There are over 285 million?visually?impaired?people in the world, and some of these lives are about to get a lot better.
世界上有超過2億8千5百萬視覺受損人群，然而，他們中一些人的生活品質(zhì)即將大有改善。

South Korean developer Dot has produced the world’s first Braille smartwatch, and its features are just what you’d expect from a 21st century device.
近日，韓國開發(fā)團(tuán)隊(duì)“多特”推出了首只“布萊葉”（法國盲人教育家、盲文點(diǎn)寫法設(shè)計(jì)者之名）智能手表，其功能毫不遜色于21世紀(jì)任何一款電子設(shè)備。

The Dot displays information using 4 active dynamic Braille cells, and its users can select the speed at which the characters update.
“多特”團(tuán)隊(duì)運(yùn)用4種“布萊葉”動態(tài)單元傳遞信息，其使用者可以自行選擇字符更新的速度。

The Dot connects to a smartphone via Bluetooth (just like any other smartwatch) and can receive any text from any app or service (think Messenger, directions from Google Maps, etc.).
“多特”手表可經(jīng)藍(lán)牙連接智能手機(jī)（智能手表貌似都可以），并能接收到所有應(yīng)用程序（諸如飛書信，谷歌地圖等等）發(fā)出的信息。

Users can also send simple messages using its buttons on the side. The Dot also supports Open API, which means that anyone can develop or adapt apps for it.
使用者還可以用手表側(cè)面的按鈕發(fā)送一些簡單的信息。而“多特”團(tuán)隊(duì)還創(chuàng)立了開放平臺，也就是說人人都能為這款手表開發(fā)定制應(yīng)用軟件。

Various digital devices for the blind have been around for some time now, but the vast majority of them use sound.
如今，為盲人研制的電子設(shè)備五花八門，但其中大多只在聲音上下功夫。

This creates problems, because either a user has to plug in headphones and detach from surrounding sounds (that are vital to blind people), or make their information public.
這樣一來，許多問題接踵而至。有的設(shè)備要求使用者塞上耳機(jī)，與周遭的聲音相隔絕（于盲人而言，這無疑是致命的），有的設(shè)備則將使用者的信息公之于眾。

Also, existing digital Braille reading devices are mostly bulky and expensive – only about 5% of visually impaired people own one.
此外，現(xiàn)有的“布萊葉”數(shù)字閱讀設(shè)備大多又笨重又昂貴，僅能惠及百分之五左右的視覺受損人士。

The Dot smartwatch has been in development for 3 years, and the company will finally start delivering its devices to some 140,000 backers (they also claim that Stevie Wonder is one of them).
“多特”智能手表現(xiàn)已開發(fā)有三年之久，該公司最終決定為約14萬支持者提供設(shè)備（據(jù)稱，黑人音樂家史蒂夫·旺達(dá)也是其中一員）。

（翻譯：Rory）

聲明：本雙語文章的中文翻譯系滬江英語原創(chuàng)內(nèi)容，轉(zhuǎn)載請注明出處。中文翻譯僅代表譯者個(gè)人觀點(diǎn)，僅供參考。如有不妥之處，歡迎指正。