Well, the KNFB reader uses only the phone to process and recognize what it scans, and it's still faster than Kurzweil and a conventional scanner. I got the weird idea in my head when my friend had his web cam in the list of choices to scan, but it wouldn't let us use it if you press the scan key with that set as the scanner, wishful thinking. Another interesting idea I found is this thing called Genoa Connection where they transmit live video to have a remote sighted guide. The only issues I see with that are that you'd probably need an external camera so you wouldn't have to hold the phone out, and the 5 gig data caps the cell companies have. I understand they demonstrated it a little bit on the today show, but whether or not it could become a products is probably yet to be seen.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Gary W. Kelly" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Cc: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 12:46 PM Subject: IPhone Dreams > > Hi, > > Kara is correct. For those of you attended CSUN in March, and recall > the iVisit demonstration of SeeStar and SeeScan--well, you were > watching a camera cellphone with less than 3 megapixels. It could > identify money, and while it is limited in how small print can be, it > is surprisingly good. > > The difficulty for developers for the iPhone is the "crowd at the > door". There are so many developers with good ideas, that Apple is > limited in how much attention they can give individual developers. > This is both good and bad news. It means that the iPhone will not > have everything at once, but it also means that once the flow of new > widgets and systems start, it will flow well for a long time. > > The new iPhone has 256 mb of memory--double the current models, and a > 600 mhz processor. Even so, it will have difficulty doing the heavy > lifting of processing OCR, or even doing recognition tasks. The > iVisit approach revealed at CSUN, depends on a data channel to connect > to a desk server to do that processing intensive work. It is likely > that will remain just as true of future iPhones for a while. > > Since some of the desirable applications will take a couple of years > to have available to the public, there is plenty of time for an iPhone > upgrade by then. Remember, the life cycle of a cellphone is typically > 18 months. > > The greater issues with doing any kind of recognition with a camera on > a cellphone have to do with the human factors of how to aim the > camera, and know the image is in the field. The process requires a > remote server to do the heavy lifting of recognition if you want more > than minimal performance. This means a data plan, and reception > issues. Even at 600 mhz, and 256 mb memory, resources are scant for > serious OCR on the phone. Think of doing that back in 1999 on your PC. > > Another note of reality for this discussion is to realize that iPhones > now are notorious for being power hungry. If one uses an iPhone as > many typical users do, the battery does *not* last through the day. > There are iPhone kits to provide portable power on the go, to recharge > the iPhone. > > The battery is the weak component. Yes, it would be wonderful to have > all those hardware gadgets in one iPhone package, but currently, you > can only expect to do that for about half a day. If you want to use > your phone after that, you will need to get more power for it. It is > not currently realistic to carry around your phone, and ask it to be a > cellphone, a portable document reader, an email reader, book reader, > music player, GPS navigator, money/object recognizer, color > identifier, bar code/RFID reader, etc, and last for 10-12 hours a day > while you are on the go, too. > > There are real trade-offs that will have to be made, and that > balancing act takes time to play out. I am currently participating in > a study of "best practices" in cellphone design for persons who are > blind. We are finding that few phones running MobileSpeaks can > survive a day without a recharge. Cellphone companies fudge their > numbers by turning out the backlight in 2 seconds, as on the BlackJack > 2, and cutting system resources to the bone to make that 8 hours they > want to advertise. When we go in, and reset it so it can work with > MobileSpeaks, the additional overhead takes a big toll. Just as the > manuals say--running bluetooth uses more power, so does MobileSpeaks, > or any other screen reading system. GPS uses more power, and those > cameras eat power at an incredible rate. In my work with one > application on a Mogul, I could drain the battery in about 2 hours at > most. > > Relax, be patient, and enjoy Snow Leopard when it arrives. > It may take time for iPhones, or any other phone to catch up to our > dreams and desires. > > Gary > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
