|
K-NFB Reader
The K-NFB Reader (an acronym for Kurzweil — National Federation of the Blind Reader) is a handheld electronic reading device for the blind. It was developed in a partnership between Ray Kurzweil and National Federation of the Blind. The original version of the reader was composed of a digital camera and a PDA, which contained specialised OCR software and speech synthesizers to read the scanned material aloud. It was released at a price of $3,495. The software was later ported to the Symbian operating system, to be used on Nokia N82 camera phones, with a new price of $1,595. Developed by the National Federation of the Blind and Sensotec NV in 2014, an iOS port was released at a price of $99. An Android version was released shortly after. KNFB Reader can read: * Receipts * Package labels and mail * Product and nutritional information * Print on your computer or tablet screen * Longer documents such as books and user manuals * Private documents such as tax materials, mortgage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blindness
Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment– visual impairment may cause the individual difficulties with normal daily tasks including reading and walking. Low vision is a functional definition of visual impairment that is chronic, uncorrectable with treatment or correctable lenses, and impacts daily living. As such low vision can be used as a disability metric and varies based on an individual's experience, environmental demands, accommodations, and access to services. The American Academy of Ophthalmology defines visual impairment as the best-corrected visual acuity of less than 20/40 in the better eye, and the World Health Organization defines it as a presenting acuity of less than 6/12 in the better eye. The term blindness is used for complete or nearly complete vision loss. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ray Kurzweil
Raymond Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American computer scientist, author, inventor, and futurist. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He has written books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements and gives public talks to share his optimistic outlook on life extension technologies and the future of nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology. Kurzweil received the 1999 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the United States' highest honor in technology, from then President Bill Clinton in a White House ceremony. He was the recipient of the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for 2001. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2001 for the application of technology to improve human-m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Federation Of The Blind
The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is an organization of blind people in the United States. It is the oldest and largest organization led by blind people in the United States. Its national headquarters are in Baltimore, Maryland. Overview Anyone, blind or sighted, is permitted to join the NFB, but a majority of members in its local chapters, state affiliates, and nationwide divisions must be blind, as must its officers and board members at every level with exception of the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children. This structure is intended to ensure that the organization is run by blind people and reflects the collective views of its blind members, the NFB refers to itself as "the voice of the nation's blind." The philosophy of the organization is: The organization's former president, Kenneth Jernigan, said, "We who are blind are pretty much like you. We have our share of both geniuses and jerks, but most of us somewhere between, ordinary people living ordin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digital Camera
A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices like smartphones with the same or more capabilities and features of dedicated cameras (which are still available). High-end, high-definition dedicated cameras are still commonly used by professionals and those who desire to take higher-quality photographs. Digital and digital movie cameras share an optical system, typically using a lens with a variable diaphragm to focus light onto an image pickup device. The diaphragm and shutter admit a controlled amount of light to the image, just as with film, but the image pickup device is electronic rather than chemical. However, unlike film cameras, digital cameras can display images on a screen immediately after being recorded, and store and delete images from memory. Many digital cameras can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Personal Digital Assistant
A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in particular those based on iOS and Android. A PDA has an electronic visual display. Most models also have audio capabilities, allowing usage as a portable media player, and also enabling many of them to be used as telephones. Nearly all modern PDAs can access the Internet, intranets or extranets via Wi-Fi or Wireless WANs, letting them include a web browser. Sometimes, instead of buttons, PDAs employ touchscreen technology. The first PDA, the Organiser, was released in 1984 by Psion, followed by Psion's Series 3, in 1991. The latter began to resemble the more familiar PDA style, including a full keyboard. The term ''PDA'' was first used on January 7, 1992 by Apple Inc. CEO John Sculley at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optical Character Recognition
Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scene-photo (for example the text on signs and billboards in a landscape photo) or from subtitle text superimposed on an image (for example: from a television broadcast). Widely used as a form of data entry from printed paper data records – whether passport documents, invoices, bank statements, computerized receipts, business cards, mail, printouts of static-data, or any suitable documentation – it is a common method of digitizing printed texts so that they can be electronically edited, searched, stored more compactly, displayed on-line, and used in machine processes such as cognitive computing, machine translation, (extracted) text-to-speech, key data and text mining. OCR is a field of research in pattern recognition, artificial intellig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Speech Synthesis
Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal language text into speech; other systems render symbolic linguistic representations like phonetic transcriptions into speech. The reverse process is speech recognition. Synthesized speech can be created by concatenating pieces of recorded speech that are stored in a database. Systems differ in the size of the stored speech units; a system that stores phones or diphones provides the largest output range, but may lack clarity. For specific usage domains, the storage of entire words or sentences allows for high-quality output. Alternatively, a synthesizer can incorporate a model of the vocal tract and other human voice characteristics to create a completely "synthetic" voice output. The quality of a speech synthesizer is judged by its similarity to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symbian OS
Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian OS is a descendant of Psion's EPOC, and was released exclusively on ARM processors, although an unreleased x86 port existed. Symbian was used by many major mobile phone brands, like Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and above all by Nokia. It was also prevalent in Japan by brands including Fujitsu, Sharp and Mitsubishi. As a pioneer that established the smartphone industry, it was the most popular smartphone OS on a worldwide average until the end of 2010, at a time when smartphones were in limited use, when it was overtaken by iOS and Android. It was notably less popular in North America. The Symbian OS platform is formed of two components: one being the microkernel-based operating system with its associated libraries, and the other be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nokia N82
The Nokia N82 is a high-end smartphone produced by Nokia, and announced on 14 November 2007 as part of the company's Nseries line. The N82 runs Symbian OS v9.2 ( S60 3rd Edition, FP1). The N82 inherits much of the Nokia N95's features and specifications (including GPS, Wi-Fi and HSDPA), with the major addition being its xenon flash. At the time the N82 was considered one of the most sophisticated camera phone on the market. It is also considered a successor to the Nokia N95, preceding the Nokia N96. Like the N95 before it, the Nokia N82 was critically acclaimed and is often considered one of the best Symbian devices, although it did not sell as much and was not available worldwide. The N82 was Nokia's last high-end device in a candybar form, as its successors opted for sliders and later touchscreen devices. As a camera phone, the Nokia N82 primarily competes with Sony Ericsson's K800 and K850. History Nokia's N82 model was leaked in May 2007 (along with Nokia N81), but was no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Camera Phone
A camera phone is a mobile phone which is able to capture photographs and often record video using one or more built-in digital cameras. It can also send the resulting image wirelessly and conveniently. The first commercial phone with color camera was the Kyocera Visual Phone VP-210, released in Japan in May 1999. Most camera phones are smaller and simpler than the separate digital cameras. In the smartphone era, the steady sales increase of camera phones caused point-and-shoot camera sales to peak about 2010 and decline thereafter. The concurrent improvement of smartphone camera technology, and its other multifunctional benefits, have led to it gradually replacing compact point-and-shoot cameras. Most modern smartphones only have a menu choice to start a camera application program and an on-screen button to activate the shutter. Some also have a separate camera button, for quickness and convenience. A few such as the 2009 Samsung i8000 Omnia II have a two-level shutter butto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Android (operating System)
Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android is developed by a consortium of developers known as the Open Handset Alliance and commercially sponsored by Google. It was unveiled in November 2007, with the first commercial Android device, the HTC Dream, being launched in September 2008. Most versions of Android are proprietary. The core components are taken from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), which is free and open-source software (FOSS) primarily licensed under the Apache License. When Android is installed on devices, the ability to modify the otherwise free and open-source software is usually restricted, either by not providing the corresponding source code or by preventing reinstallation through technical measures, thus rendering the installed version proprietary. Most Android devices ship with additional ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
EPUB
EPUB is an e-book file format that uses the ".epub" file extension. The term is short for ''electronic publication'' and is sometimes styled ''ePub''. EPUB is supported by many e-readers, and compatible software is available for most smartphones, tablets, and computers. EPUB is a technical standard published by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). It became an official standard of the IDPF in September 2007, superseding the older Open eBook (OEB) standard. The Book Industry Study Group endorses EPUB 3 as the format of choice for packaging content and has stated that the global book publishing industry should rally around a single standard. The EPUB format is implemented as an archive file consisting of XHTML files carrying the content, along with images and other supporting files. EPUB is the most widely supported vendor-independent XML-based e-book format; that is, it is supported by almost all hardware readers. History A successor to the Open eBook Publicatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Ray Kurzweil")
_-_Computer_History_Museum.jpg "Click for more on -> Personal Digital Assistant")
.jpg "Click for more on -> Nokia N82")
