
Wireless Braille Keyboard Empowers Visually Impaired Users

Robotiker-Tecnalia has designed a wireless Braille keyboard for ONCE (the Spanish National Association for the Blind) which is compact and incorporates bluetooth technology. The design is such that it enables visually impaired persons (more than 80,000 in Spain and more than a million in Europe) to use this communication interface with a number of current appliances and devices, such as PCs and PDA / Pocket PCs or mobile cell phones.
Thus, those persons with a visual disablement will have a portable device which facilitates communication and which, apart from being easily transportable, incorporates bluetooth and infrared wireless technology and has an ergonomic design which makes it user-friendly.
The device will be on sale shortly and it is hoped that it will be highly popular amongst users, given the lack of this type of tool on the market.