Researchers at the Takao Someya Group–Organic Transistor Lab in Tokyo have developed a bendable braille display that can be incorporated into e-books, prepaid cards and household appliances.
The 4 x 4cm device is only 1mm thick and can display up to 24 letters of braille at a time. The letters can be refreshed with new text in c. 1 second. If integrated into a prepaid card, it could, for example, indicate the amount of money left on the card.
The device is a plastic film on which organic transistors, which serve as “soft electric switches,” and high polymer sheets are placed. It consumes less than 1 milliwatt of electricity, about the same amount of power needed by cellular phones and digital cameras.
The team hope to improve the product so it can display up to 576 letters at a time. The researchers aim to commercialize the device in five or six years.