June 27, 2006
The Talking Camera. For the visually impaired
Not a camera phone, but interesting and who knows, maybe someday this device will be a phone too.
Gizmag reports on a talking camera launched by the National Federation of the Blind for the blind or visually impaired.
Its called the Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader and combines a digital camera with character recognition software and with text-to-speech conversion technology.
Users need only hold the Reader over print-a restaurant menu, an airline ticket, a business card, a school assignment, an office memo-and in seconds they hear the contents of the printed document played back in clear synthetic speech.
... The Reader reads most printed documents, address labels, package information, and instructions with ease. It offers readers a choice of hearing a full page, or just a few lines for identification purposes."
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