With This Braille Kindle, Blind People Can Read Their Favorite E-Books

The development of technology should not be measured by the degree of convenience it offers to the rest of us, but by how it can improve the life of those who are underprivileged.

This British company plans to achieve this by creating an e-reader for blind people.

Bristol Braille Technology has released a device called the Canute 360 that allows blind people to read e-books. People also call it "Kindle for the blind." IT works just like the ever-popular Kindle from Amazon, except that it is designed for vision-impaired people.

For people with eye disabilities, if they want to read a book, the need to get the Braille version of it, which is quite hard to find. Moreover, a physical Braille book is much heavier and bigger than ordinary books that we can normally choose to read either on our smartphones or tablets.

Canute 360 is about the same size as an average computer keyboard. It is capable of displaying at a maximum of 360 characters, which is equivalent to 9 text lines. It has retractable pins sticking up to form Braille characters. Each time the readers complete that line, they can press the forward button so that the characters change into those of the next line.

Any book that has been converted into Braille can be downloaded onto the Canute 360 for reading.

According to research, because of the development of sound technology, the number of blind readers capable of reading Braille has gradually decreased in recent years. The blind can definitely listen to audiobooks even though they cannot read. Bristol Braille believes that learning Braille helps increase the literacy rates of the blind.

Canute 360 will have a price of a high-end laptop and will be officially put into production this year.