For a person who has had a taste of the feeling one gets when reading a good book deep into the night, there can be nothing in the world that can come even remotely close to that. Intel has now come up with a groundbreaking gadget that can just about give the visually challenged the same feeling of reading from a printed book. Intel Reader, a gadget that was launched yesterday in the UK gives the blind and partially sighted the opportunity to read by taking a picture of the printed page.
The device will be a dream come for those with reading difficulties and dyslexia, for it lets them read at their own pace. The Intel Reader consists of a camera that scans a particular page of a book, magazine or newspaper on pressing a large button that is present in the corner. It will then read aloud the content in speeds that can be adjusted as per the reader’s requirement. For those who find it difficult to read small print, the Reader has an LCD screen in which the words are displayed in large lettering.
The Intel Reader can be easily carried in one’s pocket and costs about £999. Ben Foss, the brain behind the gadget has dyslexia. He said that he was thrilled to have been able to “help level the playing field” for people like him for whom there was no easy access to the printed word. He added that that device’s aim was to give people with partial sightedness, dyslexia, blindness and other reading or learning difficulties the resources necessary to succeed in “school, work and life.”
