A reader in our pocket

The folks at Synthetic Imaging Inc. have been pretty active these days. Just this week, they received a prototype of the Nokia Navigator 6210 and a sample of the knfb Mobile Reader, a powerful and very portable object character recognition device capable of reading labels, restaurant menus and other printed material to the user. The knfb Mobile Reader runs on a Nokia N82 phone using its 5 Mpixel camera. The N82 also provides WiFi connectivity among many other neat features.

Milton Zysman from Synthetic Imaging and I actually attended a seminar at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, where the main features of the reader were demonstrated. To say the very least, we were both very impressed with the little gadget, so we were very glad that knfb Reading Technology Inc. agreed to donate a copy of the software for evaluation here at the University of Toronto; and that is exactly what the SCYP team and Synthetic Imaging Inc. will be doing during the next few weeks.

We also hope to make the unit available to students, staff and faculty at the University of Toronto so that interested members of our community can find out for themselves whether the reader fulfills any of their needs. We'll keep you posted!