
SEOUL -- Since Apple's Steve Jobs launched the iPhone 10 years ago, smartphones have changed people's lives drastically. For many, it is now hard to imagine living without a device that, as well as making calls, allows you to connect with friends online, search for news, check the weather and watch movies.
However, at least one group of people has been unable to fully participate in the smartphone revolution -- the visually-impaired. Eric Kim, chief executive of South Korean startup Dot, recognized this imbalance. In South Korea, 253,000 people were registered as visually-impaired in 2015, according to data from Statistics Korea. And with some 285 million visually-impaired people registered around the world, Kim realized there was a market to bring a more appropriate device to them.