[Blindtlk] Speaking of OpenBook 9: A Test of its Abilities and a Note about the Pearl Camera

[Szostak, Christine]

HI All,
  Since the issue of OpenBook 9 came up, I thought I would share something I have just tried out with useful success.

  A variation of this was mentioned on the KNFBReader list for that device. Here I will specifically discuss OB and not that app.

  One thing that KNFBReader users have been trying out is  seeing if the app could read a computer screen.

  I recently purchased  the Pearl camera for my OpenBook and decided I wanted to see if OB could thus read the computer screen like their success with the app.

  TO do this, I did the following:

1)  Creat a doc using word (I just had it sent to 12 pt Times New Roman font).

2)  Opened OpenBook.
*Note that you will need to make sure the  workflow is set to acquire pages automaticly to do this.

3)  In OB press space (or I think it is also F4) to start scanning. If you move and continue to move the camera immediately after telling OB to start acquiring pages no picture will be taken until you have it  ready and in place.

4)  Place the book edge so that it is held against the computer screen as though the screen edge is the top or side of a book (whether you place it on a side or the top will be based on the size of your screen) and hold it firmly in place.

  The auto setting then does the rest.

  I did this successfully with a word doc that I had open on my computer. It also read my email client's main page quite well.

  The reason that some may find this valuable is if your screen reader (for those of you with no vision) happens to crash or not come up you can use it to read things like alert bubbles from Windows...

  BTW, for anyone who does a lot of OB scanning and has considered using the Pearl but like me were either (a) worried that it was not user-friendly without any vision or (b) not sure it was worth the cost, let me say that as someone who does a lot of scanning of texts to evaluate them for use in my classes and who is an avid reader in general, it was one of the best investments in adaptive equipment I think I have made in a long time (well except for my VR Stream:)). It is incredibly fast (about 1-3 sec per image acquiring and OCR combined), requires no vision (unlike cell cameras the camera comes with a built-in, lightweight (non-removable) stand with a base that aligns the page perfectly and places the camera for a perfect image), and gives great quality scans. I was even able to use it to get the authorization number from the package that my new MSO software came in.
Happy Tuesday,
Chris