Okay, this is really too awesome not to mention.
ANN has a short feature up about a group called the Illustrated Braille Club, who translate manga like Chibi Maruko-chan into Braille for blind readers.
“But how is that worth anything?” you ask. “They can’t see the pictures!” But oh, you’re so so wrong. the system actually uses raised dots for the illustrations so that they can be “seen” with a finger. Which is a really awesome idea.
I don’t know much about blindness; it seems to me like even made readable via raised dots the images may only have meaning for those who weren’t born blind, e.g. those who have seen and can interpet the pictures. (Correct me in the comments if I’m wrong, by all means, since again, I don’t know much about it.) But it’s still a really cool thing to do.
Tags: braille, chibi-maruko-chan, illustrated-braille-club