There are over 285 million visually impaired people in the world, and some of these lives are about to get a lot better.

世界上有超过2亿8千5百万视觉受损人群，然而，他们中一些人的生活品质即将大有改善。

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，韩国开发团队“多特”推出了首只“布莱叶”（法国盲人教育家、盲文点写法设计者之名）智能手表，其功能毫不逊色于21世纪任何一款电子设备。

The Dot displays information using 4 active dynamic Braille cells, and its users can select the speed at which the characters update.

“多特”团队运用4种“布莱叶”动态单元传递信息，其使用者可以自行选择字符更新的速度。

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”手表可经蓝牙连接智能手机（智能手表貌似都可以），并能接收到所有应用程序（诸如飞书信，谷歌地图等等）发出的信息。

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.

使用者还可以用手表侧面的按钮发送一些简单的信息。而“多特”团队还创立了开放平台，也就是说人人都能为这款手表开发定制应用软件。

Various digital devices for the blind have been around for some time now, but the vast majority of them use sound.

如今，为盲人研制的电子设备五花八门，但其中大多只在声音上下功夫。

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.

这样一来，许多问题接踵而至。有的设备要求使用者塞上耳机，与周遭的声音相隔绝（于盲人而言，这无疑是致命的），有的设备则将使用者的信息公之于众。

Also, existing digital Braille reading devices are mostly bulky and expensive – only about 5% of visually impaired people own one.

此外，现有的“布莱叶”数字阅读设备大多又笨重又昂贵，仅能惠及百分之五左右的视觉受损人士。

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”智能手表现已开发有三年之久，该公司最终决定为约14万支持者提供设备（据称，黑人音乐家史蒂夫·旺达也是其中一员）。

（翻译：Rory）