Displays get touchy

A new tactile device promises to do for graphics what Louis Braille did for text in 1824, allowing visually impaired people to use full-screen graphical interfaces for the first time. The tactile graphical display could open up new avenues of employment, communication and personal expression.

Current Braille displays generally show one line at a time using electro-magnetic or piezo-electrical forces to raise and lower the dots that make up Braille letters. Larger multiline displays were developed but never sold commercially because they cost over €200,000 to produce.

The new display uses electro-rheological fluids and will cost about €15,000 when it enters production, a comparable price to current top-of-the-range single line readers.

"Piezo-electrical devices manufacture the dots in pairs, whereas in our system we can manufacture the entire display in one sweep, which keeps down the costs," said Dr Sami Ahmed, managing director of Smart Technology Group and scientific coordinator of the interactive Tactile Interface (ITACTI) project, backed by funding from the European Commission’s IST programme.