[Reader-users] books

Mon May 19 10:26:13 CDT 2008

David;
Is there a headset with the phone so you can read in public.  If not, how can you read a flier at a meating?

Terry Powers

-----Original Message-----
From: David Evans [mailto:drevans at bellsouth.net] 
Sent: Saturday, May 17, 2008 11:51 AM
To: Kurzweil National Federation of the Blind Reader user list
Subject: Re: [Reader-users] books

Dear Livio,

Jim has it right.  For scanning a book, the Reader, at this stage is not the best tool.
It can certainly scan the pages of a book, but this will put a real phyiscal strain on your body to do it and it may not have the best navigation features  for reading a book.
I do not have enough experience as yet to say how hard it will be to navigate the contents of a book that the Reader does scan, but I think that the product has room to grow in the future and perhaps features like this could be made more useful in future upgrades.
What I find the reader useful for is when I walk in to a meeting and they place a bunch of papers down in front of me that I must read on the spot, the reader will now give me that ability.
It will help me when I must travel out of town and read all kinds of information such as flight info, transportation info, hotel info, bills, signs and labels.
It is a great tool and I look forward to using it extensively, but I have only had it four days now and I am still learning to use it.
I just think that using a flat bed scanner and a OCR program is a much better method of scanning a book at this point.
It is possible to read and scan most anything you want with the reader, but for a large bunch of scanning there are better tools.
I am sure that KNFB is hard at work thinking up new features to make the Reader and even better tool for us to use such as a DAISY reader feature.

David Evans, NFBF
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Barbour" <jbar at barcore.com>
To: "Kurzweil National Federation of the Blind Reader user list" 
<reader-users at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 17, 2008 1:29 AM
Subject: Re: [Reader-users] books

Hello Livio,

I'm not David, but I will happily give my opinion anyway.

The KNFB reader mobile is not designed well for books.  it *can* do
books, but it will not be anywhere near as smooth an experience as
using a computer based solution like the K1000.

The two main reasons are that it takes a while to scan and read a
page, and that its very hard to navigate.

By navigate, I mean moving from place to place within the book,
searching for what you want to read, organizing chapters, finding a
particular page, etc.

David's other point is that you have to hold your arm at an
uncomfortable angle to take a picture of a page.  Doing that several
hundred times to read an entire book will be very difficult.

I hope this helps,

Jim

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 12:18:16AM -0500, Livio Novi Rodríguez wrote:
> Dear David:
>
> I saw your last message and probably misunderstood your words.  So, Are 
> you
> saying that the KNFB is not good for books?  Please give me a better
> explanation, because I am about to purchase my kNFB Reader Mobile (I read 
> a
> lot of books) , when the software is able to read Spanish.  Note that
> although I speek and read English, I live and work in Mexico City, so
> Spanish is my main language.
>
> Please, I wait for your reply the sooner you can, because I have heard 
> great
> things about the reader.  I can't wait to have mine!
>
> Best regards,
>
>
>
> Livio Novi.
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "David Evans" <drevans at bellsouth.net>
> To: "Kurzweil National Federation of the Blind Reader user list"
> <reader-users at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Friday, May 16, 2008 9:44 PM
> Subject: Re: [Reader-users] books
>
>
> >
> > Dear All,
> >
> > I don't believe that trying to take allot of pictures , very fast, will 
> > be
> > very practical as using a flat bed scanner.
> > Your arm is going to get very tired trying to hold that unit still, at 
> > the
> > right distance, for the amount of time to get the job done.
> > How are you going to turn the pages and everything and still keep from
> > moving the KNFB reader.
> > You would need some kind of stand for it.
> >
> > David Evans, NFBF
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "will lomas" <lomaswilliam at googlemail.com>
> > To: "Kurzweil National Federation of the Blind Reader user list"
> > <reader-users at nfbnet.org>
> > Sent: Friday, May 16, 2008 2:50 AM
> > Subject: Re: [Reader-users] books
> >
> >
> >> it would but as has been states the processing power in the phone is
> >> not as fast as say the older classics. but if we suggest these
> >> features, and user input is taken into account via the company then we
> >> may see results
> >>
> >> On 16 May 2008, at 05:02, Kevin Jones wrote:
> >>
> >>> I'm still hoping they eventually include a batch shoot and a batch
> >>> process mode. this would make scanning books more convenient.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Dean Wilcox wrote:
> >>>> I've never tried to read a whole book with it but on the pages I've
> >>>> read it gives good results, also noticing that there are two pages
> >>>> and reading it properly.  If you wanted it to go all the way from
> >>>> left to right, top to bottom you can use bills and memos mode
> >>>> instead.  I know you didn't ask that but thought it'd be good to
> >>>> know.
> >>>>
> >>>> At 20:15 13/05/2008, you wrote:
> >>>>> if it can scan menus i would suggest text books won't be hard.
> >>>>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>>>> From: "will lomas" <lomaswilliam at googlemail.com>
> >>>>> To: "Kurzweil National Federation of the Blind Reader user list"
> >>>>> <reader-users at nfbnet.org>
> >>>>> Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 3:24 PM
> >>>>> Subject: [Reader-users] books
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> hi does the reader scan textbooks reasonably well?
> >>>>>> thanks, will
> >>>>>>
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