Dot Watch – A braille and tactile smartwatch
fingerson.strikingly.com
fingerson.strikingly.com
What a world we live in.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScqZJxEjHf6j66cX8wy...
That message doesn't make any sense since I didn't even touch the form.
https://audioboom.com/posts/5655817-the-first-braille-smartw...
They include interviews with blind people who've tried it.
They say that it's smaller, lighter, and cheaper because they use a new type of actuator that isn't "on a ceramic substrate".
The company plans to ship its first 150,000 devices by the end of the year for £300; the dot mini is an educational braille reader planned for sale for £650.
Here's a mashable link saying the product is shipping: http://mashable.com/2017/02/22/dot-smartwatch-retails/#c8Hyx...
That means nothing. Modern actuators are piezo-electric. I have no idea what "ceramic substrate" they are talking about.
The mashable link is just a press kit.
I don't know what is in the RNIB podcast, because the audio is not available to me.
The piezo crystals are the ceramic. This new device claims not to use piezo crystals, and that's why it's smaller.
There's a possibility it's using electroactive polymers in a closed bubble together with latches. This would be much cheaper than piezo systems, and also smaller.
N. Di Spigna, P. Chakraborti, D. Winick, P. Yang, T. Ghosh and P. Franzon, “The Integration of Novel EAPBased Braille Cells for Use in a Refreshable Tactile Display,” Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices, San Diego, March 2010, p. 9.
Nothing extra.
- is smal, ideally the distance between Braille dots or about (distance within a character is smaller than that between dots in different characters) 2.5 mm by 2.5 mm, with a height of less than 2cm or so,
- can lift a dot by about 1mm (from definitely not above the surface to 0.9mm above it),
- withstands a force of about .3N (30 grams),
- can be switched while the user exerts that 30 gram force on it,
- will work for 10^6 actuations,
- works reliably in the presence of dirt, grease and human sweat,
- doesn't require enormous amounts of power (piezo-electric Braille cells only need power when switching),
- is safe when users (almost) touch them with their bare fingers (piezo-electric cells use 200V or so to switch, but that is at a few cm from the Braille pins),
- can be produced for a few dollars (you need 8 for a Braille cell or 160 for a 20-character display, so it adds up). If your goal is to make a full page (say 8000 pins) $1 each already is too much.
You also wil like want to switch 500 of these in 0.1s or so.
Especially if you forget about the desired reliability and/or limit the force or the travel, the problem gets a lot easier.
I think the videos that these guys posted are real, but wonder how long this device will keep working.
To some extent, the current technology, which is called a piezoelectric display is like a lithium ion battery. Its not like we don't have other battery technologies, it is just that lithium is enough better than the others, that no other can take hold. The piezo displays are almost silent, last a LONG time (20 years), and take very little power. They are, however, slow and bulky and not practical for mobile applications. The mechanism is so large, you cannot create a multi-row display. (edit: they are also rediculously expensive!)
There have been multirow displays using solenoid actuators. These were hand made by grad students and weighed a ton. They used a huge amount of power and got jammed easilly. Other than that, there are pneumatic displays with huge potential, but are also bulky. There are static electric displays that have life expectancy issues, and a few other technologies, like using memory springs, that tend to have speed issues. Then there are a huge number of mechanical "conveyor belt displays" which are too noisy to use in a classroom or office.
But all of the displays you see being publisized are not the ones that I am talking about. Displays like the one you linked to are totally 100% FAKE!!!
https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm00/bm0001/bm000...
Impractical: you can stack piezo-electric Braille cells, but your device will be about half an inch high per line of text. Weight also goes up, of course.
Not affordable: ballpark, a _cheap_ piezoelectric Braille cell costs at least $25 per character (http://www.aph.org/orbit-reader-20/ uses a different technology, but is considered cheap at $500 for 20 characters). That's $3.50 per 'bit'. At that price, two 80-character lines would cost you $4000 (In reality, that probably buys you _one_ 80-character line)
In the deep ocean, the evolutionary pressure towards sight is so slight that most animals gradually lose it (there is too little light).
But marine creatures have many different adaptations. Cetaceans IIRC have relatively good visual acuity, but are monochromants. Lots of animals lose color vision. Some animals develop huge eyes to pick up tiny bits of light; some have a bioluminescent lure for those fish with sight. Others go blind. But no marine creatures adapted to deep ocean are going to have the level of visual acuity and sensory dependence on sight that terrestrial creatures often have.
Blindness is a continuum.
even sight-dominant animals may have radically different vision to ours. Cats for example are more sensitive to motion than to static resolution
How we obtain our data about the world is a huge influence over how we conceive of it. I wonder how different programming would be were we to do it entirely by touch
[0]: not these ones tho https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Gippsland_earthworm
http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/07/05/weird-pupils-let-octopus...
The evolutionary pressure toward radar or at least sonar is pretty fucking big too (huge benefit) so where's mine?
> searchlights or even lasers
Galagos developed large eyes rather than sonar, true. I refer you to my other comment:
> Perhaps eyes convey a general advantage, regardless of how you find food?I'm seeing a lot of healthy scepticism in the comment section. I'm visually impaired, not blind, so I haven't checked this page with accessibility tools. And, although I've heard about a lot of failed kickstarters, I'm not good ad judging them. But if this is real, and gets built, I'd love to try one out.
Does a non-switching pixel require a current?
It is a tiny magnet inside a solenoid. At each end of the solenoid there is a steel part, which the magnets stick to when on or off. To switch state the coil is energized. Hall effect (or other) sensors can tell where the magnet is and what state the pin is in. It doesn't use any power when it's holding state but switching can consume a relatively high amount of power.
The clicky pen mechanism is actually patented, and it also can't be made as small as you'd like for this.
https://g.redditmedia.com/rFj5xjIilFQKXM1N6sq8asAi5i4BQTfUgo...
Unfortunately the best way to increase speed with Morse code is to learn to recognize entire letters as one object and not count "dots" and "dashes", which is much easier with sound over flashing lights or vibrations.
Another good argument she made was it's about multiplexing. What if someone wanted to learn the time while listening to an engaging conversation, they wouldn't want to stop listening just to check the time.
Also, who's to say that people shouldn't be encouraged to use audiobooks rather then read text-based liturature? When listening to an audio book I can do many other things like study for an exam or program. I can't read a book via text and write software at the same time.
I don't think we should handicap people by making them feel like it's "better" to do something that's harder for them for some reason. Blind or not.
> Another good argument she made was it's about multiplexing. What if someone wanted to learn the time while listening to an engaging conversation, they wouldn't want to stop listening just to check the time.
Most people don't wear watches and it's usualy considered rude to pull out your phone mid-convorsation. I always wear a watch and so people just say "do you have the time"?
If you can't ask Siri you can just ask whoever you're talking to. Also, if you express you want to know the time and they say "I don't know" you can then just ask Siri and tell them. It works out nicely.
Any other examples?
> If you can't ask Siri you can just ask whoever you're talking to. Also, if you express you want to know the time and they say "I don't know" you can then just ask Siri and tell them. It works out nicely.
The point is that people _can_ look at their watch or smartphone while still listening in on the conversation. It's hard to hear and pay attention to two different things at the same time.
> When listening to an audio book I can do many other things like study for an exam or program.
Why don't you just study for your exam and write code in audio?
I see no reason why, given enough work, a sufficient audio-interfaced IDE cannot be created. I think that is the way we should go. A real AI tied to a speach processor and a polog-like system would be the best UX for programming possible.
Think of Star Trek, "Computer, do X, Y, Z and then run that program".
I definetly don't think text is the best interface with a computer or any system for that matter. That's why I'm saying what I'm saying.
And for now, we're talking about telling the time, not expressing a perfect proof for infinitly complex ideas. I think Siri is good enough for that query as it stands.
What I see as really good if it can hit the market at that price is that it will help push down the price of braille strips. At the moment a strip costs about 100€ per cell. If you want a 80 cell strip to do some programming, it costs new about 8000€...
The machinery to translate scalar time into discrete bump movement is going to be complicate, fragile and costly, while rotating a ring instead of the single arms is feasible, has been done already and only need tactile feedback for feeling the relative positioning.
Edit: there http://www.perkinsproducts.org/store/748-thickbox_default/br...
Just add a second ring and you're basically done.
One of the cooler things mentioned in one of the videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmpl81WmFSo) was that they developed their own magnetic actuators that are a 10th of the cost (if you believe the marketing) of existing ones. I haven't verified any of those claims, but if true does mean their braille tablet could be an affordable reality.
The manufacturer seems to be here: http://fingerson.strikingly.com/. I guess it's a smart watch since it pairs over BT with a cell phone, and can show notifications from the phone. It can show the current time without a phone connection, yay. No custom installable apps on the watch itself as far as I could see, but perhaps something can be done through the phone, too.
Can somebody please explain how they count their Braille cells? From reading Wikipedia, a "cell" should be 2x3 dots. The site says the watch has 4 cells, but it clearly has more than 2x3*4 = 24 dots; I count 30. Also the middle cell seems to be split by the vertical line? Very confusing.
Effectively, each line is like:
`••◦••|••◦••`
When you look at the picture of the man holding a prototype, you have 4 cells with no split.
Audioboom is official home to those podcasts.
https://audioboom.com/posts/5655817-the-first-braille-smartw...
The five minute audio podcast has interviews with the company and with users and explains a bit about why this is different to existing braille displays.