It’s more the picture than the technology that amazes me. The picture is promoting a camera that lets visually impaired users take and view pictures using senses other than sight. I can only begin to imagine the complexities of a braille based photograph (all those dots and dashes) never mind the kind of technology that enables blind people to take photographs.
The shutter button does, as you would hope in a digital camera, take a picture but it also handily records three seconds of audio. This is designed to make the recognition and storage of the media simple even when viewed later.
I’ve got to be honest, I’m not sure what holding it to your head achieves. There’s no LCD screen, because that would be pointless. However, as well as the audio clip, it uses a flexible braille sheet that “stamps” the pictures so that they can be recognised at a later date.
Very few details have actually been released – no price, no release, and no geographic target market have been announced as yet. I’ve got to be honest, I’m not entirely sure that any market will take to this. I can’t imagine that too many visually impaired people have always dreamed of being able to take and store digital photographs but I guess I could be wrong.
