Tachiphone - abstract

The Tachiphone is a mobile phone software system for the deafblind
developed by the Welfare Systems Research Association, Japan.

For most of us, mobile phones are function-rich and easy to use 
everyday communication tools.
However, for the deafblind they are normally useless
because the popular technology focuses on audio and video.

To neither see nor hear limits receptive
communication to being directly touched.
Telecommunication becomes difficult.

The Tachiphone uses the mobile phone keypad to input
Braille or Morse code, and the phone vibrator to output 
serialized Braille or Morse code. Therefore with adequate 
training the Tachiphone can be used for telecommunication
by the deafblind using touch (haptics, tactile sensation) only.

The encoding method is location and language independent
as inherited from the underlying Braille and Morse work.

Phone-resident applets and a dedicated server implement
the Tachiphone system. There are no hardware changes to
the off-the-shelf phones.

For technical and carrier policy reasons, the Tachiphone
at present is available only on the Softbank/Vodafone network.
Not all phones are suitable.

The Tachiphone project was made possible by a substantial grant
by late Mrs Nobuko Tachi and is rightfully named after her, 
playing on the pseudo-homophone "touch" so essential to
the deafblind.

We gratefully acknowledge goodwill by KDDI-au, NTT-docomo,
and an effective grant of communication fees by Softbank.


note / request:
At the time of this writing (20090701) this is work in progress.
Anything you are reading here may already be obsolete.
If you are interested in the Tachiphone please contact
any of us or join one of our meetings.

http://www.wesranet.com/tachiphone/