> 
> 
> Baltimore Sun, Maryland
> Friday, April 14, 2006
> Kurzweil-NFb Reader: Device provides words to live by
> Frank D. Roylance
> Hand-held reader that can convert text into synthesized speech may
> increase independence for the visually impaired
> Not long ago, James Gashel was on Capitol Hill, waiting for a meeting to
> start, when he realized that he needed some numbers from a chart he was
> carrying.
> That was a problem. Gashel is blind, and so was his companion. And the
> chart was not in Braille. Gashel was reaching for his cell phone to call
> someone at his office to retrieve the numbers, when his colleague
> stopped him.
> "Why don't you try the reader?" he asked.
> Of course.
> Gashel, an executive at the National Federation for the Blind in
> Baltimore, was carrying the world's first hand-held reading machine for
> the blind - just developed by NFb in collaboration with Kurzweil
> Technologies Inc. of Wellesley, Mass.
> Combining a 5-megapixel digital camera with a personal digital
> assistant, or PDA, the 13-ounce Kurzweil-NFB Reader converts digital
> images of text into synthesized speech.
> Gashel pulled out his reader, snapped a picture of the chart, "and
> within a minute I had the numbers I wanted," he said. And he didn't have
> to bother anyone else to get them.
> Now in final field tests before its release for sale by Kurzweil this
> summer, the device was officially unveiled last week at ceremonies at
> NFB headquarters in South Baltimore.
> Thanks to the new reader, Gashel and 75 other blind product testers
> across the country are sorting through their own mail, reading
> restaurant menus, identifying packages in the freezer by the labels and
> discovering many other tasks they can now do without assistance.
> It's liberating, Gashel said. "You start to think about your
> capabilities differently."
> In addition to many of the nation's 1.3 million blind people, he also
> predicts a demand from older people with failing eyesight, and young
> people with dyslexia or learning disabilities.
> The NFB's collaboration with Kurzweil began more than 30 years ago, when
> founder Ray Kurzweil, a pioneer of character recognition and
> text-to-speech devices, came to the federation's offices, then in
> Washington.
> He had developed the first Kurzweil Reading Machine. The size of an
> office copier, it could scan a document and read it in a synthetic human
> voice.
> "That was very revolutionary," Gashel said. Until then, blind people
> were pretty much limited to live readers, or the limited number of
> publications available on tape or records, or transcribed into Braille.
> The Kurzweil reader was big and expensive - $50,000 each, Gashel said.
> It couldn't read photocopied matter and it had problems with pages
> crowded with pictures.
> But it was clearly a breakthrough. So the NFB bought six, and began
> working with Kurzweil to improve them. "This was the first time an
> inventor of a product had ever come directly to us," seeking input from
> the blind in the development of an "access" machine, Gashel said.
> Eventually, Kurzweil began to sell improved versions to schools,
> libraries and rehabilitation agencies. But even though prices fell over
> the years, the reader remained too costly for individuals.
> Just as importantly, "There was always a need for something portable,"
> Gashel said.
> By the mid-1990s, the advent of desktop computers and scanners enabled
> Kurzweil to develop a PC-based reader - the Kurzweil 1000.
> Character-recognition software was improving, too. And laptops made the
> hardware required smaller.
> But one problem remained: "You would have to have a scanner - it would
> be quite a bit of paraphernalia to carry about," Gashel said.
> Digital photography provided the needed breakthrough; that, and the
> miniaturization of computer power in the PDA - the hand-held computer
> that millions use to organize their lives.
> The Kurzweil-NFB Reader, which is expected to cost less than $3,000,
> marries a small, 5-megapixel Canon camera to an ASUS A730 PDA. They are
> wired together and held by a vinyl case about 6 inches by 3 inches by 2
> 1/2 inches. It's all operated with just nine buttons, with voice prompts
> from a small speaker or through earphones.
> Holding the device about 16 inches above a sheet of paper lying on a
> table, Gashel lines up the shot. He is guided by a sort of audio
> viewfinder: "Right, bottom edges are visible ... two degrees
> counterclockwise relative to page."
> The camera speaks in an oddly Eastern European male voice, but it's one
> that's familiar and comfortable for people who use electronic readers.
> Gashel pushes a button and the shutter clicks. A few seconds later, the
> device is reading the release aloud, flawlessly.
> Tests on a business card and an ATM receipt are rougher. The device
> misses some lines of type, and mistakes some characters for others. But
> it does better on a second try, "learning" as it goes along.
> Had it been his own ATM slip, Gashel said, "I would have known what I
> withdrew, and I'd know most of the information, even if it didn't hit it
> right."
> Many times, he said, "you're not going for perfect; you're going for
> 'What is this?'"
> Jim McCarthy, 39, director of governmental affairs at the federation,
> has also been testing one of the readers. A new office arrangement has
> left him without a nearby assistant, so something as simple as sorting
> through papers on his desk becomes an issue.
> "I'm probably 25 feet from the closest person," he said. It's not a big
> deal to walk around the corner and ask someone to identify a piece of
> paper, "but it seems like a waste of time."
> The reader "allows people to sort pertinent documents in a way a lot of
> us aren't accustomed to. That is pretty liberating," he said.
> Lou Ann Blake, 46, a visually impaired research specialist at the
> federation, has also been a test-driver. "I read the cooking directions
> on a bag of pasta," she said. "It was plastic and I kinda had to flatten
> it out. But it did quite well."
> Videotape labels, bills, letters, 401(k) statements - it read them all.
> "Some of the pronunciations it doesn't get quite right - legal terms,
> Latin terms," she said. But "it's amazingly easy to use. I have a harder
> time using the copy machine here sometimes."
> But the key advance is the new device's portability, said John Pare, 47,
> director of sponsored technical programs at the NFB, who started to lose
> his sight at 35. "No matter where you are, you're constantly being
> handed printed material," he said. "It's the way the world works. In
> restaurants, the airport, hotels, at a conference."
> The Kurzweil reader enables the blind to grab an image quickly, anywhere
> - even in the dark - and "read" it themselves instead of relying on
> friends or strangers to read the documents aloud.
> "It's been very gratifying," Kurzweil said. "When we started this
> project about four years ago, we weren't ... entirely sure to what
> extent we could compensate for distortion in the images that would occur
> using a hand-held camera."
> Where a scanner provides a flat, uniform image and perfect lighting, the
> hand-held digital camera would tilt and rotate relative to the page -
> then the user would move and the lighting would be uneven.
> Worse, the pages of an open book are curved, with portions at different
> distances from the camera.
> "So we developed image enhancing software that takes this image and
> modifies it to get rid of all those distortions," Kurzweil said. "And we
> had to fit all this software [along with the character recognition
> program] into this little computer."
> But it worked. "We have 75 in the field, and hundreds very soon," he
> said. "And the feedback from blind users is that it's having tremendous
> success."
> If it does well, the federation could eventually profit. Gashel said the
> NFB owns 40 percent of the rights to the technology. In the meantime,
> the software will continue to be improved so that the device can read
> more varied and complex material.
> Kurzweil also predicts a time when a blind person will be able to enter
> a room, snap a picture, and have the reader identify the types and
> locations of lamps, tables, people and other items in the room.
> Also, devices "will continue to get smaller over time," he said.
> Gashel expects the gadget will be crammed into a cell phone some day.
> But Kurzweil is thinking even smaller.
> "In five to seven years, the camera will pin on your lapel and take
> pictures as you walk around," describing the scene as you go, he said.
> NFB chef and teacher Marie A. Cobb, 59, of Catonsville, who is visually
> impaired, has been using the reader since January. She has her own
> hopes.
> "What I'm looking for is the day when I can take it into a mall and have
> it tell me the name of the stores, and the locations on those big
> directories. I would love that," she said.
> http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-hs.blind14apr14,0,5280843.st
> ory?coll=bal-health-headlines


VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://listserv.icors.org/archives/vicug-l.html