3

By Chris Meadows

reader-1 Venturebeat has an article looking at the $1,500 Intel Reader portable text-to-speech device Intel has just released. It is the size of a paperback book and can read from files or capture printed text with its built-in digital camera.

The Intel Reader is meant specifically for the blind or visually-impaired.

“We want people to experience the independence of being able to read on their own in a public place or anywhere they want to,” said [Intel representative Ben Foss], speaking at a press event on Monday. “A metaphor for this are the ramps that make buildings wheelchair accessible. This reader is like a ramp.”

The Intel Reader certainly goes farther than the Kindle toward assisting the blind. In fact, it was intentionally designed to enable full use by the visually-impaired with no additional help required. The packaging includes braille notation to identify the manuals, and a tutorial audio CD.

The Intel Reader has also been endorsed by a number of organizations dedicated to helping the blind or learning-disabled. The technical specs are impressive, and even at $1,500 it still costs considerably less than $10,000 braille readers.

It is interesting to consider that, for those who cannot read print themselves, the Intel Reader makes one of the great benefits of e-books available even for printed matter. Who knows; perhaps in a few years even ordinary e-book devices will be able to do something similar.

 
3