[nabs-l] Scanning And Reading Appliance (SARA) vs. Kurzweil

Fri Apr 26 21:38:33 UTC 2013

Steve,

Naturally, I disagree, maybe the first time when it comes to technology. The
OCR engines that power Kurzweil are not the fully developed software found
in the mainstream products. In fact, I believe the engines in the assistive
products are behind by a version or two, which makes sense from a
competitive standpoint. A version or more makes a significant difference
when you're talking about the sophistication of text recognition.

No, the mainstream products do not render text in MP3, not yet that I'm
aware of. They do not feature classic books. They do not crank up their
price to use a proprietary speech synthesizer that puts your screen reader
of choice to sleep, and some of them do not feature a dictionary and
miscellaneous tools you may never use, and tools that you could find at a
far lower price elsewhere. If you look carefully, you can find a copy of
ABBYY Finereader for $37. That's not very likely for the assistive
counterparts. It's a substantial financial difference when the interface is
just as straightforward in one product as the other. Yes, you spend a little
time learning concepts like training the software to behave the way you
like, but since when do we advocate blind people opt for the assistive
products just because they were blind-friendly? That's setting people up for
failure in the workplace...

The idea that people ought to buy a product simply because the state agency
can pay for it is a little appalling. This sets up the person for failure
later when they are no longer covered by a state plan and face the reality
of paying maintenance fees to keep the product updated. Yes, you pay to
upgrade mainstream software as well, but you're going to pay a lot less to
do so than the assistive technology companies get away with.

All that said, it is an individual choice. Perhaps I'm a little bitter that
OpenBook is what was procured for me at work, and I absolutely hate it. I
stand by my claim the mainstream route is ten times better. I prove it every
day. (grin)

Also, don't forget about DocuScan. If you absolutely have to get an
assistive OCR product, give Serotek a try. In full disclosure, I do
freelance work for them.

http://www.serotek.com/docuscanplus

Joe

-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Steve Jacobson
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2013 10:22 AM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Scanning And Reading Appliance (SARA) vs. Kurzweil

This is a tricky subject, and I think one should be careful of simple
answers.  The off-the-shelf products are much cheaper as Joe said, but
depending upon the product and the version, the interfaces can be
challenging.  a knowledgeable computer user should be able to use FineReader
or OmniPage and many of us have done that.  However, for many, the simpler
interfaces of Kurzweil 1000 and Open Book may be worth the extra price,
especially if one can justify having it paid for.  I think I would try to
get a demo of FineReader before deciding for certain that it is for you,
unless you feel you are a pretty experienced computer user.  Many state
agencies are used to paying for Kurzweil or Open Book, and I don't see the
down side of going that route if it is available to you.

I think you will find that most scanners will work with Kurzweil 1000 or
FineReader if they have drivers for the operating system you are using.  It
is hard for me to imagine that you will find a scanner that would work with
Kurzweil that does not work with FineReader or OmniPage.  There are older
scanners that will not work with Windows 7, and I suspect the same might be
true of Windows 8, and this would affect both programs.  

Finally, in terms of character recognition, Kurzweil gives you the choice of
either using the OmniPage or the FineReader recognition "engine" as they
call it.  In other words, the actual recognition of text is going to be
about the same whether you are using Kurzweil or FineReader.  Therefore, I
think that the claim that FineReader will work ten times better is a bit of
an exaggeration.  <smile>  However, that also means that it is fair to say
that the high price you pay for something like Kurzweil or Open Book is not
for better character recognition but rather for an interface that is easier
to use.  Is that worth the extra money?  To some it is not, but to some it
is.  The question isn't whether one can use FineReader or OmniPage, the
question is rather whether they can use the off-the-shelf products as
efficiently as they can use Kurzweil 1000 or Open book, and whether the
difference in efficiency is worth it.  The answers are different for
different people.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Fri, 26 Apr 2013 08:04:33 -0400, Justin Young wrote:

>Hi Joe,

>Do you need a specific scanner to go with this product or will any one 
>work fine?  I was told that with Kurzweil you had to use specific 
>scanners that would only work with Kurzweil.  Thanks for the suggestion 
>haven't heard of this product before so I'm gonna definitely look into 
>it.

>Justin

>On 4/25/13, Joe <jsoro620 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi, go with ABBYY Finereader. It's a mainstream off-the-shelf 
>> product, is a lot cheaper than the assistive options, and works ten 
>> times better than Kurzweil or Openbook ever will.--Joe
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Justin 
>> Young
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 4:02 PM
>> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Scanning And Reading Appliance (SARA) vs. 
>> Kurzweil
>>
>> Hi Jane,
>>
>> Thank you for your response.  How do you like it?  Is it simple to 
>> use?  I don't know much about the devise, but sounded interesting from
what I read.
>>
>> On 4/23/13, Jane <juanitatighan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I have a SARA right on the thing above my desk. It won't handle 
>>> hand-written stuff. Very few scanning solutions can, because 
>>> han-writing is so different for every one.
>>>
>>> Jane
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Apr 23, 2013, at 3:45 PM, Justin Young <jty727 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi All,
>>>>
>>>> Hope you are doing well.  I was wondering if any of you have used a 
>>>> devise called Scanning And Reading Appliance (SARA) from Freedom 
>>>> Scientific?  I currently have Kurzweil, but was interested in 
>>>> hearing if anyone knew if it handled documents better than 
>>>> Kurzweil?  For example, at least with my version of Kurzweil, you 
>>>> can't really do anything with handwritten text.  Can SARA support 
>>>> these types of documents?  Just curious if anyone first hand could 
>>>> provide any information on this devise.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Justin
>>>>
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