Blind kids 'could sing karaoke'

Published on 19-02-2010

Summary: A Japanese business has produced a machine to help blind children sing karaoke.

Parents of visually-impaired children who would like them to try new activities could soon be able to encourage them to take up karaoke, as a Japanese company has developed a singing machine for the blind.

Nippon Telesoft Co has brought out a personal computer that is connected to the karaoke machine, with a Joysound network translating lyrics into Braille at a rate of 80 characters at a time in Italian, English, Japanese and Chinese, the Japan Times reports.

Toyoko Kawabe - who had previously brought his own Braille cards to sing or had friends whisper the words to him - road tested the new machine at a Tokyo bar.

"Now I don't need these anymore and can have great fun," he said.

Meanwhile, the company has also produced Braille graphic software - Braille Figure - that can be used in a similar way to normal drawing programmes and is compatible with Windows.

Posted by Katie Finch

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