The 25mm x 50mm labels produced by this printer are intended to simplify the identification of similarly shaped or sized objects. Understandably, the designer appears to focus on the potential applications in identifying prescription medication bottles in particular. Being fortunate enough to only require minor vision correction, I can't even imagine how someone could identify medications without sight: the containers are nearly identical and there are plenty of pills that would feel the same. While this concept could save lives by preventing accidental overdoses, the applications seem limitless:

• Which socks go together?
• What's the color of those pants?
• Before you open the bag, are those BBQ-flavored chips or Cheetos?
• What's in that box? Ultra-ribbed or Her Pleasure?
• Which cat is that? Dizzy or Angel?

We could probably justify a label for everything in the house, inanimate or not. What would be the first thing you'd label? [Coroflot via Core77]

This particular concept was designed by Seon-Keun Park, Byung-Min Woo, Sun-Hye Woo & Jin-Sun Park, and it uses an electroactive polymer to raise the braille dots when a charge is passed through certain areas of the screen.

And for those familiar with braille, it's probably easier than listening to Kindle's disputed text-to-speech robot.

[Yanko Design]

The 4G iPod nano features an optional spoken interface to help with audio navigation, and the new hardware includes blind-friendly features like the “shake to shuffle” function (we were wondering who that was for!). Apple's new mic-integrated headphones provide tactile controls on the cable, and can also be used to receive vocal commands. But most importantly, Apple has promised in this agreement to flesh out its compatibility and make iTunes 8 and iTunes U 100% accessible for the blind by the end of the year, as well as donating $250,000 to the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind. As much as I rail against Apple, this is a really worthwhile cause and makes me feel pretty warm and fuzzy towards the White Overlords. [AppleInsider]

Noriaki lowered the B&D's cost by building it's chassis out of cardboard (the entire thing can be put together yourself), and by running its braille lettering program off an open source platform. I'm not completely sure how this technology helps deaf people any more regular phones, but it's a cool concept for helping out the visually impaired. [B&D Messenger via Tuvie]

Chueh Lee claims that using their unusually acute sense of hearing, visually impaired individuals will be able to effectively target their photographic subject, and that placing the camera on their forehead will render the best results. It may look slightly hilarious, but bringing a previously inaccessible tools and hobbies to people who were previously denied them puts this design concept head and shoulders above most of the mockups we see floating around the tubes. Hopefully Mr. Lee can get a little backing from his pals at Samsung to see this one through. [Yanko]

The catch? The material that the concept uses is Magneclay...which, like the computer, is conceptual only.
[yankodesign]

Not just for loved ones, designer Klara Jirkova says the implants could be placed in the fleshy part of your hand between forefinger and thumb, so that blind people could identify one another while shaking hands.

I am down with the tattoo concept, though I imagine it can really only be appreciated by bona fide blind people, as Johnny Depp's famous "Winona Forever" tat would just look like a rash in need of some serious cortisone cream. [Underwire]

They have two layers of high viscosity ink that creates 0.1mm Braille bumps in order to easily identify a disc just by feel. Since they've perfected it on CDs, it should be pretty easy to port to DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD as well. The Braille is pre-written, so you can't label your Boner Jams '08 discs yourself, but you can correlate whatever's written on there to whatever you've burned.

Why they didn't think of this sooner is anyone's guess. [M-Kagaku via Cool Hunting via Sci Fi]

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.

blind reader-translate letter to Braille - "bridge" [Via SCI FI, Yanko]

P.S. Welcome back, YankoDesign. Yanko is a favorite design blog of mine that had been on hiatus for a couple months, but is now back in full force.

Samsung only has this as a prototype for now, but if they want to commercialize it, the seriously under-served market would be most grateful. – Jason Chen

Samsung's Braille phone wins gold at IDEA 2006 [PDA Live]