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OwnFone
London-based company OwnFone makes an entire line of personalized mobile phones, including ones marketed to children and seniors. Now it’s 3D-printing what it says is the world’s first commercially available braille phone.
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Like their other phones, these credit-card-sized devices don’t have screens and their buttons need to be customized with the user’s important contacts before purchase. The phone is available with either two or four contacts, and there’s an option to include an emergency number, 999 in the UK, on the phone.
“3D printing… provides a fast and cost-effective way to create personalised braille buttons,” OwnFone inventor Tom Sunderland told BBC News. “This is the first phone to have a 3D printed keypad and for people that can’t read braille, we can print texture and raised text on the phone.”
The braille phones sell for about £60 ($100, AU$108) and are currently only available in the UK and Australia, though the company plans to expand internationally in the future. OwnFone also offers monthly prepaid phone plans that range between £7.50 and £15.
You can design yours at the OwnFone website.
This little guy, a sight-impaired boy named Will, approves wholeheartedly of his new tactile phone. Priceless.
(Via Adafruit Industries)
