My PC is running Window 7 and ZoomText Ver 10 with no major issue. ZT V10 does not run on Window 10, even though I have no intention to move over to Window 10, I had concern that I won't able to buy a Window 7 PC in the future, so I bought ZoomText Ver 10.1 upgrade when it was on sale.
I installed the ZT V10.1 into my current Window 7 PC to find out whether any performance improvement. As soon as I put the CD, I encountered a problem. The very first installation screen was in normal font, black text on white black background and not voiced. I had no idea what to do until I had sighted help to continue. The rest of installation steps were in large font.
The major issue I had with ZT V10.1 is that it no longer work properly with my Thunderbird mail client. I like to use the ZT's mouse echo function to read my email line by line. With ZT 10, when I hover the mouse pointer on line of text, it would speak the whole line then stop and the end of the line. When move the pointer to next line, it would speak the next line to the end again. If I hover on a link, it would speak the name of the link. With ZT V10.1, the echo function no longer work correctly. When I hover the line, it speak the first sentence only and stop speaking on the first period. Moving the pointer to the next sentence or next line would not resume the voice. When the pointer hover over a link, it would speak the link's long URL address instead the name of the link. Watch the video below to see what I mean. ZoomText tech support is aware of this issue and had no plan to fix it.
The other issues that I had on ZT V10 is that in ZT V10.1. The issue is when PC wake up from sleep mode, the speech function would be disabled sometime. The only way to enable the speech is to reboot the PC. I also found out that MS Office 2000 is no longer work properly with ZT V10.1/
Because ZT V10.1's echo issue with Thunderbird and MS OFffice 2000, I had to go back to ZT V10. I am very disappointed by this software upgrade, waste of money. Of course all this issues might be resolved if I upgrade to Window 10, not use Thunderbird, and use the latest MS Office, but the current working setup is working well for me and I don't have the extra cash for all the SW upgrade.
One last issue, after I uninstall ZT version 10.1 I noticed ZT V10 had few stability issues. For example, ZT would not start up correctly all the time, had shutdown issue sometime, and others. I had to unstall V10 and reinstall to get ZT Version 10 fully working correctly again.
ZoomText V10.1 Echo
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Sunday, July 17, 2016
ABBYY TextGrabber, not I was hoping for
As an old man with severe visual impairment due to RP, I depend on technologies to help me read the printed material. For example, I use the ZoomText screen reader to read the text on the monitor, I use a desktop CCTV to read printed material, and I have a portable CCTV when I am away from my desk. I also use the scanner and a OCR program called ABBYY FineReader to convert the scanned printed material to text format for my Zoomtext reader to read it to me.
When I saw the ABBYY TextGrabber app in the Google play store selling for only $2.00, I bought a copy. The FineReader works really well on my PC with the scanned material and I was hoping the TextGrabber would work equally well on a smartphone. What I was hoping the TextGrabber to do is to let me take a photo of the text on a item and let the OCR generate a text file from the photo, after that I would let Talkback read the text to me. I was hoping I can use this mobile app in the stores so I can read nutritional fact, cooking direction, and any other info before buying that item. I knew the TextGrabber was designed to recognize text on flat paper, and I wanted to fine out whether it would recognize text on flat surfaces like text on front and back of various packages.
The TextGrabber was not designed for a blind user in mind. A person who use this app must have enough vision to position the camera about 12 inches away from the text to take a photo. The app's main user interface screen only has 2 large icons.The upper icon is a camera and the lower icon is a photo album. The operation of this app is very easy. After you tap the camera icon, you would position the camera and tap the shutter button to take a photo of the text that you want the OCR function to work on. After the photo was taken, tap the read button, the OCR would convert the image into a text file in few seconds. When the text file appear on the screen, you tap the screen to let Talkback read the text to you. The photo album has the previous photos you have taken. The TextGrabber app also have a language translation function which I won't test at this time.
After taking photos of many type of packages, the result was very disappointing. The TextGrabber's OCR function had problem recognize almost all the text at the front of the package. The OCR did do a little bit better with text at the side of back of the packages. I think this is not the fault of TextGrabber because it was not design for this purpose. Anyway, I can't use this app to ID items or get useful info from packages. This app is pretty much useless to me as a low vision aid, luckily it only cost me $2.00.
Here are few photos:
The app didn't do that much better with regular printed material, like junk mail, post card, menu, etc. If I have to guess, it had at most 50% accuracy. The best OCR result came from a perfectly flat paper, with high contrast text and good lighting. The ABBYY FineReader running in my PC had much better OCR result, I estimated at least 90% accuracy. I am sure the resolution of the camera and the skill of a user also affect the OCR result. I ran the test on my LG 22C smartphone which has a 5MP camera.
Look like I would need to find something else if I like to ID stuff on my own. I knew another mobile OCR app called KNFB Reader. This app was specially designed for blind user. This app usually cost $100 but often on sale for around $75. I have no idea whether it would do any better reading text on packages. I don't want to spend that kind of money to find out at this time. If anyone has experience on this app, feel free to comment below. As far as I can tell, no OCR can read text on a curved surface, that mean I couldn't use it the read the cooking direction on a can of soup.
KNFB Reader Demo Video
Another app have received a lot of media attention isTapTapSee. This app let you take a photo of an object, send the photo to the cloud, and tell you what the object in the photo in about 10 seconds.
The last I checked, this service is no longer free. Right now there are 2 price plan. One costs $8.00 to ID 100 images with no time limit. The other costs $9.00 per month with unlimited number of image.
TapTapSee Demo Video
If you need live help to ID a item, BeMyEyes is an app let that let a blind user and a sighted volunteer establish a video link on smartphone so the volunteer can tell the user what the camera is pointing at. This is a free service.
BeMyEyes Demo video
The info at the directionsforme.com is what I was hoping in a mobile app. The website contains product info on thousands of food items, health care items and other misc items. You can search the info by product name or using an optional barcode scanner. Won't it be great if an app can use a smartphone's camera as a scanner and enter the UPC code directly into the database? Probably someone is working on that reight now, I hope.
Directionsforme website
I really hate blindness, I have jump through hoops just to get some cooking direction.
When I saw the ABBYY TextGrabber app in the Google play store selling for only $2.00, I bought a copy. The FineReader works really well on my PC with the scanned material and I was hoping the TextGrabber would work equally well on a smartphone. What I was hoping the TextGrabber to do is to let me take a photo of the text on a item and let the OCR generate a text file from the photo, after that I would let Talkback read the text to me. I was hoping I can use this mobile app in the stores so I can read nutritional fact, cooking direction, and any other info before buying that item. I knew the TextGrabber was designed to recognize text on flat paper, and I wanted to fine out whether it would recognize text on flat surfaces like text on front and back of various packages.
The TextGrabber was not designed for a blind user in mind. A person who use this app must have enough vision to position the camera about 12 inches away from the text to take a photo. The app's main user interface screen only has 2 large icons.The upper icon is a camera and the lower icon is a photo album. The operation of this app is very easy. After you tap the camera icon, you would position the camera and tap the shutter button to take a photo of the text that you want the OCR function to work on. After the photo was taken, tap the read button, the OCR would convert the image into a text file in few seconds. When the text file appear on the screen, you tap the screen to let Talkback read the text to you. The photo album has the previous photos you have taken. The TextGrabber app also have a language translation function which I won't test at this time.
After taking photos of many type of packages, the result was very disappointing. The TextGrabber's OCR function had problem recognize almost all the text at the front of the package. The OCR did do a little bit better with text at the side of back of the packages. I think this is not the fault of TextGrabber because it was not design for this purpose. Anyway, I can't use this app to ID items or get useful info from packages. This app is pretty much useless to me as a low vision aid, luckily it only cost me $2.00.
Here are few photos:
 |
| Box of tea bags |
 |
| Box of cereal |
 |
| Bottle of prune juice |
 |
| Can of SPAM |
The app didn't do that much better with regular printed material, like junk mail, post card, menu, etc. If I have to guess, it had at most 50% accuracy. The best OCR result came from a perfectly flat paper, with high contrast text and good lighting. The ABBYY FineReader running in my PC had much better OCR result, I estimated at least 90% accuracy. I am sure the resolution of the camera and the skill of a user also affect the OCR result. I ran the test on my LG 22C smartphone which has a 5MP camera.
Look like I would need to find something else if I like to ID stuff on my own. I knew another mobile OCR app called KNFB Reader. This app was specially designed for blind user. This app usually cost $100 but often on sale for around $75. I have no idea whether it would do any better reading text on packages. I don't want to spend that kind of money to find out at this time. If anyone has experience on this app, feel free to comment below. As far as I can tell, no OCR can read text on a curved surface, that mean I couldn't use it the read the cooking direction on a can of soup.
KNFB Reader Demo Video
Another app have received a lot of media attention isTapTapSee. This app let you take a photo of an object, send the photo to the cloud, and tell you what the object in the photo in about 10 seconds.
The last I checked, this service is no longer free. Right now there are 2 price plan. One costs $8.00 to ID 100 images with no time limit. The other costs $9.00 per month with unlimited number of image.
TapTapSee Demo Video
If you need live help to ID a item, BeMyEyes is an app let that let a blind user and a sighted volunteer establish a video link on smartphone so the volunteer can tell the user what the camera is pointing at. This is a free service.
BeMyEyes Demo video
The info at the directionsforme.com is what I was hoping in a mobile app. The website contains product info on thousands of food items, health care items and other misc items. You can search the info by product name or using an optional barcode scanner. Won't it be great if an app can use a smartphone's camera as a scanner and enter the UPC code directly into the database? Probably someone is working on that reight now, I hope.
Directionsforme website
I really hate blindness, I have jump through hoops just to get some cooking direction.
ABBYY TextGrabber, not I was hoping for
As an old man with severe visual impairment due to RP, I depend on technologies to help me read the printed material. For example, I use the ZoomText screen reader to read the text on the monitor, I use a desktop CCTV to read printed material, and I have a portable CCTV when I am away from my desk. I also use the scanner and a OCR program called ABBYY FineReader to read the scanned printed material.
When I saw the ABBYY TextGrabber app in the Google play store selling for only $2.00, I bought a copy. The FineReader works really well on my PC with the scanned material and I was hoping the TextGrabber would work equally well on a smartphone. What I was hoping the TextGrabber to do is to let me take a photo of the text on a item and let the OCR generate a text file from the photo, after that I would let Talkback read the text to me. I was hoping I can use this mobile app in the stores so I can read nutritional fact, cooking direction, and any other info before buying that item. I knew the TextGrabber was designed to recognize text on flat paper, and I wanted to fine out whether it would recognize text on flat surfaces like text on front and back of various packages.
The TextGrabber was not designed for a blind user in mind. A person who use this app must have enough vision to position the camera about 12 inches away from the text to take a photo. The app's main user interface screen only has 2 large icons but they were not label, soTalkback unable to tell you their function. Anyway, the upper icon is a camera and the lower icon is a photo album. The operation of this app is very easy. After you tap the camera icon, you would position the camera and tap the shutter button to take a photo of the text that you want the OCR function to work on. After the photo was taken, tap the read button, the OCR would convert the image into a text file in few seconds. When the text file appear on the screen, you tap the screen to let Talkback read the text to you. The photo album has the photos you took before and the OCR can work on those photo as well. The TextGrabber app also have a language translation function which I won't test at this time.
After taking photos of many type of packages, the result was very disappointing. The TextGrabber's OCR function had problem recognize almost all the text at the front of the package. The OCR did do a little bit better with text at the side of back of the packages. I think this is not the fault of TextGrabber because it was not design for this purpose. Anyway, I can't use this app to ID items or get useful info from packages. This app is pretty much useless to me as a shopping aid. luckily it only cost me $2.00.
Here are few photos:
The app didn't do that much better with regular printed material either, like junk mail, post card, menu, etc. If I have to guess, it had at most 50% accuracy. The best OCR result came from a perfectly flat paper, with high contrast text and good lighting. The ABBYY FineReader running in my PC had much better OCR result, I estimated at least 90% accuracy. I am sure the resolution of the camera and the skill of a user also affect the OCR result. I ran the test on my LG 22C smartphone which has a 5MP camera.
Look like I would need to find something else if I like to ID stuff on my own. I aware of few alternative solutions.
I knew another mobile OCR app called KNFB Reader. This app was specially designed for blind user. This app usually cost $100 but often on sale for around $75. I have no idea whether it would do any better reading text on packages. I don't want to spend that kind of money to find out at this time. If anyone has experience on this app, feel free to comment below. As far as I can tell, no OCR can read text on a curved surface, that mean I couldn't use it the read the cooking direction on can food.
KNFB Reader Demo Video
Another app have received a lot of media attention isTapTapSee. This app let you take a photo of an object, send the photo to the cloud, and tell you what the object in the photo in about 10 seconds. This app is great if all you want is to ID an object. The last I checked, this service is no longer free. Right now there are 2 price plan. One costs $8.00 to ID 100 images with no time limit. The other costs $9.00 per month with unlimited number of image.
TapTapSee Demo Video
If you need live help to ID a item, BeMyEyes is an app let that let a blind user and a sighted volunteer establish a video conference link on smartphone so the volunteer can tell the user what the camera is pointing at and provide additional info if needed. This is a free service.
BeMyEyes Demo video
The info at the directionsforme.com is what I was hoping in a mobile app. The website contains product info on thousands of food items, health care items and other misc items. You can search the info by product name or using an optional barcode scanner. Won't it be great if an app can use a smartphone's camera as a scanner and enter the UPC code directly into the database? Probably someone is working on that reight now, I hope.
Directionsforme website
I really hate RP, I have to jump through hoops just to get some simple info.
When I saw the ABBYY TextGrabber app in the Google play store selling for only $2.00, I bought a copy. The FineReader works really well on my PC with the scanned material and I was hoping the TextGrabber would work equally well on a smartphone. What I was hoping the TextGrabber to do is to let me take a photo of the text on a item and let the OCR generate a text file from the photo, after that I would let Talkback read the text to me. I was hoping I can use this mobile app in the stores so I can read nutritional fact, cooking direction, and any other info before buying that item. I knew the TextGrabber was designed to recognize text on flat paper, and I wanted to fine out whether it would recognize text on flat surfaces like text on front and back of various packages.
The TextGrabber was not designed for a blind user in mind. A person who use this app must have enough vision to position the camera about 12 inches away from the text to take a photo. The app's main user interface screen only has 2 large icons but they were not label, soTalkback unable to tell you their function. Anyway, the upper icon is a camera and the lower icon is a photo album. The operation of this app is very easy. After you tap the camera icon, you would position the camera and tap the shutter button to take a photo of the text that you want the OCR function to work on. After the photo was taken, tap the read button, the OCR would convert the image into a text file in few seconds. When the text file appear on the screen, you tap the screen to let Talkback read the text to you. The photo album has the photos you took before and the OCR can work on those photo as well. The TextGrabber app also have a language translation function which I won't test at this time.
After taking photos of many type of packages, the result was very disappointing. The TextGrabber's OCR function had problem recognize almost all the text at the front of the package. The OCR did do a little bit better with text at the side of back of the packages. I think this is not the fault of TextGrabber because it was not design for this purpose. Anyway, I can't use this app to ID items or get useful info from packages. This app is pretty much useless to me as a shopping aid. luckily it only cost me $2.00.
Here are few photos:
|
| Box of tea bags |
|
| Box of cereal |
|
| Bottle of prune juice |
|
| Can of SPAM |
The app didn't do that much better with regular printed material either, like junk mail, post card, menu, etc. If I have to guess, it had at most 50% accuracy. The best OCR result came from a perfectly flat paper, with high contrast text and good lighting. The ABBYY FineReader running in my PC had much better OCR result, I estimated at least 90% accuracy. I am sure the resolution of the camera and the skill of a user also affect the OCR result. I ran the test on my LG 22C smartphone which has a 5MP camera.
Look like I would need to find something else if I like to ID stuff on my own. I aware of few alternative solutions.
I knew another mobile OCR app called KNFB Reader. This app was specially designed for blind user. This app usually cost $100 but often on sale for around $75. I have no idea whether it would do any better reading text on packages. I don't want to spend that kind of money to find out at this time. If anyone has experience on this app, feel free to comment below. As far as I can tell, no OCR can read text on a curved surface, that mean I couldn't use it the read the cooking direction on can food.
KNFB Reader Demo Video
Another app have received a lot of media attention isTapTapSee. This app let you take a photo of an object, send the photo to the cloud, and tell you what the object in the photo in about 10 seconds. This app is great if all you want is to ID an object. The last I checked, this service is no longer free. Right now there are 2 price plan. One costs $8.00 to ID 100 images with no time limit. The other costs $9.00 per month with unlimited number of image.
TapTapSee Demo Video
If you need live help to ID a item, BeMyEyes is an app let that let a blind user and a sighted volunteer establish a video conference link on smartphone so the volunteer can tell the user what the camera is pointing at and provide additional info if needed. This is a free service.
BeMyEyes Demo video
The info at the directionsforme.com is what I was hoping in a mobile app. The website contains product info on thousands of food items, health care items and other misc items. You can search the info by product name or using an optional barcode scanner. Won't it be great if an app can use a smartphone's camera as a scanner and enter the UPC code directly into the database? Probably someone is working on that reight now, I hope.
Directionsforme website
I really hate RP, I have to jump through hoops just to get some simple info.
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