BlackBerry Screen Reader Review

The BlackBerry Screen Reader is designed to make BlackBerry phones accessible to the visually impaired. BlackBerry Screen Reader is compatible with the BlackBerry Curve 9350, 9360, 9370, 9320 and 9220.

Installation is complicated and may require the assistance of a sighted person. Unfortutantly, BlackBerry Screen Reader is not built into the phone. There are two methods for installing the BlackBerry Screen Reader. The first method is to visit this webpage from your BlackBerry. Another option for installation is to plug the BlackBerry into your computer and then install the Screen Reader. Connecting your BlackBerry device to your computer is the most accessible option for installation.

Features

• Physical Keyboard
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Speak Everything On Screen
• Free For Compatible BlackBerry Devices

Once installed  you will be greeted with a solid Screen Reader that makes the BlackBerry accessible. The visually impaired user benefits from the numerous physical buttons, including a full physical keyboard. Five buttons on the device are less tactile. These buttons include the answer, end, menu, back and end/off. While these buttons are flush with the device they are still used for the visually impaired once there location has been memorized. To be clear these buttons depress when pressed. The physical keyboard makes it possible to type eyes-free. Once you move away from the physical buttons and start navigating the screen, a text-to-speech voice begins speaking everything under your cursor. The BlackBerry I tested had a very loud speaker that made hearing the voice easy. To navigate the cursor you can use the trackpad. The trackpad is fairly sensitive so it may be best to turn down the sensitivity. Also, I found it helpful to turn on audible clicks when the cursor moves from one object to another. The BlackBerry Screen Reader also excels with the use of keyboard shortcuts. For example you can press a key combination to speak the time. Users can change the speech rate, verbosity and pitch.

Overall the BlackBerry Screen Reader is a solid screen reader that makes the BlackBerry accessible for visually impaired users. It is not as polished as other mobile screen readers such as Apple's VoiceOver. BlackBerry Screen Reader may not work with third party apps. Some work could be done in streamlining operations and stability. Also, the screen reader should be built into the BlackBerry from the start. Click read more below to view screenshots of the BlackBerry Screen Reader.

Device Provided Complimentary To Reviewer 

File SIze ~ App Value ~ Your Call!

Resolution 2592 x 2592 6.7mp

I recommended the new App I like called "Glaze" in one of my e-mail newsletters to my mailing list and received back a comment from one client that they were going to buy the app until they read the online reviews, where someone had left a derogatory comment on the web developers site regarding the resolution. They then said it was too small a resolution to buy and small resolution apps should be banned, therefore they were not buying it. OK well that's fine I don't get any money from recommending an app, but in my workflow I often use an app not for the absolute file that app produces but for the effects it might generate for blending. The largest file size that "Glaze" delivers for a rectangular image was detailed in my original post.
The square file size "Glaze" delivers is 2048 x 2048 or 4.1mp.
The image above began as a 6x6 App shot with a file  size of 1936 x1936, so Glaze actually upsized the original file by choosing the save as menu and "Print" as a size choice. (I still shoot with a iP4 5mp cam, anxiously awaiting the iP5 release)
Here is the orignal file image:

Image 1

Image 2

Here is the version of the "Glaze" rendered file I chose to use as the beginning of my "new" image. 

The next step in the process was a run through Modern Grunge which maintained the 2048 x 2048 resolution.

Image 3

Now that I had this file saved I wanted to go back into Modern Grunge and make further adjustments to the image, which are below, maintaining the 2048 x 2048 file size.

Image 4

The next thing I wanted to do before going any further was to remove the black lower right hand corner, so I used the Touch Retouch lasso tool, to add back color into the corner, again maintaining the current file size of 2048 x 2048.

Image 5

My next idea was to minimize the ripped white edge achieved in Modern Grunge so I opened Juxtaposer and masked out and blended down the file with Image 3, maintaining the 2048 x 2048 resolution. 

Image 6

Then I wanted to run it through Snapseed and recolor the image with the Grunge Filter. The image then developed into the one below maintaining the 2048 x 2048 resolution.

Image 7

 Now I was getting where I wanted with the tones of old Asian Paper or Tapestry, but it needed some Chinese letters. So I opened the App "Custom Kanji Wallpapers" and decided to apply the Chinese letters for "Life" "Love" and "Wisdom". Which the downsized my file to 640 x 960, as this app is truly a "SMALL RES" app. But it has Chinese letters! And I only wanted the letters so I rendered files with the letters on them, knowing I was going to blend them back with another APP of larger file size.

Image 8

So now that I had my Chinese letter files to work with I opened up ImageBlender and used image 7 with a resolution of 2048 x 2048 as my base image ( the left hand image selection ) and image 8 as my top image then masked out the top image except for the Chinese Letters, Voila now I had my 2048 x 2048 image file back with the Chinese letters on it.

Image 9

But I wanted more texture and more interest, so I ran this file through "Glaze" and used the file below for texture.

Image 10

Once again I used ImageBlender to blend and mask image 9 with image 10 selectively.

Image 11

But I wanted more......texture color so I went into Pic Grunger...and added texture Pic Grunger has resolution options up to 8mp or 3264 x 2448. So I saved the file at a largest resolution possible delivering a square image file of 3264 x 3264 or 10.6 mp which would make a nice print sized 10" x 10".
I lost file size again when adding the frame on it in Crop'n'Frame for purposes of displaying on the web, but ended with a file sized 2592 x 2592. So don't throw out an app because it has a small file size unless that's all you want is a straight file delivered from the app in which case I would say 3mp is a pretty small file, but its still bigger than the first iPhone camera which started this whole photography ~ art movement! Can you believe this started with a straight shot of a beautiful lotus? ;-) Sign up for one of my iPhone workshops and gain more insight into the art of iPhoneography! I am very excited to be offering a six week course at Johns Hopkins University in the fall. The app I use to check file size through my workflow is called "Photosize" it makes it easy to keep track of whats happening during the process.

Image 12

 

Prizmo Vs. TextDetective OCR iPhone App Challange

Prizmo and TextDetective are optical charactor recognition (OCR) apps for the iPhone. These apps use the iPhone camera to take a picture of a document and then convert the text on the paper to digital text. Because the apps rely on the iPhone camera they work best on the iPhone 4S. The apps were compared using a complex image with multiple images and columns. Both apps were used in a room with good lighting. Watch the video above to learn more about each of the apps.

Prizmo costs $9.99 in the App Store. Click here to download Prizmo. Prizmo is the fastest most accurate user friendly OCR app that I have ever tested. It is designed for sighted users. It allows you to crop and edit the picture before you start the OCR process. Once the text has been recognized you can read it using text-to-speech, email it or copy the text. It is important to note that users with visual impairments may have a hard time taking pictures of the documents they want to OCR. It also is impossible for a visually impaired user to crop the document to improve the accuracy. That being said for sighted users very easy to use.

TextDetective costs $1.99 for a limited time. Click here to download TextDetective. TextDetective is designed for people with visual impairments. The app is designed to make taking a picture of a document easy for the visually impair. In my tests I had a hard time taking a clear picture of a whole document. I could successfully capture a clear picture of one or two paragraphs. TextDetective was less accurate and slower than Prizmo. One problem I found is that TextDetective only works in landscape orientation but most documents are in portrait orientation. The orientation of the app makes it difficult to  take a crisp picture of the page. In all for only $1.99 TextDetective may be worth a try.

Apps Provided Complimentary To Reviewer