Omni-font OCR and reading machine
Reconocimiento óptico de caracteres de fuente libre y máquina lectora
- Date
- 1976 · confidence high
- Place
- Kurzweil Computer Products, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
- Credited to
- Ray Kurzweil
- People
- 👤 Raymond Kurzweil1948–
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
A system capable of reading printed text in any typeface and synthesising it as speech for blind people. It was the first practical application of pattern recognition and text digitisation.
What it led to
- The mass digitisation of libraries (Google Books)
- Technological accessibility for people with visual impairments
- The text corpora that train language models
Built on
- CCD scanner
- pattern recognition
Made possible
- Google Books
- document scanners
- speech synthesis