Hacker News Reader

It'll be nice not only for the blind (assuming Braille or something comparable is feasible with this technology) but for those of us who'd like to be able to touch-type, which is tough with existing touch-screens.

View on HN

Touch-typing on any little keyboard like that is near impossible. On a normal keyboard, you're moving multiple fingers short distances. While on a little keyboard you're moving two fingers longer distances (key-wise, not actual distance). This makes it much harder to touch type since it's harder to judge where your fingers have to go.

This is at least my experience with little cellphone hard-keyboards, maybe it's different for others.

Regardless, braille would be really cool. Assuming the screens were high enough resolution (that is, could raise itself up accurately enough to make small dots) to display it.

I've taught myself to type without looking on my Android (holding it portrait too, not landscape). I do rely pretty heavily on the auto-correct feature to help prevent gibberish, though.

I can sorta do that with the ICS keyboard, the actually half decent predictive/auto-correct's what makes it possible.

Braille would be easy to implement too, both Android and iOS control fonts at the system level (well, usually on Android) so all you have to do is add a Braille font and you're done.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com