The Latest Frontier in Tactile Technologies

<p class="p1">This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss.</p> <p class="p1">Close your eyes. Raise your hands. Reach out and touch the nearest surface. What are you touching? A desktop, a leather steering wheel cover, a porcelain cup, a plastic keyboard? Our sense of touch and the way in which we interpret the materials in our environment are fundamental to our experience of the world.</p> <p class="p1">This episode’s big idea is the new developments in tactile technologies. You’re probably familiar with one of the oldest technologies, Braille, which was invented in 1824 by Louis Braille, a Frenchman who was blind by the age of three. Braille, which has undergone numerous refinements since its invention, has led the way in helping people who are blind read, write, and interact with the world around them. But as useful as Braille is, it has its limits: Braille is used for text; it can’t convey images. Two individuals who are working to develop technologies that will one day help people with vision impairment to experience images and graphics are material scientist Dr. Julia R. Greer from Caltech and physicist Dr. John Gardner from Oregon State University.</p> <p class="p2"> </p> <p class="p1"><strong>The Big Takeaways:</strong></p> <ul class="ul1"> <li class="li1">Did you know most people who are blind still don’t have access to good graphic descriptions? When Dr. John Gardner suddenly and unexpectedly lost his eyesight, he realized he could not see wave graphs in his research. He was unable to teach the concepts in the lectures to his students because they were too inexperienced to know how to interpret the graphs. He had to fax his research to a select number of experts to help him interpret the graphical data accurately. Eventually, Dr. Gardner came to develop a product called Tiger Software that, working with an embosser, enabled him to read with his hands — and ultimately carry on his work.</li> <li class="li1">Braille books are expensive and they take