Talking Handheld Camera For The Blind

The Kurzweil-NFB Reader, a hybrid state-of-the-art digital camera and personal data assistant, enables the blind and those who have difficulty seeing to take pictures of and read most printed materials at the click of a button.

NFB and famed inventor Ray Kurzweil (he received the National Medal of Technology from President Clinton in 1999 and has been referred to by Bill Gates as “the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence”) unveiled the world’s first handheld electronic reader.

The device works by integrating the best available character recognition software together with text-to-speech conversion technology – in to a single, handheld device.

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 can handle 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.

The National Federation of the Blind helped fund the development and production of the Reader and helped plan and design it, especially with respect to the user interface. As many as 500 NFB “Pioneers” have tested and influenced the design of the Reader.

So others don’t have to know what you’re looking at, the Reader has a headphone jack built in.

Readers go on sale at the National Federation of the Blind convention beginning July 1, 2006, with an expected list price $3,495.

As full brochure is available as a PDF document, and more details can be found at http://www.knfbreader.com

Source: RNIB Press release

Some Related Posts...

• E-Slick e-book reader
• Nook Goes Touch Screen
• Kindle gets competition with the Pixelar
• Sony Reader Digital Book
• Sony Reader – The iPod of text

Tags: