September 13, 2005
A phone which can read English
Phoneyworld reports on Sanyo's recently launched "W31SA II" model, which comes with a built-in music player and OCR (Optical Character Recognition).
"Surround stereo speakers allow users to listen to music without any ear phones. But the real magic of this new model is in its 1.3 megapixel camera. This baby is not content with just taking photographs like her competitors. She has OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software built into her. This means that you take a snap of anything that has been written down, for an example a telephone directory and the W31SAII will handle the rest. The camera even has QR recognition systems".
Related articles:
-- Hitachi Develops Camera Phone Software That Reads Japanese - Hitachi Ltd. has created OCR (optical character recognition) software for camera phones that could open up a new range of services.
-- SpeechGear translates documents and street signs - The Office of Naval Research (ONR) thinks the gizmos can be put to good use serving as near-instant translators for documents and street signs, using optical-character-recognition software and translation databases to see what's being said.
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