EnjoyTech

The KNFB Reader  is a text recognition app that is shockingly fast. Take a picture of a newspaper article or practically any printed text and within a couple of seconds the app will be reading the text back to you. A "couple of seconds" is no exaggeration, the KNFB Reader app is that fast. For people who are visually impaired or have difficulty reading, the KNFB Reader is perfect for accessing printed text. Once a document is properly framed, only one more step is necessary to start reading the document. Simply press the take picture button and within seconds the app will recognize the text within the document using optical character recognition ( OCR ) and begin reading it with  text-to-speech . No need to crop or adjust the image, once the picture is taken the app does all the work. All recognition is done locally on the device so personal data is never transmitted over the internet. The KNFB Reader app has a number of features that help users capture images of tex...

Launch Center Pro is an app for iPhone , iPad, and iPod Touch that allows users to launch apps and simple tasks directly from the app. Instead of launching Safari, navigating to the search site, and typing in your search, for instance, Launch Center Pro lets you directly search Google or Wikipedia; Launch Center Pro also can be configured  by users to set up group email, instead of having to type in the email address of each recipient. Launch Center Pro uses a simple interface to make it easy to simplify some of your common actions and launch them quickly. I frequently text my sister "where are you?" Instead of launching the Messages app, finding my sister's contact, and then typing the message, I created a Launch Center Pro action that sends a text to my sister saying, "where are you?" Now, when I want to text my sister, I just touch the icon for this action and a text saying "where are you?" is on its way to my sister. , Creating actions is easy wi...

Apple’s new mobile operating system for iPhone , iPad , and iPod Touch includes the ability to redeem iTunes gift cards with the camera instead of manually typing long codes. To redeem a gift card with the camera go to the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBooks Store and hit redeem at the bottom of the featured page. Then choose to redeem the gift card with the camera. You can use either the front facing or rear facing camera. To redeem the gift card just point the camera at the back of the gift card and the code is automatically redeemed. This new feature makes it possible for the blind and visually impaired to redeem gift cards without sighted assistance.  Also, iOS 7 eliminates the need for sighted users to type in long and complicated codes.  iOS 7 is  available  now for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

iOS 6 the latest operating system for iPhone , iPad and iPod Touch includes new VoiceOver enhancements. The enhancements allow VoiceOver users to use zoom, Assistive Touch and maps simultaneously with VoiceOver . These new features are built into iOS 6 so there are no additional downloads. Watch the above video to learn more about VoiceOver improvements in iOS 6.

Today, Apple  announced that iOS 6 , the software that runs iPhone , iPad and iPod Touch, will be released on September 19th. The free software update will include new accessibility features such as Guided Access, Speak Selection with highlighting and improved Siri. Click here to learn more about Guided Access . iOS 6 will also include Made For iPhone Hearing Aids which allow hearing aid users to better use the iPhone. Along with accessibility improvements iOS 6  includes an updated maps app and more. Click read more below to view more images of iOS 6 from Apple.

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, includi...

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 fo...

Fleksy is an app for the  iPhone and iPod Touch that allows visually impaired users to type without needing to see the keyboard perfectly. Users press on the screen approximately where they think the correct letter is located on the keyboard. Fleksy is designed only for people with visual impairments. To use the typing feature in the app VoiceOver must be off, and then when you want to share the text you have typed you must turn VoiceOver back on by tripple-clicking the home button. As the above video shows the taps on the keyboard can be fairly far from the correct letter without effecting the accuracy. If there are multiple possible words based on your taps. Fleksy will allow you to choose other likely words by flicking up and down on the screen. After each word you must flick right to tell Fleksy that you are done typing that word. After each word, Fleksy will speak the word aloud using text-to-speech . To add punctuation you can flick to the ri...