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Design your own 3D-printed braille phone

As we begin to scratch the surface of 3D-printing tech, OwnFone is ahead of the pack with its braille mobile phone.

Rusty Blazenhoff
Rusty Blazenhoff has been deeply involved in cyberculture for more than 20 years, and immersed in pop culture since getting her first copy of Dynamite magazine. She loves kitsch, quirky artifacts of Americana, and enjoying island life in Alameda, Calif., with her daughter. She makes a mean Fluffernutter.
Rusty Blazenhoff

Braille Phone
OwnFone

London-based company OwnFone makes an entire line of personalized mobile phones, including ones marketed to children and seniors. Now it's 3D-printing what it says is the world's first commercially available braille phone.

Like their other phones, these credit-card-sized devices don't have screens and their buttons need to be customized with the user's important contacts before purchase. The phone is available with either two or four contacts, and there's an option to include an emergency number, 999 in the UK, on the phone.

"3D printing... provides a fast and cost-effective way to create personalised braille buttons," OwnFone inventor Tom Sunderland told BBC News. "This is the first phone to have a 3D printed keypad and for people that can't read braille, we can print texture and raised text on the phone."

The braille phones sell for about £60 ($100, AU$108) and are currently only available in the UK and Australia, though the company plans to expand internationally in the future. OwnFone also offers monthly prepaid phone plans that range between £7.50 and £15.

You can design yours at the OwnFone website.

This little guy, a sight-impaired boy named Will, approves wholeheartedly of his new tactile phone. Priceless.

(Via Adafruit Industries)