Intel Debuts New Document Scanning Technology
New “Intel Reader” Scans Documents To Digital, Reads Them Aloud
Last month, the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) completely took over the city of Las Vegas. The whole city feels the transformation, and while it can hardly be said that the city’s ordinary dazzle goes out, it definitely pales in comparison to the bustle of CES. Each year, the show draws over a hundred thousand industry insiders to Sin City, for a massive show-and-tell of their newest creations. During CES, it feels like there are more Samsung reps than chorus girls crowding the casino floors.
Amid this craze, flagship computing companies like Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, and Intel show off their latest technologies, many of which are kept secret until the show begins. This year, Intel debuted a new handheld device that uses advanced document scanning technology to read any printed text aloud to the user. The new Intel Reader was designed mainly to provide convenient access to printed materials for people with vision or reading-related disabilities, blindness, or low vision. People who struggle with reading due to vision problems or reading disabilities such as dyslexia stand to gain and unprecedented level of success and freedom with this groundbreaking device.
The Intel Reader uses a high-resolution camera and an Intel® Atom™ processor to make printed material more accessible in a number of ways. The essentially takes a point-and-shoot photo of the desired page; all text is automatically scanned to digital form, allowing audio playback and/or magnification. The device is portable, unobtrusive, and fast – it can begin reading a text aloud almost immediately after a snapshot of the page is taken. Because documents are scanned to digital text formats, the device can store large amounts of text for later playback. Used in conjunction with the Intel® Portable Capture Station, the Reader can scan to digital, convert, and store whole books or magazines for listening later.
Although the device is aimed to increase the freedom, enjoyment, and confidence of a specific demographic of users, its ability generate digital versions of any printed materials (and even convert them into audio MP3’s and other standard formats, which work with any computer or portable media player) could come in handy for students who don’t want to lug around dozens of text books, or anyone who wants to make an instant audio book. For more information, visit Here.
