Reading machine

A reading machine is a piece of Assistive Technology that allows blind people to access printed materials. It scans text, converts the image into text by means of optical character recognition and uses a speech synthesizer to read out what it has found.

The first successful prototypes of reading machine were developed at Haskins Laboratories in the 1970s under contract from the Veterans Administration. These large prototypes sent the output from a fixed-font optical character recognizer (OCR) to the input of synthesis-by-rule algorithms developed at Haskins Laboratories. The first commercial reading machine for the blind was marketed by Ray Kurzweil and later sold to the Xerox Corporation. Reading machines have traditionally been desk-based and large, found in libraries or owned by individuals: newer models are portable and can be fitted into mobile devices such as large pens.