Keller's Meld

A Text-to-Tactile-Morse system.

"From that moment, I understood the direct pathway [..] to freedom."

An Open Proposal to Whom It May Concern

To experimentally survey the viability of relegating content consumption to passive, and often non-primary, focus through sensory touch as emergent tasks tap into and out of sensory bandwidth (i.e., sight, hearing, and active touch).

This is envisioned to be accomplished with a small, vibrating motor disc affixed inconspicuously to the user's skin (hand, waistline, or where choose you) transmitting textual data by rhythmic, Morse code-keyed pulsations.

Prototyping efforts and proofs of concept may aim to implement support for:

• unencumbered eBook formats (for discreet Dark Arts attainment, a la Frederick Douglass)
• submission-discussion forums (for always-on always-connectedness, a la your tween-aged loved ones, I mean the Borg Collective ..nevermind.)

Milestones beyond proof-of-concept

• transcribed material (i.e., documentaries and podcasts)
• encumbered standards (eBooks and such), via commercial pursuits and licensing arrangements
• pulling live updates from monitored channels (RSS, alerting policies)
• your favorite blog, newsletter, or other publishing platform
• doomscrolling (doomtouching?)

Hardware Brainstorm

Development Variant

• STM
• DRV2605L Haptic Motor Controller
• Vibrating motor disc
• Bluetooth LE module, if not built in

Other Candidate Hardware

• Some single-board computer of sorts
• Adafruit
• STM
• Pi Zero
• hackable or reverse-engineered adult toy

Stretch Goals

• general-purpose IO for mobile devices (texting, $#!+posting)
• further IO augmentation with effects and intensity (menu/state navigation)
• passive consumption of advertisments (eek!)