A DEVICE that pinches and stretches the skin on the fingertips, rather than prodding and poking it, could revolutionise the way blind people access graphs and maps.
Current electronic Braille displays work by raising and lowering an array of pins to form individual characters. But the actuators needed to move the pins up and down are bulky because they need to be powerful enough to resist the pressure exerted by the finger. The size of the these actuators means that only 16 pins can fit into a square centimetre, severely limiting a display’s ability to represent images.
Now a team…
