TurboScan App Review

TurboScan is a app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. The app uses the built in camera to capture a document and convert the image to excellent quality PDF files. TurboScan is $1.99 in the App Store. The app will not work very well with the iPad or iPod Touch because they do not have high quality cameras like the iPhone. The app has a simple interface that is easy to learn. It allows you to capture documents by taking a picture with your iPhone camera or import one from your album. TurboScan also has an option to take three pictures of the document for better accuracy. TurboScan also allows users to scan documents that are more than one page.

Once you have taken the picture of your document TurboScan detects the edges of the document and makes a PDF file. The apps has a few sharing options but not as many as JotNot Pro. The sharing include email and a really nice option called "email to myself" witch allows to quickly email your self the documents you have created.

Once you have your documents on your computer you can open them with Kurzweil to use all of Kurzweil's features such as read aloud and note taking. The PDF files created are crisp and clear.

Click read more below to see more pictures and videos of TurboScan.

Prizmo: Fast, Accurate, Full Featured OCR App for iPhone Review

Prizmo is the best optical character recognition (OCR) app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch that I have used. Because of  iPhone's superior camera you will have the best results while using Prizmo on the iPhone. Prizmo allows you to take a picture of text, business cards and more and then process them into useful electronic documents. When taking a picture of a business card, Prizmo makes a contact that you can quickly add to your contact list. Prizmo really shines when recognizing text. Simply take a picture then crop it to only include the text that you want to have read and then click "next" to begin the OCR. Prizmo has a very nice feature that allows you to say "take picture" to snap a picture of the document to eliminate shaking as you go to press the shutter button. Prizmo will quickly recognize the text and put it into a text document. Then you can edit any mistakes that Prizmo may have made. One of the only down sides of Prizmo is that it does not allow you to OCR multiple pages into the same text document.

After the text has been recognized you can read the text with a built in reader, VoiceOver or Speak Selection. You can also translate, email or save it to a number of cloud services including Dropbox and Evernote. In order to use the built in reader you must buy a text-to-speech voice for an additional $2.99. The reader allows you to control play back speed, but does not highlight the words as they are being read allowed. It does place a white dot next to the line that is currently being read. Prizmo is great for saving documents in an electronic format or for people who struggle to read and are helped by having text read aloud. Prizmo works faster and more accurately than ZoomReader, TextGrabber and SayText. Prizmo is $9.99 in the iTunes app store. Click here to download or view Prizmo in the App Store. Click read more below to see screen shots and more videos of Prizmo.

iOS 5 Tips: Reader Eliminates Distractions

A new feature in iOS 5 called Reader makes reading articles on the web much easier. Many articles on the web are hard to read on the iPhone and iPod Touch's small screen. Reader also works on the iPad. To read the articles you must zoom in and deal with distractions such as advertisements. Reader solves this problem by taking out the advertisements and formatting the text perfectly. To activate Reader simply tap the Reader button in the address field. The address field is where you type the website address. After pressing the Reader button the article will appear perfectly formatted for your screen. To change the size of the text simply press the text size button in the top left of the screen then tap on the little A to make the text smaller and the big A to make the text bigger. When you are done reading the article simply tap done to continue to browse the web. Reader can enlarge the font substantially to assist people that have trouble reading small print. Click read more below to see more screen shots.

Notability Promo Code Giveaway

Below is a promo code for Notability. To learn more about Notability click here. To win the app enter the code into iTunes. The first person to enter the code will win the Notability app for iPad. Once one person enters the code it will no longer work. If you do not win check back later for another code. Good Luck!

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Notability Promo Code Giveaway

Below is a promo code for Notability. To learn more about Notability click here. To win the app enter the code into iTunes. The first person to enter the code will win the Notability app for iPad. Once one person enters the code it will no longer work. If you do not win check back later for another code. Good Luck!

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Notability Promo Code Giveaway

Below is a promo code for Notability. To learn more about Notability click here. To win the app enter the code into iTunes. The first person to enter the code will win the Notability app for iPad. Once one person enters the code it will no longer work. If you do not win check back later for another code. Good Luck!

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iOS 5 Released with Many New Accessibility Features

Today, Apple released iOS 5 to the public. The update is available free though iTunes. iOS 5 includes over 200 new features along with numerous accessibility improvements. To learn more about iOS 5 accessibility click here. To read more about iPhone 4S accessibility click here. iOS 5 is compatible with iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad, iPad 2, iPod Touch 4th generation and iPod Touch 3rd generation. Some lesser known accessiblity features include a system-wide dictionary, the option to speak a selected body of text, a reader mode which filters out all distractions on the web and only leaves important content. The new update includes features to help people with visual impairments, hearing impairments, physical disabilities and learning disabilities. Below is Apple's take on iOS 5 accessiblity.

"iOS 5 comes with innovative new features that make it easier for people with mobility, hearing, vision, and cognitive disabilities to get the most from their iOS devices. iOS 5 works with specialized hardware accessories. The LED flash and custom vibration settings let you see and feel when someone’s calling. And improvements to VoiceOver include custom element labeling. These are just a few of the ways iOS 5 continues making advances in the field of accessibility."

Click read more below to see more pictures and videos of iOS 5.

Looktel Money Reader App Updated (Giveaway)

Today the Looktel Money Reader was updated to version 2.1. The new update includes bug fixes and makes the app available in Europe. Version 2.0 added support for the Euro, Pound, Australian dollar and Canadian dollar. The Looktel Money Reader can recognize any supported bill when it is in front of the camera The Money Reader will audibly say the denomination of the bill. The Looktel Money Reader is available in the App Store for $9.99. Click here to download the Looktel Money Reader. The Money Reader is can help visually impaired people quick identify the denomination of money anywhere. To learn more about the inaccessibility of paper money click here. To learn more about the Looktel Money Reader click here.

Giveaway

The makers of Looktel provide promotional codes to use as give aways on this blog. Sometime in the next 48 hours one promotional code will be posted on the Assistive Technology Blog. The first reader to redeem the code wins the app. Once one person uses the code it will no longer work. If you do not win the app is availabe by purchase.  You can find it by clicking here.

    

ZoomReader Giveaway!

ZoomReader is an fantastic OCR and magnifier app for iPhone 4. To read all about ZoomReader click here. Two promo codes will be posted to the blog within the next 24 hours. Keep checking back for the code because the first person to enter the code into iTunes will win. If you do not win the first code check back for the last code latter. ZoomReader is a $19.99 in the app store. 

Speakit! Chrome Extension Reads any Text Aloud

SpeakIt! is an extension for Google chrome that can read the web to you. The extension is a free download from the Chrome Web store. SpeakIt! reads selected text aloud. To activate the speech highlight text that you wish to read, press the SpeakIt! logo in the top right and click the play button. To pause the play back press the pause button in the top right. SpeakIt! is a very simple text to speech converter. SpeakIt! is only available for Google Chrome Users.