June 30, 2006. Copyright 2006, Graphic News. All rights reserved

The pocket scanner that says what it reads
By Mark Rutter
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LONDON, June 30, Graphic News: ItÕs been almost 200 years since the birth of Louis Braille near Paris in 1809. He went on to create the system of raised dots used today for reading and writing by millions of blind and partially sighted people worldwide. Now, modern technology looks like offering a useful alternative. Researchers have succeeded in linking a PDA to a digital camera to produce a portable device capable of reading out printed text to the user.
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Emerging from a collaboration between inventor Ray Kurzweil and the US National Federation of the Blind, the text reader has been christened the K-NFB. Kurzweil is known for his work in developing optical character recognition systems. He invented the first text-to-speech device in 1981, although the technology available at the time meant that it was about the size of an office photocopier and not suitable for moving around the room, let alone carrying around in your pocket. The device was gradually improved, particularly in the 1990s with the development of  PCs and scanners. But, miniaturisation has only been possible with the advent of high quality digital photography and more powerful PDAs in the last few years.
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The reader is expected to go on sale in July at a cost of about £2,625 in the UK or $3,500 in the US. This high price tag reflects the expense andÊtime taken to develop the character-recognition and text-to-speech software rather than the cost of the PDA or digital camera. Short for personal digital assistant, the PDA is a portable electronic personal organizer. PDAs, also known as handhelds or palmtops, have evolved over the years and can now run multimedia software and are often combined with mobile phones and other electronic gadgets. However, PDAs are still far less powerful than a PC, so this component does limit the capability of the K-NFB somewhat.
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The new device will read most printed materials, including instructions on medicine and food packaging, restaurant menus and safety notices. It works by firstly describing the overall picture of what it sees. The user then decides whether to take a picture. After a few seconds to process the image, the user can hear the contents read aloud either through the supplied headphones or via Bluetooth speakers. Initial feedback from trials carried out among hundreds of blind people has been very positive. Although the device is not yet perfect Ð it occasionally misses out or mispronounces words Ð for a large number of visually impaired people it does promise to substantially increase their independence and improve their quality of life. Furthermore, Kurzweil predicts that additional refinements could not only shrink the device to the size of a small badge, but also enable it to ÔseeÕ its surroundings and transmit information on objects in the vicinity of the user.
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It was more than a century after its invention before Braille was widely accepted as a great way for the blind to read and write. With an estimated 2.6% of the worldÕs population visually impaired and 0.6% completely blind, it may be that the text reader catches on a little quicker.
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