Phil, I think you will really like your KNFB Reader once you get more used
to how it works. I also have the KNFB Reader, and was able to use it quite
effectively right from the download. I demonstrated it to our South Central
Kentucky Council of the Blind group this last Sunday. That really impressed
everyone is when I took a business card out of my pocket and told them that
I had no idea whether the card was rightside-up or upside-down. I lined up
my iPhone 5, using the "Field of View Report," which tells me if the camera
is lined up and lets me know if the iPhone is tilted one way or the other. I
snapped the picture, and the KNFB Reader read it to me almost instantly. It
read it almost perfectly, and what really impressed everyone is that the
business card was upside-down. I have some other apps on my iPhone that is
supposed to read documents, books, etc., but none of them come even close to
the accuracy and quality of the KNFB Reader. To learn all of the features
and get the maximum performance out of the app, it takes some time and
reading the instructions and practice. 

Ron, K8HSY



-----Original Message-----
From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Phil Scovell
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 7:24 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: KNFB iPhone Reader

Well, I dove in headfirst this afternoon and downloaded the KNFB OCR app for
blind users.  It definitely takes practice positioning the camera to get a
good picture before reading much is possible.  I tried a few times
experimenting taking a picture of my Icom 7000 front panel and got a couple
of words to display so that will take some work.  I pulled down off my
shelve a manual, not having any idea which one, and took a picture and
realized it was my autotuner manual so I tried the first page and got quite
a block of text.  It wasn't perfect but my positioning of the camera isn't
perfect yet either.  It has a button which tries telling you if you are
correctly lined up and which way to move to center the text before snapping
an actual picture.  I'm glad it was 100 dollars and not 500 because you know
how blind people hate paying too much for adaptive type stuff; especially
blind hams.  You know, we'll buy a 12 thousand dollar transceiver and bitch
about how expensive a coax connecter is these days, at least the last bunch
of connecters I bought a couple of years ago blew me away.  I mean, I nearly
gave up the hobby just over the couple of elbow coax connecters I needed,
haha.  I had no idea they were that expensive.  Anyhow, I'll report more as
I practice getting the camera in my phone pointed better.  I've got a
vending stand buddy who is using it at his stand on his candy machine, cases
of pop, and all sorts of paperwork.  Now, the next thing I'm going to buy,
when I can afford it, is a 70 dollar Icom software package loaded down with
tons of hot keys and with the software developer who is willing to help
blind hams, owning various Icom radios, make changes to his software and
answer his own dad blamed emails within a couple of  hours.  Try and beat
that.

Phil.
K0NX