Web Posted on: May 18, 1998
http://www.dinf.org/csun_98/csun98_176.htm
| CSUN 98 Papers |
DUELING SCANNERS
Peter Scialli
Shrinkwrap Computer Products
11706 Saddle Crescent Circle
Oakton, VA 22124
Phone: (703)620-4642
Fax: (703)620-4641
Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://www.erols.com/shrink
The first annual Dueling Scanners session was held on March 17,
1998 in conjunction with the C-SUN "Technology and People with
Disabilities" conference in Los Angeles, California. Vendors of
reading software, producing specialized products for blind and
print-disabled individuals were invited to compete at the
session.
All the products considered for participation in the session are
specially developed solutions that are generally operated as
"stand-alone" products for people with print related
disabilities. These products convert printed reading material
into synthetic speech, large print or Braille. While some
individuals are able to make adaptations of commercially
available optical character recognition (OCR) products in
combination with alternate methods of accessing the computer
screen, these approaches are varied and specific to the computer
preferences and skills of the individual using such an approach.
The intent of Dueling Scanners is to present the available
solutions that provide a standardized approach to accessing
printed material.
The Manufacturers invited to display their products at Dueling
Scanners included Arkenstone, Inc, producer of Open Book Unbound
version 3.5, Kurzweil Educational Systems, producers of the
Kurzweil 1000 version 3.0, Robotron, manufacturer of the Galileo
reading machine and Telesensory, Inc, the manufacturer of
Reading AdvantEdge version 2 software. The event was attended by
all of these except Telesensory who declined the invitation to
participate. Arkenstone was represented by Jim Fruchterman,
President of the company and Mike May, Vice-President in charge
of Sales. Kurzweil was represented by David Bradburn, Marketing
Manager and Stephen Baum, Vice-President of Research and
Development. Robotron was represented by John Panarese, Manager
of Technology for the Visually Impaired, North American
Distributor for Robotron.
The guidelines and question pool, as presented in advance to the
vendors appears below. These are followed by the judge's
reactions to what they witnessed. It is important to note that
in examining the quality of scanned output, a scientific
determination of OCR accuracy was not made. Such studies require
a great deal of time and statistical resources that were not
available in this setting. Since all the current scanning
products for the print-handicapped use components from
mainstream character recognition solutions, it was felt that
data on their raw scientific accuracy could be obtained from
other sources and that "viewing" documents for their general
readability and
utility once scanned would be of more benefit to this audience.
The anticipated audience for Dueling Scanners comprises
rehabilitation professionals and other educated consumers of
special technology for the blind and print-handicapped. These
groups will usually have a good familiarity with adaptive
computer equipment, but will not generally be experts in the
intricacies of such equipment.
The following twelve guidelines were given to the participants
approximately one month prior to the session:
1. Each vendor should bring to the session only one reading
product. It should be the "flag ship" system--that is, a
complete reading system that the vendor feels best represents
the available purchasable product line. If optional equipment is
available for the system, that should be brought also. It will
not be necessary to bring video displays for systems with a text
display option; a projection monitor will be supplied by the
Center on Disability.
2. The reading system brought for display and demonstration at
Dueling Scanners must be a current model that is readily
available to the public that day for purchase. It may not be a
prerelease of a pending product nor may it differ in any other
way from an actual system that an end user could purchase on the
day of the event.
3. Each vendor should bring one example of a document which it
feels will exemplify the virtues of its particular reading
system. While each document will be tried on every system for
comparison, it is important for vendors to focus upon the
virtues of their own system rather than attempting to
demonstrate the perceived shortcomings of their competition.
4. The judges will supply documents which they feel will
challenge the ability of each system to produce readable text.
Each system will receive a rating, devised by the judges, on
overall OCR accuracy, decolumnization accuracy and general
readability. The judges will be free to ask specific questions
regarding the nature of the work done by each system.
5. Each vendor should explain with words and/or demonstration
how, using their reading system, a novice user of computer
technology can best learn to scan and do basic reading of
documents. Training requirements should be discussed.
6. Each vendor should explain with words and demonstration how a
document may be stored for later retrieval once it has been
scanned.
7. Each vendor should explain with words and/or demonstration
how a scanned document can be converted into a format that is
usable by a variety of word processing software.
8. Each vendor should describe and/or demonstrate how its
particular reading system can be integrated into the user's
software environment--assuming that the system is running on a
PC where other software is run. Information should be provided
as to whether or not the reading system allows the user to
define different programs for document text viewing/editing.
9. The vendor should discuss the facilities in its reading
system which make it possible for documents to be scanned using
network-aware equipment (e.g., an HP5SI network scanner).
10. Each vendor should explain with words and/or demonstration
the strategies that might be employed to convert a document,
scanned by its reading system, into Grade II Braille and how
their product lends itself to such a strategy.
11. Each vendor should explain with words and/or demonstration
how its product addresses the needs of people with disabilities
in addition to blindness. These may include but are not limited
to low vision, deaf-blindness. limited hand motion, poor
dexterity, etc.
12. Each vendor should explain with words and/or demonstration
if it is possible for their system to be used by people who need
to read text in more than one language.
The Results
The Dueling Scanners judges volunteered their participation in
the event. The judges were Curtiss Chong, Director of Technology
for the National Federation of the Blind, Janina Sajka, Director
of Technical Services for the American Foundation for the Blind
and Brian Charlson, a Rehabilitation instructor for the Carroll
Center for the Blind and First Vice-President of the American
Council of the Blind. Each judge is an acknowledged expert in
the use of adaptive computer technology by and for blind persons.
There were two sessions of Dueling Scanners: one in the morning
and one in the afternoon. This permitted two separate audiences
to view the event and gave the judges two opportunities to form
opinions about the products. It is important to note that
Robotron participated only in the morning session. Their
equipment was damaged in transit and could thus not be properly
judged on an even basis with the other systems. However, it was
possible to see some of the important features of the Galileo
reading machine and these features will be noted where relevant.
It is hoped that Robotron will be able to participate in Dueling
Scanners in the future as their product clearly merits attention.
Beginning with the third guideline, the following was observed:
Kurzweil brought a document that was a very worn paperback book.
It included standard type with the addition of some unusual
fonts and some printing above and below the lines. Kurzweil
wanted to demonstrate their two-page mode in which they can set
the software to automatically divide each scanned image into two
separate scanned pages. This mode should be helpful in
maintaining the integrity of books with complex layouts such as
those containing a mixture of text and tables. The software read
the document with excellent accuracy and proper presentation of
the material.
Arkenstone's Open Book had some initial trouble with this
document: The system had excellent OCR quality, but did not
properly decolumnize the two facing pages. It mixed some
fragments of the second page in with the first page. Jim
Fruchterman gave a very forthright explanation of this problem.
In the case of a book where two facing pages are severely skewed
relative to each other, the Arkenstone decolumnization facility
may get "confused." In fact, the document in question was a
paperback book with a severely damaged binding. Mr. Fruchterman
was able to reposition the book on the scanner such that the two
facing pages were more normally positioned relative to each
other. After doing this, the result on the Arkenstone system was
also excellent in terms of accuracy and presentation.
John Panarese representing Robotron next produced an advertising
brochure that had a complex column layout, graphic content and
multiple fonts. All three systems were able to properly read and
decolumnize this document.
Finally, Arkenstone produced a page from a magazine with complex
columns and a graph included on the page beneath one of the
columns. All three systems slowed considerably in the processing
of this document. All three properly recognized and decolumnized
this document. The Kurzweil system was faster in producing a
result than the Arkenstone system. The Arkenstone system
attempted to read some text from within the graph while Kurzweil
did not. The Robotron system was quite slow in the processing of
the document, but did a good job once finished. The processing
time of the damaged Robotron machine should not be a factor in
these results, however.
Next, each of the judges produced a document of interest. Mr.
Chong presented a photocopy of a newspaper article from the
Baltimore Sun. The document was of poor quality with an
inconsistent gray shaded background. All three systems properly
decolumnized this document. None of the three systems read this
document very well. The degraded text proved difficult to
decipher. However, Arkenstone's Open Book appeared to do a
better job of presenting the information on the page. The
article was substantially more readable after being scanned with
Open Book. During a second scan of the same document, each
system, following some adjustments, improved its reading of the
document. Arkenstone, however, maintained its ability to give
the best result.
Ms. Sajka presented a document which was an operating manual for
an electronic musical keyboard. The page had a large amount of
complex text along with tables of values relevant to the
operation of the keyboard. All three systems did a good job with
this manual. All did a credible job of presenting the complex
tables. The Kurzweil 1000 was the fastest of the three systems
in processing this document.
A third document clearly gave Arkenstone the lead in
demonstrating superior text reading ability: Mr. Charlson asked
the vendors to read the Table of Contents page from the C-SUN
Conference Program. In addition to text, the page contained the
table of contents itself which was black type within a box whose
background was gray speckled. Neither the Kurzweil nor Robotron
systems could read the table of contents itself although they
did read the other text on the page. Using its default settings,
Open Book clearly and correctly read the entire table of
contents. This outcome was met with applause from the audience
at the morning session.
During the afternoon session, Mr. Baum from Kurzweil was able to
read the table of contents after manually making contrast
adjustments to the software. While Kurzweil was able to read the
document following these adjustments, the judges were struck by
the fact that a totally blind person would not have been able to
know that something else of importance existed on the page in
the typical case. Mr. Fruchterman attributed Open Book's
impressive performance to Arkenstone's use of Scanfix, a unique
component of Open Book which provides various forms of extra
filtering for difficult text.
It is worth commenting on the stated difference in the
philosophy of each vendor with respect to the intended end-user.
It was found that the Kurzweil 1000 was generally faster than
Open Book at completing its task of scanning, recognizing and
presenting text with synthetic speech. While special modes for
improving degraded text are available in Kurzweil's system, the
product is shipped with these features turned off as a default
condition. This results in very fast recognition speeds with
good quality text. As with all the systems, poor quality text
will slow the speed of processing and quite naturally decrease
the accuracy of the result. Turning on special features which
help decipher bad text will slow a product's processing time,
but increase the accuracy of the result. Arkenstone apparently
prefers to ship their product with such features turned on. This
makes the product slower than it needs to be on good quality
documents. However, as seen with the C-SUN program page, it can
make an otherwise unreadable document impressively clear. In
either the case of Kurzweil or Arkenstone, the special features
may be adjusted relative to the factory defaults with only a
modest knowledge of the product; such adjustments, however, may
require some trial and error.
Item Five addresses the issue of the ability for a novice user
of computers to get acquainted with the products. Each of the
three companies discussed here provides the ability to make use
of their product without vast computer knowledge. As a
stand-alone reading machine, the Galileo, unlike the PC based
products, does not offer the user the prospect of going beyond
the major functions involved with scanning, reading and storing
text. The benefit of a stand-alone system, in fact, is that the
relatively few controls have dedicated functions. The audible
cues provided by these controls may be tailored by the
manufacturer to give very task specific information. The Galileo
has a limited number of keys that are large and well separated.
It appeared easy to address basic scanning functions with this
unit. More advanced features such as saving text or changing
operating languages require the pressing of different key
combinations. Some of these might be difficult to remember
without a reference card of some sort. Fortunately, the keys
give good feedback and it is unlikely that any harm could come
from hitting the wrong key combination.
Mr. Fruchterman briefly discussed the availability of a special
version of Open Book called VERA. This stands for Very Easy
Reading Appliance. VERA, while not explicitly demonstrated at
this session, was presented as removing the end-user from the
need to interact with the computer except at a very basic level.
It uses a keypad with very few keys, some of which emulate the
functions of an ordinary tape recorder. VERA, as well as
Galileo, should be considered for users who have difficulty with
or fear of computer use.
Arkenstone's Open Book, the system that was on display has three
levels of operation: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. In the
first of these, the system limits the number of adjustments that
may be performed on the system to just the basics. All text is
stored as a single long document and editing is not possible.
Using a clear menu system, controlled with a computer's numeric
keypad or with a dedicated and specially labeled Arkenstone
keypad, a user can progress through the levels of
sophistication. Open Book is about as non threatening for the
beginning computer user as any application is likely to be. As
will be seen later in this document, the product is capable of a
great deal of sophistication if one wants it to be. Keyboard
shortcuts and use in a multitasking Windows environment is quite
possible and very practical.
Kurzweil 1000 may also be fully controlled from a dedicated and
specially labeled keypad. The product may be a bit more
challenging for the true novice in that keypad functions may
change, depending upon which of three modes the keypad is in. As
a user progresses through increased knowledge and comfort with
computers, Kurzweil 1000 offers many sophisticated functions and
a true Windows 95 standard interface which Open Book lacks.
There will be more on this in the discussion of special features.
For the simple act of pressing a button and hearing scanned text
being spoken, all three systems work about as well as each
other. It is important to note that the Galileo lacks the
ability to scan ahead in a text while imultaneously reading
aloud. Kurzweil 1000 has the best implementation of this feature
in that a user may press a key to scan a new page as soon as a
prior page has been scanned. With the Open Book system, the user
can begin listening to spoken text, but must wait for a beep
from the computer before a new page may be started. In both
cases, the net result is the ability to hear continuous text
from a long document.
Kurzweil 1000 and Open Book both have a number of built-in
"Help" features to assist the beginning user. Kurzweil provides
a very useful "Help and Status" key. This key, on the computer
or special keypad, once pressed will cause the function of the
next key pressed to be announced without executing the function.
If the Help and Status key is pressed and the subsequent key is
pressed and held, the function along with a brief explanation
and status will be announced. The entire text of the Kurzweil
1000 manual is also available from the keypad.
Open Book has several available means of providing help as well:
In place of a Help and Status key, Arkenstone has a "Key
Identifier" key. When pressed, this puts the program into a mode
wherein each key pressed causes an announcement of that key's
function. This is helpful, but more limited than Kurzweil's
approach. Arkenstone also has a "Where Am I" key which gives a
brief description of which of the product's functions is
currently in use. It also provides page and position information
for a document that is being read. Finally, Open Book has a Help
menu from which a quick command summary or the full manual may
be accessed.
There are some noteworthy differences among the products with
respect to the type of documentation shipped with the products.
The Galileo comes with a manual recorded on cassette, a print
manual and a manual in braille upon request. Open Book ships
with a printed manual, a cassette tutorial, an optional
video"Getting Started" guide and a braille manual on request.
Kurzweil 1000 ships with a printed manual and a Braille manual
on request. The judges believe that a taped manual or tutorial
is an important feature and should be part of any of these
products.
Addressing guideline six, the vendors discussed the ability that
each of their systems has to store documents that have already
been scanned. All three systems have similar "Library" functions
wherein a document may be named and stored within the product
itself. Naming a document with the Galileo as with the
keypad-only options of the other two systems is tedious at best.
Fortunately, each system will supply a default name for a
document prior to storage. Kurzweil 1000 has the unique ability
to use as a default file name the first several words of a
document. A user would likely want to rename the file in most
cases, but it is a convenient way to quickly store a file and
preserve some meaningful information in the name of the file
itself. Open Book, because of its backward compatibility for
people using it under the Microsoft Windows 3.1 Operating System
restricts file names to eight characters and appends an
extension relevant to the file format being used for storage. A
default file name in Open Book, therefore, might be
"DOC0001.TXT." As with Kurzweil 1000, the Open Book file name
may be overwritten with a more meaningful phrase. The Galileo
permits the use of the current Date and Time as a default file
name. This too may be overwritten albeit in a tedious manner
given that the Galileo is not useable with a computer keyboard.
All three systems can export a document to a floppy disk. This
is an unusual and highly useful feature in a stand-alone reading
product such as Galileo. All three systems give the operator a
large choice of file formats from which to choose when storing
text. In practice, most word processors and file readers will
read several common file formats such as Microsoft Word or Corel
Word Perfect. ASCII text is always readable. A nice feature is
that the different systems can export in specialized formats
such as Rich Text Format (RTF) in which font and special
character information such as underlining is preserved.
The three systems can also read files that were produced by
other systems, such as on a word processor. Kurzweil 1000 has
the very useful feature of being able to read the Adobe Portable
Document Format (PDF). The vendors all agreed that the quality
of the systems' abilities to import and export text is mainly
dependent on modules provided by third-party vendors. For this
reason, the translations sometimes leave something to be desired
in terms of their faithfulness in formatting according to the
rules of a "foreign" document management application.
Questions six and seven are closely related and have already
been touched upon. It is interesting to note the methods that
the two PC based systems have for permitting the user to edit
and otherwise work with a document that has been scanned. As has
been discussed, it is possible to export documents to a number
of formats so they may be used by other applications. Another
use for such a function is having the ability to edit a document
to make it more readable subsequent to scanning. Each system
approaches this ability in a different way. Kurzweil 1000 has a
built-in editor such that a document may be modified without
leaving the application. While a nice feature, in a multitasking
environment it shouldn't be any more trouble to launch a word
processing application whose commands may already be known.
Using Kurzweil's editor presumably means that the user must
learn an additional set of commands. Still, Kurzweil's approach
is a very practicable one. Mr. Bradburn demonstrated Kurzweil
1000's ability to rescan a page that came out poorly. The system
also permits inserting a new page into the middle of a document
which can be handy for including text that has been accidentally
skipped by the person doing the scanning.
Arkenstone's approach to editing documents takes advantage of
multitasking in a very elegant way. Mr. Fruchterman demonstrated
his ability to launch a word processing application from within
Open Book. He was able to press a single keystroke, confirmed
with the Enter key which launched Microsoft Word for Windows
along with a Windows based screen reading application. The
current document was simultaneously transferred to the word
processor. While a lot had to happen, it was a single keystroke
that caused it to happen and the result was impressive. It
should be pointed out that for a blind person to accomplish this
task, he will need to have a screen reading application
available on his computer, but this is the case with a large
number of users. Kurzweil's system will permit editing and
printing of the text directly from the application. As with
Kurzweil 1000, Open Book will permit the user to replace a
poorly scanned page with a fresh attempt, but only at the end of
a document. In order to insert a page into the body of the
document, the Open Book user will need to scan the new page and
use a word processor or text editor to insert it into a
document.
Question eight deals with the use of the PC based systems in
conjunction with other features of the user's operating
environment. As discussed, both Arkenstone and Kurzweil have the
ability to work well in the multitasking environment of MS
Windows 95. Arkenstone's system will work on any computer with
at least sixteen megabytes of memory and either Windows 3.1,
3.11 or 95. Mr. Fruchterman also reported that Open Book has
been tested to work well under Windows 98 which is scheduled for
release in June, 1998.
Kurzweil 1000 requires that the computer platform has at least
twenty-four megabytes of memory and is running the Windows 95 or
Windows NT 4.0 operating systems. Kurzweil 1000 is also reported
to work well under Windows 98.
Kurzweil 1000 is a true Windows 95 application. This means it
can take advantage of the sophistication inherent in that
operating system. A notable demonstration of this came when Mr.
Baum was able to show the ability to scan and process documents
in the "background" while other tasks were ongoing on the
computer. Such an activity is the domain of a truly advanced
computer user, but it is a powerful innovation. By comparison,
Open Book can remain running in the background, but cannot
continue to scan or process pages unless it is the focused upon
application.
Regarding question nine, neither system is specifically designed
for use in a network environment. However, both systems are
capable of recognizing image files produced and stored
elsewhere. In a network situation, there would presumably be a
centrally located scanner that would be capable of transmitting
image files to a server for storage. Either system would be
capable of working with the image files in this situation
assuming those images could be downloaded to an individual work
station.
In question 10, the judges were strongly impressed by
Arkenstone's ability to demonstrate an elegant and extremely
effective solution to the question of braille production.
Regarding the production of hard copy braille, the Kurzweil
representatives did not specifically demonstrate the task. They
explained that as a Windows 95 application, a document could be
exported to any number of file formats that could be recognized
and translated by appropriate braille translation software.
While this is certainly an accurate explanation, it was unclear
that a non-technical computer user would necessarily appreciate
the concept as explained.
As with the reading of the gray-shaded table of contents page,
Arkenstone again clearly demonstrated an important ability: Mr.
Fruchterman had a Braille embosser connected to his computer.
Using Open Book's ability to launch other applications, he
scanned a page and hit a single key, "Q" for Quick-Braille.
After confirming his command with a press of the enter key, Open
Book seamlessly launched a dos-based Braille translation program
which instantly began embossing grade II text. This ability is
decisively convincing, for example, in terms of its utility in a
mainstream classroom setting. It is obvious from the Braille
demonstration that a blind student could have in his possession
a braille copy of a class handout or exam paper within seconds
of his classmates receiving their printed copies.
It is worth mentioning that under Windows 3.1 and 3.11, Open
Book will directly support dynamic braille displays such as the
Power Braille series from Telesensory Corporation. Under Windows
95 and 98, it would be necessary for the Open Book user to use a
screen access program which itself supported Braille displays,
in conjunction with Open Book. Kurzweil 1000 should also be able
to produce braille on a dynamic display if used in conjunction
with an appropriate screen access program. This ability was not
demonstrated.
Regarding Question 11, the use of each system by those with
multiple handicaps, each system has a limited but potentially
useful number of features. Open Book, as has been mentioned, is
capable of directly supporting dynamic Braille displays and may
be the only logical solution for a deaf-blind individual. Both
systems are able to produce large print on a computer screen,
this type being variable in terms of foreground and background
color combinations. Arkenstone uses a fixed font while Kurzweil
uses the font available in the original text. Open Book has the
additional feature of a moving lightbar or crosshair cursor
which itself can be varied in size and color. This cursor tracks
text as it is being read. Either system should be useable by a
person requiring a special keyboard interface. Mr. Fruchterman
told of an Arkenstone customer who lacks the physical ability to
scan documents, but once scanned can use a Single Switch device
to read a document. A similar arrangement should be possible
with Kurzweil 1000. Kurzweil 1000 has the additional feature of
permitting voice commands to be given to the system via a
microphone. This ability was not demonstrated so it was not
possible to observe the accuracy or range of activities provided
by the speech input system.
On the issue of multiple language support Arkenstone clearly has
the edge. The Kurzweil representatives spoke of a German
language version of the product which was not shipping on the
day of the Dueling Scanners sessions. They also spoke of plans
for versions of the product in several other languages.
Arkenstone was able to give an impressive live demonstration of
multilingual support. There are two main issues in having a
scanning product for the blind provide multilingual support.
First, the product must be capable of recognizing text written
in a particular language. Character sets and contextual clues
about text vary from language to language. The other issue is
the ability of the speech synthesizer in use to use the rules of
a particular language to produce speech. A third issue is the
language used in a product's user interface. Generally, a
foreign speaker will want the menus and prompts of a product to
be in his preferred language. Open Book demonstrably addressed
all of these issues.
Mr. Fruchterman switched his product from the DECtalk
synthesizer it had been using to a Keynote Gold Multimedia
speech synthesizer. This is a software speech synthesizer which
is available in several common languages. He showed that Open
Book could be set to recognize Spanish text while maintaining an
English user interface. Open Book scanned and processed the text
in the usual way. When reading began, the synthesizer was
automatically switched into its Spanish mode and the document
was read in synthetic Spanish. Mr. Fruchterman explained that
Open Book is available with fourteen different language
recognition modules, any combination of which may be used in the
product. The user interface is available in several common
languages including French, Spanish, German, Dutch and Finish.
The Galileo also has the ability to operate in several
languages. It automatically changes both the interface and
recognition language at the same time. The Galileo can be
equipped to handle several languages at a time.
Conclusions
With respect to a laundry list of features, it is debatable and
subjective as to which of these are most important. Kurzweil
1000 has an impressive list of features that were not
specifically tested in these sessions. For example, Kurzweil
1000 offers a built-in spell checker and dictionary. These are
very nice convenience features. Other features of significant
interest include the ability to rescan a bad page in the middle
of a document. Open Book does not directly support some of this
functionality but does have the ability to launch third-party
software with a single keystroke so is to some degree
customizable with such features. When deciding which product to
purchase, it is essential that the counselor and/or end-user
discuss with the product dealer which features are available and
what their possible utility might be.
Open Book has the ability to function on older computers running
the Windows 3.1 operating system. This may help some to avoid an
expensive investment in new hardware for some individuals while
still providing excellent scanning and reading capabilities. Mr.
Fruchterman stated that future versions of Open Book will be
true Windows 95/NT compatible products. Clearly, this is where
computer operating systems are migrating and Kurzweil has a
technological edge with respect to having the potential to
harness all the power available on state-of-the-art machines.
In terms of raw scanning and recognition speed, the Kurzweil
system did noticeably better than the Open Book. However, this
is offset by the Open Book's ability to read out-of-the-ordinary
or severely degraded print without requiring the user to fine
tune the contrast setting. This is what might be expected given
the stated philosophies of each manufacturer with respect to
default settings. Open Book's use of Scanfix, a feature not
available in Kurzweil 1000 was striking. This was not a
scientific test of OCR accuracy by any means. However, Open Book
often produced a more satisfying result than the other systems
in this particular venue.
Kurzweil 1000 is arguably a more powerful and sophisticated
system. As a true 32 bit/Windows 95 application, it has the
ability to integrate smoothly into the blind computer users
operating environment. The downside of this approach is that
aside from the main features of scanning, reading and storage,
the Kurzweil 1000 user may be required to stretch very basic
computer knowledge to a level a bit above the comfort zone.
Again, this is very subjective and must be judged by the
individual user. Open Book with its multiple levels of
sophistication and even the option of a variant of the product
that uses a special simple keypad may well be a better system
for those who aren't certain of how far they want to progress in
the use of computers.
Both systems permit operation in a multitasking environment
using speech other than that which is built-in to the product.
Kurzweil 1000 does a more convincing job of this in that it
should be just as easy or difficult to use as any standard
Windows application. Open Book, originally developed in Windows
3.1's infancy and at a time when blind people used only DOS
based computer programs presents a very laid-back and intuitive
approach. It is only in its function which permits the reading
of an external file where the user "sees" anything that
resembles a Windows Dialog Box. This function is limited to the
"Advanced" setting of Open Book.
Among the features specifically tested at these sessions,
Kurzweil 1000 was almost always faster in its processing. It
also showed tolerance for the difficult condition of facing
pages which were skewed relative to each other. Open Book showed
more tolerance for poor quality or unusual text.
It was agreed by the judges that none of the systems was
perfect. Asked to rate the two PC based systems on a scale from
1 to 100, the average subjective rating of the judges was 75 for
Kurzweil 1000 and 83 for Open Book.
Again, the numbers just reported are based on subjective,
non-scientific measurements of the two systems as displayed only
at the March 17 sessions. It is crucial that anyone considering
the purchase of such a system try each of them with material
that is of importance to them. There were two main reasons for
Arkenstone's relatively superior performance at Dueling
Scanners: The first was the ability to read the gray-background
text that the other systems did not even acknowledge. The other
was Arkenstone's apparent ease of use, a product of Jim
Fruchterman's excellent ability to demonstrate and explain the
system. It was too often the impression that the Kurzweil
representatives relied on the general principle that as a
Windows 95 application, it has no real limitations within that
operating system. A case in point is the ability to scan and
process text while focusing on another application. This is, in
fact, an impressive feature and points to some of the power
available in the Kurzweil system. However, for the intended
audience, who may not have the technical sophistication to
appreciate some of Kurzweil's power relative to Open Book, the
Arkenstone system consistently
addressed all the questions asked of it with clear and thorough
demonstrations. In truth, both systems do an excellent job of
reading printed text. The features beyond that are matters which
are best considered on a case by case basis.
Finally, a note about the Robotron Galileo. Because the
demonstration unit was damaged in transit, it was not possible
to use it competitively in this setting. As a stand alone
reading machine, one would expect it to be relatively limited in
features. The Galileo appears to have quite an extensive list of
features that could easily be of value to most people requiring
a technological solution to reading print. It is hoped that
Robotron will be able to participate more fully in future
Dueling Scanners.
All the vendors who participated in this year's sessions
indicated that their development would continue with respect to
the number and quality of features in their respective systems.
Dueling Scanners is but one way that the consumers of blindness
related technology may stay abreast of such developments. Our
sincere thanks goes to Dr. Harry Murphy and all the staff at the
C-SUN Center on Disability for making this exercise possible.
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