Sir, great to know about this advancement. But does this knfreader support only nokia n82?
On 5/4/08, Sanjay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The KnfbReader Mobile: > An Individual Perspective > by Michael D. Barber > ************ > From the Editor: Michael Barber is president of the NFB of Iowa. He > is also a technology specialist who works at the Iowa Department for the > Blind. He has been using the new knfbReader Mobile. Here is his report: > ************ > It is late Thursday evening, and I have just checked into my motel > room in a small Iowa town. After I get my computer set up (always a high > priority), I start looking around for printed material I know exists in > this room. For instance, I want to know what TV channels are available. I > search to the left of the TV, and there it is--a letter-sized sheet of > paper. > From my pocket I take my Nokia N82 cell phone and turn it on by > pressing a button on the top of the phone. Soon I hear the familiar Nokia > music sounds letting me know the phone is active. Then I press a button > just to the left and a bit above the five-way scroll box on the phone. I > hear a message that says, "Hello. I am the knfbReader Mobile." > Yes, that's right, reading software is now available in a small cell > phone. Ray Kurzweil, the world-acclaimed inventor, promised us six years > ago that by 2008 we would enjoy reading portability we could put in our > shirt pockets, and now it's here. It's the knfbReader Mobile, and it does > fit in my shirt pocket. > This is amazing to me considering where all this began. You see, I > remember the very first reading machine back in 1976. That machine took up > two tables and cost about $50,000. It was Ray Kurzweil who invented that > machine as a result of a conversation he had on an airplane with a blind > person who told him that, although he could accomplish many tasks > independently, it would be nice if he could read printed material on his > own. Back in those days we were impressed with a machine that could scan > and read back to us a letter, a memo, or even a book. Even then Mr. > Kurzweil was promising reading portability within the next twenty-five > years. > Years went by, and many of us will remember the Arkenstone and > Arkenclone machines, the VERA, and other systems that helped us to read the > printed page. But none of these was portable. We first saw portability as a > reality in 2005 with the advent of the Kurzweil-National Federation of the > Blind Reader. This was comprised of a standard PDA with a digital camera > attached to it. With this device we could read our mail, office memos, > printed receipts, and later U.S. currency. Portable as this was, it was > still too bulky to put into a pocket comfortably. > But now we have a truly portable reading device combined with a cell > phone. With the addition of screen-reading software such as Mobile Speaks > or Talks, it is now possible to access the other functions of the phone, > including making and receiving phone calls and managing personal > information such as names and phone numbers of contacts and appointments in > the calendar. The phone also offers an accessible GPS program, an Adobe PDF > reading program, a voice recorder, a music player, and much more. Wonderful > as it is, this particular phone, the Nokia N82, offers access to AT&T or T- > Mobile only. It will not work with Verizon, Sprint, U.S. Cellular, or other > non-GSM networks. > The Nokia N82 is about the size of a Milky Way candy bar, and unlike > too many other cell phones, its keypad is very easy to feel. The buttons > have just the right amount of space between them and are raised enough so > that they can be located easily by touch. And the phone has two gigabytes > of memory. (For those of you who may not be techno geeks like me, that's a > whale of a lot of memory.) Above the keypad is a square box, which is > called the five-way scroll box. This box contains up, down, left, right, > and enter buttons. To the left of the box is a button that activates > different functions, depending on what area of the button you press. > Pressing the top of this square button will activate the knfbReader Mobile. > Pressing the very small button on the extreme left edge of the phone will > activate the phone's Send feature. Pressing the bottom edge of the button > will bring up the phone's main menu. To the right of the five-way scroll > box is the End Call button, the top edge of which can be pressed to exit > the knfbReader Mobile. If you turn the phone around so that the back of it > is facing you, you'll find a slide switch that moves from left to right. > When this switch is moved to the left, the camera lens is closed; when it's > moved to the right, the lens is open, and you can take a picture. > Back in my motel room I position the cell phone over the page and > about a foot above it. My finger moves to the bottom edge of the five-way > scroll box, and I gently press it. knfbReader Mobile announces, "Taking > picture," followed by the sound of a camera snapping a picture. This is > followed by some fifteen seconds in which I hear periodic beeps while the > image is being processed. Then I hear the various channels available to me. > My curiosity leads me to other printed material in the room, and I learn > that, if I had forgotten my toothpaste, toothbrush, or shaving cream, all I > would have to do is to call the front desk to get help. Most important, > though, I can tell which package of coffee is not decaffeinated. > Additionally, I am able to use the reader to read the dialing instructions > on the room phone just above its keypad. > But that's not all this device is capable of. I recently visited an > ATM machine and withdrew $50. I had three bills. I knew that one was a ten- > dollar bill, but which one? All I had to do was to position the reader > above the bill and press the zero key on the keypad. A picture was taken, > and the bill was recognized as the ten I was looking for. And, by pressing > the pound key followed by the zero, I could tell whether I was looking at > the back or front of the bill and which direction it was facing. > You can customize the reader by changing the many user settings > available to you. For example, by pressing the number 7 key on the keypad, > you can enter the audio settings and change the rate, pitch, and volume of > the speech as well as changing to any installed voice. If you have some > vision, you can adjust the size of the print on the screen by pressing the > number 9 key and choosing between small, medium, and large. There is also a > setting here for turning the display off. > Thus far I've been able to read my personal mail (including bills, > junk mail, etc.), some catalogs, pages in a phone book, memos, receipts, > and business cards. As noted earlier, I've also been able to scan and > recognize various denominations of bills. Additionally, I was visiting a > financial institution very recently where I was waiting for my wife to fill > out a document. In front of me on the counter was a stack of printed > material. I almost forgot and asked my wife what they were, but then I > remembered I had my knfbReader Mobile with me and found that it was a > personal survey a person could take to see if he or she was ready for > retirement. > I have been impressed with the clarity of speech from this little > device as well as the accuracy of the optical character recognition. As > with any scanning and reading software, you do not always get 100 percent > accuracy, but in many instances it's very close. Reading catalogs or > magazines with a lot of colored text can sometimes be a challenge and may > slow down the recognition process. > So how does this device compare with Kurzweil 1000 and OpenBook, the > two desktop solutions that are in wide use today? The most obvious > comparison is that you can scan and read documents with all three systems. > You can also scan and recognize currency with all three systems. All three > systems will let you save your scanned document, but both OpenBook and > Kurzweil 1000 allow you to save your document in many different file > formats. The huge difference is portability. With both Kurzweil and > OpenBook, you must have both a computer and scanner, and neither of these > is truly portable. With the knfbReader Mobile, you have a system that truly > can be carried in a pocket. > As I think about the future of this device, I would like to see the > following: > A few more available file formats for saving documents; right now there is > only one. > The ability to send a file to yourself or someone else by email. > The ability to use a Braille display so those who are deaf-blind can enjoy > reading portability. > All in all, this is an excellent piece of technology and will prove > to be very useful to me both at home and at work. It will be very useful > for the person attending conferences or seminars where there may be > handouts. It would also be useful for the college student who goes to a > class where the instructor distributes handouts that must be read > immediately. I do not recommend using the knfbReader Mobile to recognize > money handed back to you while you're at the head of a long checkout line > at a department store or supermarket; the task of scanning each bill is > still time consuming. > Finally, I found that the excellent audio tutorial, narrated by James > Gashel, was very easy to follow and had me up and running in no time at > all. Everything you need to know about the reader to get you started > scanning documents or recognizing currency is delivered in very clear > terms. > You can obtain more information about the knfbReader Mobile, > including where to buy, directly from knfbReader Technologies. The Web > address is <http://www.knfbreader.com/products-mobile.php>. The phone > number to call is (877) 547-1500. The knfbReader Mobile sells for $2,195. > This price includes the reading software and the Nokia N82 phone but not a > calling plan or the Talks or Mobile Speak software. > > To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with > the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please > visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in > -- With wishes, D, Ramkumar PHD in English Pondicherry university-a central university To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
