Image credit – L. Mahadevan/Harvard SEAS

Ebooks have an advantage over physical books in the sense that with a single device like a Kindle, you could store hundreds if not thousands of books, making it easier to carry your entire library with you on the go. However there are some who prefer reading physical books, just like how there might be some who are visually impaired might prefer “reading” on a braille book.

Unfortunately braille books lack portability, but thanks to researchers at Harvard, they have created what they are calling “reprogrammable” braille (via Engadget) that could help shrink its size. According to the researchers, “First, the thin elastic shell – shaped like a slightly curved ruler — is compressed by a force on each end.”

“Then, indents are made using a simple stylus, in much the same way that the pages of a traditional Braille book are printed. The shell will “remember” the indent when the force is no longer applied and the indent can be erased by stretching the shell back out.” According to L. Mahadevan, the senior author of the study, “Simple experiments with cylindrical and spherical shells show that we can control the number, location, and the temporal order of these dimples which can be written and erased at will.”

However it should be noted that this is still in the early stages of development, but in the future with this discovery, it is possible that books that use braille could be made considerably thinner.

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