Japanese firm unveils a miniature portable keyboard that helps blind people take notes by listening to the sounds of the characters they punch in.

The battery-operated keyboard weighs 500 grams, or just over one pound. The device includes an M.P.3. player that keeps the data on memory so it can be transferred to a computer.

Created by three researchers at the ‘Yazaki’ electronics’ company, the keyboard differs from other devices as it does not rely on Braille script and can be used without being attached to a computer.

The user presses combinations of buttons to type in characters either in Japanese, Chinese or Roman script. These are converted to speech by the 50-by-10 centimeter (20-by-four inch) machine.

"Its input mode is based on combinations of only six keys," said Tadashi Iwata, one of the keyboard's designers, who is blind. "You press on one or simultaneously two, three, four, five or six keys for each character," he said.

Researchers spent two years to invent the device. It is expected to hit the market in the first half of 2008 at a price of 200,000 yen (1,750 dollars) or approximately Rupees 78,750.