There's nothing worse than having to pore over a pile of PDFs containing documents scanned as images when you quickly have to find a specific file. Dropbox is making it easier to do that by introducing automatic image recognition, which extracts text...
Businesses do a lot to secure their operations, but often it just takes one rogue employee to send themselves confidential files and they're doomed. Google launched its Data Loss Prevention (DLP) service to help companies avoid such a calamity, and n...
Businesses do a lot to secure their operations, but often it just takes one rogue employee to send themselves confidential files and they're doomed. Google launched its Data Loss Prevention (DLP) service to help companies avoid such a calamity, and n...
Businesses do a lot to secure their operations, but often it just takes one rogue employee to send themselves confidential files and they're doomed. Google launched its Data Loss Prevention (DLP) service to help companies avoid such a calamity, and n...
Microsoft rolled out a pair of super-useful updates to its Translator app on Thursday. Unfortunately, the new feature you get depends on which platform you use.
Microsoft rolled out a pair of super-useful updates to its Translator app on Thursday. Unfortunately, the new feature you get depends on which platform you use.
A couple of years ago we checked out OpenGlass, a prototype software that used Google Glass to help the visually impaired identify objects. OrCam has a very similar function. It has a camera that clips on to eyeglasses and recognizes text, faces and objects.
OrCam can read non-cursive text and identify objects and faces to the wearer through its bone conduction speaker. All you have to do is point at something and OrCam will try and read or name it.
OrCam doesn’t talk about its object recognition in detail on its website, but it appears you can store images of objects or faces and associate names with them, so that the next time you encounter them OrCam knows what they’re called. Here’s CNN’s brief report on OrCam:
In case you didn’t watch the video above, the device is far from perfect. It might work inconsistently in very bright environments, and might not make sense of text written in shortcut, such as those found on signage. Also, people who are totally blind can’t use OrCam because the device needs to be guided. Finally, unlike Google Glass, the rest of OrCam is housed in a bulky container that’s wired to the eyeglasses attachment. Still, it’s a very helpful device.
You can order OrCam for $3,500 (USD). Its currently available only in the United States and with English, but the company is working to add support for other languages.
Most mobile devices already have a built-in calculator, and you can also get advanced calculator apps. But microBLINK’sPhotoMath app uses optical image recognition on printed equations, so that you can get the solution without even having to input a number. Math teachers beware.
PhotoMath can solve simple arithmetic and algebra equations, including fractions, nth roots, exponentiation and linear equations. The app can also show you the step-by-step solution for the equation that it just solved, so at least it has some educational merit.
Here’s microBLINK’s launch of the app on TechCrunch Disrupt:
So how can teachers outsmart the app? Write their homework by hand – the app currently has difficulty processing handwriting. Then again, kids could just type the problem and then use the app. PhotoMath is available for free on iOS and Windows Phone; the Android version will be released in 2015.
Braille helps visually impaired people read, but there is a lot of printed material that is never converted to that writing system. Blind people also miss out on using mobile devices because obviously they can’t feel the text on screen. MIT’s Fluid Interfaces Group attempted to address this issue with its FingerReader prototype.
FingerReader is a ring that reads printed text out loud using a small camera and complementary software that analyzes text and reads it aloud. The ring also has vibration motors that are used to guide the wearer. The ring vibrates when the user veers off the line being scanned or when the user has reached the end of the line. FingerReader can also be used to translate text, making it doubly useful.
Of course it’s far from perfect and is just a research prototype at this point, but its inventors are not ruling out the possibility of developing FingerReader as an actual product. Head to the Fluid Interfaces Group’s website or read their FingerReader paper (pdf) for more info.
It's been about four months since the OneNote app for Windows received a significant update. Today, though, Microsoft is adding several key features, with the biggest being the ability to scan images and then search them using keywords. This new Camera Scan feature, as it's called, automatically crops and rotates photos, removing shadows and sharpening the image where necessary. Then, it uses optical character recognition (OCR) to search for words in scanned images, making it easy to find those meetings notes you took the other day.
Additionally, the update now allows you to save things using the Share Charm. And if you want a shot of the entire screen (and not just a specific item, like a recipe), you can use the Share Charm in a Windows app and then select" screenshot" from the Share Charm drop-down. (In desktop mode, screenshots are already the standard option.) Finally, the app now has both a full-screen view and a "Recent Notes" option, which shows all your notes in the order you last used them, regardless of whether you were viewing them on Windows, iOS or Android. These are accompanied by short previews, making it easier to zero in on what you want. And that about sums it up -- to get the latest version, hit up the download link below.%Gallery-slideshow123034%
There's nothing worse than having to pore over a pile of PDFs containing documents scanned as images when you quickly have to find a specific file. Dropbox is making it easier to do that by introducing automatic image recognition, which extracts text...
Businesses do a lot to secure their operations, but often it just takes one rogue employee to send themselves confidential files and they're doomed. Google launched its Data Loss Prevention (DLP) service to help companies avoid such a calamity, and n...
Microsoft rolled out a pair of super-useful updates to its Translator app on Thursday. Unfortunately, the new feature you get depends on which platform you use.
