haptica, it’s a watch.

well i know it has been SUCH a long time since i last posted ( a whole… like 8 hours…) and i was thinking that i wanted to share this thing here. i found out about it from "tech crunch" a blog i have been reading recently about technology. alot of it is ok, and some of it is very good. so anyway. a few weeks ago they ran a post about a kickstarter project haptica. i don’t want to go into all these details that are clearly veiwable by click the aforementioned links, that would be redundant of me. however i do wish to expess my desire for this project to succeed. This watch firstly, is incredibly obvious. i can not believe that such a thing does not already exist. sure they would have been either much more bulky, or much more complicated (read expensive) but that isn’t to say not fuctional or possible. and now i see this implementation of such a device as, antiquated. really there is no reason for them to be using such a mechanical method for displaying the time. we now have Electroactive Polymers which change their shape when electricity is applyed to them. this technology while far from complete, is avalibal, and is probably where the future is for all braille displays. already there are concept designs for touch phones with this technology and they look amazing. this watch looks good, but how much cooler would it be if it was one flat white surface where the bumps raise and lower themselves in the middle. also such a technology would allow for further functionality, like on current watches, stop watch function, timer, etc. but still it is amazing to me that all current watches for the blind go out of their way to not use braille. like there are many watches that feature tactile displays of one form or another, but none use braille. that would be like all the watches in the world using binary leds, and someone coming up with the idea one day, "why not make a watch that uses our standard writing system for numbers?" binary is the way it is encoded inside the device, we reinterpret those signals. so what if the maker cant use his invention because he doesn’t read braille.. anyway. ya. this watch it is cool and stuff, even though it probably sounds like i am bashing on it, i do think it is a great device that needs to be made so that people will improve on it. there was something else about the watch that i was unnerved about but i can’t remember what. anyway… that is about all for now, i guess.

Bye-Q

~ by Robopanda333 on February 16, 2011.