BraillePhone
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Former professor creates vibrating Braille handset
Braille phones in and of themselves aren't all that unique, but a former professor (who just so happens to be completely blind) from Tsukuba University of Technology has crafted a variant that jumps and jives. Dubbed the world's first vibrating Braille cellphone, the device is programmed to emit pulses depending on which key is pressed; more specifically, a pair of terminals attached to the handset "vibrate at a specific rate to create a message." Those currently involved with the project are now toiling to make the keypad-to-vibration converters smaller, but there's no word just yet on whether the technology will be picked up commercially. [Via FarEastGizmos]
Vmedia aside, Spice planning ultra-cheap phones, too
We'd personally spend the extra few bucks to pick up the MOTOFONE's e-ink display, but mad love to Spice for what they're trying to do here nonetheless. The Indian carrier announced a couple other handsets in addition to its crazy Vmedia disc-playing prototype at Mobile World Congress last week, both of which will retail for under $20. "The People's Phone" (which we hope is less painful than The People's Elbow) is about as simple as they come, forgoing a display altogether in an effort to really boil it down to the basics, while The Braille Phone appears to be virtually the same thing with braille simply added to the keys. It seems unlikely that the models will find their way too far outside India proper, though they sure would make interesting backup phones, wouldn't they?[Via textually.org]
