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Comment by jay-saint | Hacker News Reader

This is great for the blind, but is their a broader use for simulated letter press in letterhead or business cards?

I think the degree to which the ink is raised to be legible Braille is greater than what you'd want for simulated letter press. However, finding uses unrelated to disability would make it more viable and affordable.

That might be its most common use. It can be surprising how few blind people actually read braille, it is particularly uncommon amongst those who have developed visual imparements after their youth.

I wouldn't be surprised if the availability of technologies like these caused more blind people to learn to read braille. It is of extremely limited use at the moment as you require a text to be already available to you or pay high fees for conversion.

Of course it is also important that it is cheap to do. When you have a significant disability such as loss of sight your income suffers.

"It is of extremely limited use at the moment as you require a text to be already available to you or pay high fees for conversion"

I'm not sure this adds much; for text, there already are mechanical printers that. Yes, they are bulky and noisy, but they do the job. Advenateg of this could be that one can also emboss graphics and, possibly, that the printer and the paper can be a lot cheaper. If the latter is true, we might see printing get more use.

However, for the hard-core reader, I guess a computer, a screen reader (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_reader), and a refreshable braille display (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display) will remain the optimal solution for most use cases. They form a very powerful combination for the blind, provided they persevere in mastering it.

It takes lots of effort to learn to read Braille at a later age, and you may have to do it at a very stressful time ("count on losing your mind for a year or two when you lose your eyesight", I've heard it described by a psychologist familiar with the matter)

Reading Braille also requires sensitive fingers. Cut your finger? Read a lot slower for a few weeks.

Nerve damage in your fingers? You may have to forget about reading Braille. And that's incredibly common among those losing their eyesight, as they predominantly are elderly and/or diabetic (neuropathy is a common side-effect of badly controlled blood sugar levels)

So, let's say you are sixty, diabetic, and losing your eye sight. Are you going to practice for a few hours a day without guarantee of decent results, or are you going to focus on all the other tasks to relearn, and try enjoying, say, the company of your grand children?

Exactly.

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