Vol. 9, No. 1 Winter 2001	Previous Issues Subscribe to AT Messenger Download PDF Viewer
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Closing the Visual Gap-Technology Updates for People with Visual Impairment

by Dan Fendler, AT Specialist
Kent County ATRC

With rapid advancements in technology, it's always exciting to see what new advancements have "hit the streets." The Closing the Gap Conference always offers the opportunity to see some of the newest developments. Here's a quick overview of some notable entries for people who are visually impaired.

Notable Products for Those with Visual Impairment

At our two downstate ATRCs, we get quite a few requests for products that magnify the printed word. One item that's borrowed frequently is the CCTV, a non-portable device that magnifies text and displays it on a television like screen. CCTVs are useful at home, but don't help much if you're out and about and need help reading some small text. Telesensory, a company that manufactures video magnifiers (CCTVs), scanners (OCR) and screen magnification products, has developed a portable, true color video magnifier. The MiniViewer, as it is named, is about the size of a pound of butter (6.38w x 4.29d x 2.76h).

It has three magnification settings (5X, 10X and 15X) and contains a rechargeable battery (usage time is approximately 3 hours). It works in full color, high-contrast black on white, or inverse white on black. It seemed to perform well as demonstrated. The only drawbacks were its relatively high sticker price ($1,995) and the magnification settings (15X may not magnify some small text large enough to read). If you would like more information on the MiniViewer, you can contact Telesensory at 800-804-8004 or visit their website at www.telesensory.com.

Another product that may help those with low vision is the Quicktionary ReadingPen. The "pen" is a hand-held, pen shaped, scanner with text-to-speech technology. It has a three-line, 20-character-per-line display screen. You can select a font size ranging from 8-point to 14-point, and you can choose from several different color options. If you run the tip of the pen along a line of text, it will scan a word from printed text, display the word in large characters or read the word aloud from the built-in speaker (or you can plug in your own earphones). It can also look up the definition of a word with the push of a button. The device is aimed at children with learning disabilities, but if you can see well enough to run the pen along a straight line of text, it may also be helpful for those with low vision. It sells for $279.95. You can contact the company that developed the pen, Wizcom Technologies Inc., at 888-777-0552 or visit their website www.wizcomtech.com.

The inability to determine the denomination of paper money can be a barrier to everyday living for people with visual impairment. Brytech (800-263-4095) has a device called the Note Teller® that can read (voice output in English or Spanish) the denomination of U.S. bank notes.

Note Teller® has been updated to work with old and new currency designs. It is small and has an integrated speaker, or you can use it with your own headphones. It retails for about $395. A potential drawback is the volume of the internal speaker. It may be difficult for someone with a hearing impairment to understand; however, a headphone set may improve the sound quality. For more information, Brytech's website is www.brytech.com.

Another product that may enhance the quality of life for people with visual impairments is called GPS-Talk (Sendero Group, 303-795-6455 or www.senderogroup.com). GPS-Talk is a satellite-based system that works with laptop computers (Sendero also sells their own backpack system). By installing their software and attaching one of Sendero's global positioning satellite (GPS) antennas to a laptop computer, you have a system that can serve as a verbal tour guide. It is designed so the blind traveler can access street and point-of-interest information while in a car, taxi, bus, train, or motor home. Instead of relying on a sighted driver for information about your surroundings, GPS-Talk tells you information about nearby streets, addresses, cities and thousands of points of interest. (It's based on the same point-of-interest database used by the GPS-based automobile systems, which has over 15 million entries.) You can hear things like direction of travel, heading and distance to your destination, points of interest close to your position, or speed of travel. I accompanied a van full of conference attendees (three blind and four sighted) on a "live" demo of the product. The feedback from all the participants was very positive. The system often informed us of points of interest that I (a sighted attendee) might have otherwise missed.

A Notable Merger

Henter-Joyce (best known for its screen reading software, JAWS for Windows) has merged with Blazie Engineering (best known for their Braille hardware devices) to form Freedom Scientific Inc. The merged companies also acquired Arkenstone (best known for its scanning and reading software, Open Book).

One of the problems that I have experienced with software designed for people with visual impairment is the lack of standards across products. The merger may begin to address the issue of standards across different software products. If you would like more information, check out Freedom Scientific's website: www.freedomscientific.com.

Text-to-Speech Software

The ability to speak to a computer and have it recognize your voice and translate it into text holds much promise. It can potentially open doors to technology for those who cannot access computers with visually based methods (like keyboards and touch-screens). New versions of Dragon NaturallySpeaking® are now available (Professional and Version 5). We just received Version 5 at the ATRCs. My initial impression is that it works fairly reliably with a non-impaired adult voice. I have had several error-free dictation sessions. It doesn't seem to work as well with children's voices. When I attempted a session with my ten-year-old nephew, the speech recognition rate dropped to only one in twelve words. Since the training time has dropped dramatically (it now only takes 5 to 10 minutes), NaturallySpeaking is much easier to train.

There were many other notable products at this year's exhibit. If you would like additional information or have any questions, please don't hesitate to call your local ATRC.