even plans for emergency sms messages for population whenever there's a need to inform people for avoiding area.
Some blind people prefer text messaging in some substitutions, just like sighted people. Is this a hard concept?
My friend who is DeafBlind would love this as well.
I think you underestimate those of us with disabilities.
Ur, substitution = situation. Stupid VR software.
Inconvenient but still very interesting concept.
why don't they make a phone with braille touchscreen screen?
Is it even possible to do so yet?
If they did, have you any idea how much it would cost? And how ugly it would look? Even a blind person likes having nice stuff. And with more customisable UIs I can see someone coming up with an overlay for a phone that allows the user to feel their way around and use it much better.
Disability aids of any kind are incredibly expensive. My Wheelchair costs about £500, and it's a very basic model. The "nicer" lightweight manual chairs go into 4 digit prices really fast, and the powered ones are even worse.
When it comes to stuff like this, you are talking serious money even for for speech synthesisers and the like. Mostly because they are bought by government grants/insurance companies and charities, who are only able to buy from a small number of approved companies, so the price sky-rockets. Many of these "specialist" suppliers charge well beyond reasonable prices for even off the shelf stuff like large monitors for partially sighted people.
This idea at least is a 100% software solution using a normal phone with existing hardware features.. So could for a change cost a reasonable amount.
@John Bailey "Is it even possible to do so yet?" -- Yes. There are displays made up of little pins that go in and out. (Not sharp pins, obviously.) It might be possible to build a cellphone with one.
@mocax: The market would be small, which would keep prices high; what Nokia is doing lets them use mass-market hardware.
@John Strake
And for how much? I saw a Braille printer back around 1990. The same friend also had a Braille single line display that worked like you say, so he could use a computer, but the price of the equipment and the software made it hideously expensive, and very limited. THey were leased for the programming course he was attending.
Like most, if not all disability related products, they are way too expensive to buy for an individual.
Realistically, there is a very tiny limited market for this kind of product, and a very captive limited market at that. Because few will be able to afford a mechanical pin based system designed from the ground up for them. Not to mention the size and the battery life of a Braille display for a phone.
A standard touch screen phone with this is not going to be significantly more expensive than a normal touch screen phone, so little if any extra costs. Nokia could even bundle it as a freebie, or open it up to the world and get good PR worth more than they could ever make from it.
Imagine the value of mainstream news stories about the phone company that is opening up cell phone use to blind and deaf people. You can't buy that kind of advertising.
Why is the pic from Volkswagen L1 article used again ??
Morse code would be so much better than this.
It's been done.
In the 90s some Nokia phones had special firmwares that had the sms morse feature.
By the way, the standard sms alarm is 'sms' in morse code on nokia phones.
This is simply the most stupidest thing I've heard in a while. Visually impaired / blind people would have THE most difficult time using S60 5th edition devices, simply because of the touch screen. There's a software developed for 3rd edition (can't remember the name, TalkX or Talks maybe?) which speaks the entire contents of the menu currently seen, and this works great alongside the FEEL they get using normal keypad buttons on a phone when they know exactly which button they need to push next, not guess where at the touch screen the button might be now...
Yeah, this should never be brought up, fuck the impaired, they don't need choices, right? Let them have s60 3rd edition, its good enough for them..
If all the world was made of douches like you no one would innovate, just because there are different options available. Maybe they'll use this app to create even useful and groundbreaking apps that help people. That's actually how the Menu reader for S60 3rd showed up, preceded by some shitty proof-of-concept app.
BTW, the world isn't flat, but the other model worked so much better, didn't it?
@Johanu : "fuck the impaired, they don't need choices, right?" -- Broadly speaking, I agree; it just seems odd to think that a blind person would choose an expensive touchscreen phone in the first place, when physical buttons will be cheaper and more convenient.
But I'll grant that there might be a reason. For example, someday, the expensive phone might have a good enough CPU to do face recognition and picture-to-text-to-speech, so that the blind person can recognize people and read signs. Given that, a Braille readout might be useful in some cases, so it's a good thing that the research has been done.
"1st the blind person opens the application"
ummm how??? and why does a blind person have a cell phone to begin with?
Blind people can't talk on phones? I do have to agree about them opening the application, though. How are you supposed to know where to press if you can't see the screen?
I'm 22 and my little brother is 12 and blind, he wants to be able to use a cell phone so bad. And fit in with all the other kids. So to all you idiots saying why the hell would the blind want to text, shut up, you obviously have never been close to a blind person. My brother can pick up and use my old flip phone with almost no trouble to make a call.
Get your brother a nice Nokia S60 phone like the N95 or N82, and buy Talks, a screen reader and magnifier for S60 phones. My dad is blind and has this, and he can use all the features in the phone, including address book, calls, email, SMS, and web browsing. http://www.nuance.com/talks/
It's a bit expensive, but I know AT&T and Verizon give discounts if you buy their subsidized phones.
Wow, a lot of stupidity on here.
I think the only bad thing about this (other than SOME blind people possibly having a hard time activating the software in the first place) is that it is incredibly slow. But then again, for it to work properly, I suppose that is sorta necessary. To fix the other issue, perhaps the program could be designed so that it automatically maps to a hardware button, or activates after a 10-second press-and-hold on any part of the touch screen.
For each person who thinks this is impractical or stupid, think again. I'll be honest in saying that I don't know many blind people. In fact, my profession is kinda limited against the blind (that's the down side of photography). But they are human beings just like the rest of us. If a new technology came about that would give a blind person the ability to compose and take a picture with their camera or camera phone, I'd be all for it. Why not make cellular devices all the more accessible to them? Heck, there are some blind people who are able to type just as fast as me on a keyboard, they're able to text simply because they know the layout of the querty keyboard (I'm surprised no one has ever noticed the little ridges on the home keys). Even on a regular cell phone, the key layout is easy enough for people to learn to text without looking, the same has been done for the blind.
I think people need to stop looking strictly at the limits of a disability... any disability... and start looking at how to overcome those limits to better incorporate those people... not alienate them.
Chuck Norris speaks Braille.
You can't exactly speak braille.
You can't, Chuck Norris can.
@ Johanu: I didn't say this app couldn't evolve to something actually useful, but until that I wouldn't call this the innovation of the year. Let it grow like you said but before it does, I'll give you a fcking dime for even launching the program blindfolded.