Wouldn’t it be great if the unfortunates who lost their sight could read regularly printed text as well? Enter the Blind Reader. It scans printed text like a regular handheld scanner and translates it to Braille on its special screen for the blind to touch.

It is still in the stage of concept design, by a Chinese company named Togo. But, they have all the inner workings worked out:

The braille screen works with electromagnetic or piezoelectric principles. When the current or voltage goes through every array of six stitches, the resulting rise and decline gives birth to braille. The product scans the original printed matter, then translates the images into analog electrical signals with an optical-to-electrical transducer. Finally, it translates the analog electrical signal into a digital signal.

For the benefit of all the blinds in the world, they really should make it happen. At the same time, make it work with LCDs too, so they could explore the wonderful blogosphere too!