Turn the normal laser printer to be braille-embossed printer and make the blind people be able to print braille documents by themselves and read at home with no limitation. To make this happen, Touchable Ink, the world-first printing ink invented exclusively for blind people is the game changer.

Samsung, the Chemistry professor from Thammasat University and Thailand Association of the Blind are collaborating to research, develop and have come up with innovative solution called “Touchable Ink” by adding embossing powder to the laser printing ink through chemical process. The users just simply replace the Touchable Ink cartridge to the current one, change the selected document to braille font type, print out and heat it with normal household heating devices like microwave or hair dryer. This special link will dilate and give an embossed effect, just like it’s printed out from the braille embosser and allow the blind people to be able to read by their fingers. We are now at the beginning of the journey, working hard is still in progress but we never stop and aim to complete it to give the life opportunity to all blind people.

The first test on printed papers with touchable ink have been done with the selected visually impaired samplings from Thailand Association of Blind, more than 90% of them said it’s readable and no different from braille embosser’s one. With this innovation, they said it will help improve their quality of living since they can be independent and live on their own freely, no need to wait for help from others. However, this is just the very beginning of the journey. We aim to develop and release it out to market as soon as possible. We hope it will significantly revolutionize how Braille text and drawings are produced when it’s no longer needed the expensive machine and paper and allow everyone to be able to access freely.

In Thailand, the visually impaired people have been usually perceived to be incompetent. In fact, they have their own strength and abilities to do, learn and create many things by themselves. They just need little help.

Touchable Ink is not just an advertising message but a key to unlock their barriers and free their visualization to be able to read and learn the world by themselves.

The Touchable Ink can make changes to blind people and also enhance the image of corporate brand at the same time.

Samsung, as the leading company in Consumer Electronics & Innovation in the world, what we always do is to make things that can change the better living for people in the society under our belief “Accelerating Discoveries and Possibilities”. Touchable Ink is not just an advertising message but it’s a key for visually impaired people to unlock their barrier and free their visualization to be able to read and learn the world by themselves.

Nowadays, many different kinds of technology have been innovated to help blind people to visualize the world, from mobile app, virtual pencil, watch to glasses. However, these technologies have limitation to provide simple requirement they truly want – to be able to read by themselves with their fingers. Only basic device that allow them to do is the ‘braille embosser’ and print on special paper to produce Braille text based document but it’s incredibly expensive and limited to access. Therefore, is there any possibility to commoditize the braille embosser so the blind people can simply afford and access to?