Many of the OCR systems I have worked with in the past have been fairly unresponsive and slow and take anywhere from 30 seconds to 1 minute to turn a page of text into speech. I have been recommending Guide 4.0 to clients after a reading machine / OCR device as it is fast and provides a clear and easy interface. In the pursuit of the fastest OCRing possible I have obtained a Canon 8800F scanner to go with Guide. This scanner uses LED technology which means no warm up time and it can scan a whole A4 page at 150dpi in under 4 seconds and at 300dpi in about 8 seconds. I've prepared a very basic recording demonstrating the speed of Guide with the Canon 8800F. (mp3 - 550kb).

Curb Cuts is a television show produced by the Central Coast Assistive Technology Center about assistive technologies. The show is titled how 'Curb Cuts' because it refers to a common accessibility feature that is found on streets throughout many countries. Of particular interest is Episode 2 - AT for Low Vision, and Episode 2 - Blind AT. These show a great variety of technologies with vision impaired users showing their pratical uses.

Workventures IT have a great business that turns ex corporate and government PCs and peripheral equipment into affordable systems for people with disabilities. Systems with a P4 1.8ghz computer with 17" monitor and 25 hours internet access start at $250. All systems come with Windows XP and should run software such as JAWS easily. Call 1800 112 205 for further information.

This week I took the plunge and purchased an Apple iPhone. Partly for my own needs, but also to test its usefulness to low vision users. The iPhone is not officially available in Australia yet, so the phone is a US import which has been "modified" using the Jailbreak software.

In terms of accessibility, there is good news and bad news. Firstly, for a blind user it is almost totally inaccessible. There are almost no tactile markings on the device apart from a volume rocker switch and the sleep button. The front of the device is flat and smooth as almost all functions are controlled by the touch screen. The phone uses a modified version of the Mac operating system OSX which does have some good accessiblity feaetures such as voice over, a screen reader, so in theory modifying the device to have an audio interface shouldn't be a huge problem. Additionally, the device has bluetooth and the input issues could be solved by the use of a device like the Easy Link 12, a bluetooth braille interface.

Optelec USA have made the manuals for all their equipment availalbe in PDF format. If you have the Acrobat Reader you can view the document directly. You can also choose to download the file to your PC for future reference or printing. If you do not have an Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can download it free from the Adobe website.