Google shows off 'eyes-free' touchscreen dialling
Accessibility is a problem for the iPhone. With the device's lack of physical controls, it's virtually impossible for somebody who is vision-impaired to use the phone. Other touchscreen smart phones suffer from the same problem, so a few smartypants engineers at Google have come up with a clever way of dealing with the problem.
The system works by mimicking the traditional phone keypad, with the number five in the centre and the other numbers arrayed around it. But since the screen has no physical keys, the software pops up the keypad wherever the user touches it. Wherever the finger makes contact becomes a five; slide the finger upwards and release, and it's a two; slide it downwards, it's an eight, etc. The user can enter a whole phone number by tapping, sliding, and releasing, all without having to look at the screen, since wherever the user taps becomes the keypad.
