Reading Peripheral Catering to Vision Impaired Bookworms

Plustek, makers of end-user imaging devices, exhibited their new text-to-speech peripheral device, the Plustek Book Reader, at the Assistive Technology show (ATIA 2006) held in Orlando in January 2006.

The Plustek Book Reader is the only reading peripheral device priced below $700 USD that is devoted entirely to helping the visually impaired to read books. The Book Reader integrates high-speed scanning, a high-quality speaking voice and extremely precise text-to-speech and optical character recognition functionality into a single device. Extra features that make it all the more attractive to the vision-impaired audience include functions such as magnifier, bookmark, PDF reading and controls for fonts, volume and speech –making this computer companion highly versatile.

The optical character recognition (OCR) and text-to-speech (TTS) software are two features that allow the scanner to copy and “read” the scanned documents. The unit is very user-friendly, only requiring that a book or document is properly placed on the screen and a single one-touch button is activated to scan the entire page for one’s “reading” pleasure. Another superlative feature of Book Reader is conversion of printed words into audio output that is saved in MP3 format for later access.

Accurate scan results are guaranteed by the embedded OCR and other software that allows disoriented text to be rotated, which generates a clear message for the user. The Plustek Book Reader comes with patented SEE Technology that uses a curved lamp for a clearer scan of the book without distortion, even in the case of big and bulky books.

Source: Business Wire