The N900 seems like it ought to have enough horsepower to do this job, perhaps slightly slower but I don't see why the device can't be reading and scanning at the same time. N900 has a 5MP, I'm sure a future iPhone will have an acceptable camera... et cetera. I'm curious if there's audio feedback to tell you if you're correctly framing the page.
The N900 seems like it ought to have enough horsepower to do this job
Unfortunately, since an N900 can do other things as well, disability coverage won't pay for it. Insurers demand assistive devices be single-function, even if the devices have to be crippled to comply.
Will it pay for the software, at least? The devices themselves are available as low as $549 (newegg maybe? geeks? I forget, probably the former) without a contract. I imagine you could get one pretty reasonably with a plan. Lots of people have cellphones these days, and it has a keyboard so it could conceivably be made fairly accessible if it isn't already. (not to mention that whole running Linux thing)
I believe yes, the software is covered and is similarly expensive. I can't remember which phone it is for, but for one of the high end Nokia phones, a blind friend of mine was showing me some beta software he was testing. It not only did what this Intel device claims to do, but it would also correctly OCR pictures of signs. This is actually a quite a bit more difficult problem given 3D distortions and other imaging issues. It did cost about $1,000 though. One pretty cool thing for blind people was that it c
In Canada, the Federal government pays two-thirds of the cost of assistive medical devices, so the companies who manufacture and sell these items automatically triple the prices.
Actually, this isn't even a thing of the future. I know a blind person who already has an application which does exactly this on his Nokia phone. He can use it to read signs on the street, letters in his mailbox and basically any text he captures with the camera on his phone.
The N82 is already doing this, with software called the KNFB reader. The big issue with porting the KNFB Reader over to other phones is that, while some of them have a 5MP camera, none of them have a good enough flash. I'm not totally clear on why that's an issue, but apparently it is. I keep the phone close enough to the source (book/paper/whatever) that I don't really know why it wants the flash all the time, but it decides to use it in nearly every shot. The only time I didn't hear the flash activate
If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.
-- Albert Einstein
Seems like a future iPhone, N900, etc. app (Score:5, Interesting)
The N900 seems like it ought to have enough horsepower to do this job, perhaps slightly slower but I don't see why the device can't be reading and scanning at the same time. N900 has a 5MP, I'm sure a future iPhone will have an acceptable camera... et cetera. I'm curious if there's audio feedback to tell you if you're correctly framing the page.
Re:Seems like a future iPhone, N900, etc. app (Score:5, Interesting)
The N900 seems like it ought to have enough horsepower to do this job
Unfortunately, since an N900 can do other things as well, disability coverage won't pay for it. Insurers demand assistive devices be single-function, even if the devices have to be crippled to comply.
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Will it pay for the software, at least? The devices themselves are available as low as $549 (newegg maybe? geeks? I forget, probably the former) without a contract. I imagine you could get one pretty reasonably with a plan. Lots of people have cellphones these days, and it has a keyboard so it could conceivably be made fairly accessible if it isn't already. (not to mention that whole running Linux thing)
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It will be priced what the market can bear, and if the market has assisted purchasing power via insurance, the price will account for that.
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I'm curious if there's audio feedback to tell you if you're correctly framing the page.
I sure hope so...with these figures
The device won't be speedy: "Intel says it takes about 30 seconds to process each page of text
I'd sure be pissed to wait 30 seconds only to hear "Page 3 of 7"
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Someone should write an app to do "computer assisted sonar" for blind people :).
So that they can more easily do what this kid does: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=089A83C0200FE020 [youtube.com]
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They already have:
http://www.seeingwithsound.com/ [seeingwithsound.com]
Doesn't work for me, though; just not practical.
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The N82 is already doing this, with software called the KNFB reader. The big issue with porting the KNFB Reader over to other phones is that, while some of them have a 5MP camera, none of them have a good enough flash. I'm not totally clear on why that's an issue, but apparently it is. I keep the phone close enough to the source (book/paper/whatever) that I don't really know why it wants the flash all the time, but it decides to use it in nearly every shot. The only time I didn't hear the flash activate