Thousands of products hit the stores every day, but only a handful address the universal consumers to go beyond their initial production. Conceived by designer Paris Lowitz, the “Stereo for the Blind” is an innovative music player that treats both the visually impaired and the common user on equal merit. Users can adjust the volume of the player by rotating the gray textured dial back and forth. The size and the texture on the dial allow the visually impaired to differentiate between different dials. The music player makes use of SD cards, quite popularly in the blind community, to hold music and audio books. For having an SD Card slot on the device would create a convenient way for the blind to listen to the music on their home stereos. While the auxiliary input allows the blind, as well as normal users, plug in and listen to their MP3 devices through their home stereo.

[ Article Source: ParisLowitz ]

Braille definitely has given a new dimension to the life of the visually impaired; still they have to rely on the others to fulfill their day-to-day needs, for differentiation between identical objects often becomes difficult for the sight-impaired. Enhancing the value of Braille, Chinese designer Danni Luo has designed a printing device to create special embossed labels, so the visually impaired could also distinguish products with similar characteristics, such as pill bottles, CDs, files, etc., effortlessly without seeking help from others. Dubbed the “Embossing Braille Printer,” the hand-held label printer lets the users install the name or brief information of the particular product onto a 25mm x 50mm label with embossed Braille characters via a voice-recognition recorder, so the sight-impaired could avoid misidentification of analogous objects, which often leads to grave consequences.

[ Article Source : the Design Blog ]