Pen Scanner Claims to Solve Foreign Language Translations
Published: Jun 20, 2007The IRISPEN Translator Executive pen scanner could be a real boon for anyone who quickly wants to translate and understand a foreign printed text. It is a niche product though, is far too cumbersome and slow to use for scanning large documents, and its limited functionality will be appreciated only by those with specific needs.
Having said that, the text-to-speech function is excellent and it will assist those who need to understand a foreign printed text. It’s also good for inputting typed text into a spreadsheet, database or email application without touching the keyboard. Business travellers can also use it to capture useful info while on the road. The biggest criticism is that the error rate is initially very high until you put in a lot of practice to follow a perfectly straight line. Even so, you’ll never match a flatbed scanner’s OCR results.
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Pros: Powered by USB port; translation and text-to-speech software
Cons: Poor documentation; time consuming and frustrating
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Optical character recognition (OCR) technology has been around for half a century. Handheld scanners have been around almost as long. So what’s the point of the I.R.I.S.’ IRISPen Translator. Well, the USB 2.0 gadget actually has two unique features: it translates foreign printed text, and it talks.
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Just scan the lines you don’t understand and they are automatically translated (using @promt Standard software) into a spreadsheet, text editor, database or an e-mail. That’s not all - when you lift the pen from the page, the bundled OCR software reads back the resulting text in one of several pleasant digitized voices.
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