K-NFB Reader
Encyclopedia
The K-NFB 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.
The software was later ported to the Symbian operating system, to be used on Nokia N82
camera phone
s.
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
. It was developed in a partnership between Ray Kurzweil and National Federation of the Blind
National Federation of the Blind
The National Federation of the Blind 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...
.
The original version of the reader was composed of a digital camera
Digital camera
A digital camera is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor. It is the main device used in the field of digital photography...
and a PDA
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
, which contained specialised OCR
Optical character recognition
Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is the mechanical or electronic translation of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is widely used to convert books and documents into electronic files, to computerize a record-keeping...
software and speech synthesizers
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...
to read the scanned material aloud.
The software was later ported to the Symbian operating system, to be used on Nokia N82
Nokia N82
The Nokia N82 is a smartphone produced by Nokia. It is part of the company's Nseries line of smartphones which features the N-Gage gaming platform and the Nokia Music store...
camera phone
Camera phone
A camera phone is a mobile phone which is able to capture still photographs . Since early in the 21st century the majority of mobile phones in use are camera phones....
s.