Intel's New E-Reader For the Visually Impaired

serverguy writes "Intel will be releasing a win for all visually impaired members of society, a new device called the Intel Reader. It allows visually impaired people to take a snapshot of a newspaper, book, or magazine and have it read back to them. It's estimated that in the US alone there are as many as 55 million people who could make use of such a device. It comes at hefty price though: the paperback-sized device costs $1,499. The device contains a 5-megapixel camera and is powered by a Linux OCR system that converts text into spoken words. The device can hold up to 2GB of data, which would equate to around 600 snapshots. In addition to reading text, the device can also play back audio books in a number of supported formats such as MP3 and WAV. The Intel Reader is expected to be released next Tuesday." The device won't be speedy: "Intel says it takes about 30 seconds to process each page of text... It took... about 30 minutes to scan in the pages of a 250-page book and then one hour to process them."

Comments

is the cost from portability/integration?

[Trepidity]

The raw features somehow make the $1500 seem odd. The admittedly unwieldy equivalent built out of commodity parts is basically a 5-megapixel camera that transfers its data over USB (can be had for under $100 these days), and a netbook (~$300), for a total of ~$400 of hardware. What's the extra $1100 for? The integration into a nice portable package? Development costs of a proprietary OCR/voicesynth pipeline?

Re:is the cost from portability/integration?

[theaveng]

The extra $1100 is for Intel to pay their legal defense fund when the Authors' Guild sues them for violating their authors' "performance rights".

I'm serious. The Guild has already sued Amazon for creating a Kindle that reads books out loud.

Re:is the cost from portability/integration?

[schon]

When I was at the 2001 Canadian copyright consultation, I spoke with a publisher about something just like this.

We were arguing about DMCA-like amendments to copyright law. His position was that he should be able to prohibit *anything* that was capable of reading an e-book, because it would infringe his copyright. Even if that device would read ebooks to blind people. He told me that if he wanted to publish a version for blind people, he would, and that if he didn't, nobody should be allowed to make something that would do it for them.

I asked him "if someone invented a device that read paper books to blind people, would you have the same opinion?" He said absolutely - as a publisher, it was his right to prevent people from reading his books if he didn't want them to - and if he didn't publish a braille version, blind people shouldn't be allowed to read them.

I said "even though this would increase your audience, and thus your sales at no cost to you?", and he said "Absolutely. The books are *mine*, and something that allows blind people to read them is a violation of my copyright."

Since then, I've never met a publisher that had a different attitude. They're all fucking batshit insane.

Seems like a future iPhone, N900, etc. app

[drinkypoo]

The N900 seems like it ought to have enough horsepower to do this job, perhaps slightly slower but I don't see why the device can't be reading and scanning at the same time. N900 has a 5MP, I'm sure a future iPhone will have an acceptable camera... et cetera. I'm curious if there's audio feedback to tell you if you're correctly framing the page.

Re:Seems like a future iPhone, N900, etc. app

[HTH NE1]

The N900 seems like it ought to have enough horsepower to do this job

Unfortunately, since an N900 can do other things as well, disability coverage won't pay for it. Insurers demand assistive devices be single-function, even if the devices have to be crippled to comply.

Re:Seems like a future iPhone, N900, etc. app

[dingen]

Actually, this isn't even a thing of the future. I know a blind person who already has an application which does exactly this on his Nokia phone. He can use it to read signs on the street, letters in his mailbox and basically any text he captures with the camera on his phone.

Re:30 seconds

[thewils]

But that's only for n=1 though. For larger values of n (approaching 250) the time comes down to around 7.2 seconds per page.

That's according to the summary. Which might be wrong.

Potential abuse

[iztehsux]

I see this device somehow being turned into something that pirates audio books, or spies on people.

oh, bother.

[adolf]

Now we have yet another device waiting to be demonized by the copyright nazis.

ASCAP will put a stop to this

[tekrat]

This device is a violation, and users will have to pay royalties for a public performance of a copyrighted work.

#1) You are "copying" (aka pirating), when you take the snapshot.
#2) The device then produces an audio public performance of the pirated work.

It's illegal under copyright laws and the DMCA.

Lawsuit over "performance royalties"?

[tacarat]

Didn't some group sue Amazon over the Kindle's ability to read text out loud? Is Intel next on the hit list due to this? I mean, for $1,500 you could hire some poor, out of work, minstrel to walk around with you and read articles in real time.

Granted, they are a bit clunkier than what most airlines allow for as carry on luggage items, but still.

Software for Everyone

[Doc Ruby]

I'm looking forward to someone unlocking the reader SW from its Linux-driven dedicated HW. I'd like my webcam to read my books and magazines to me at home.

Re:This should be interesting...

[kidblast]

The braille on the drive through bank ATMs is because it would be more expensive to create two types of buttons (braille and without) and know ahead of time where the ATM would be installed.

This was discussed in Freakonomics IIRC.

Re:55 million people in the US alone?

[Darkness404]

http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=15&DocumentID=4398#numbers says that 20 million people have significant vision loss. Plus, add in the number of people who are close to blind without contacts or glasses on and the elderly and you can easily see 55 million people.

Re:Illiteracy isn't a visual impairment.

[John Whitley]

Aside from the fact that you're a troll, there's a deeper meme here worth debunking: that accessibility features are just for the "impaired".

Gregg Vanderheiden gave the closing plenary talk at the SIGCHI 2001 conference. The subject was how creative integration of accessibility features can greatly improve functionality for all users, including examples of products originally designed for people with impairments which went on to wider commercial success. As an example of this kind of thinking, with portable devices (mobile phones, music players, PDAs) we're all "blind" at some time or another -- we cannot or do not want to redirect our visual attention to the device. So what happens when the normal function of the device includes cues to operation that don't require vision (via audio, haptics, etc.)? The device becomes more useful to everyone, including those with visual impairment. Likewise, by including design elements that work when users can't hear a device that device is more useful to both the hearing impaired and to users in loud environments.

There's a summary of this presentation with more details here: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue28/chi/ Scroll down past the stuff about Bill Gates' opening keynote (which was utterly lame in comparison to Vanderheiden's talk, IMO).

Re:30 seconds

[MozeeToby]

From the summary, 30 minutes to scan, 60 minutes to process. Comes to about 22 seconds actually; which, for all intents and purposes, is about 30 seconds.