Category: Geeks r Us
I'm not sure if this is on the correct board, but if it's not, please feel free
to move it.
My friend and I both have the KNFB reader app on our iPhones. I was at
his house this past weekend for New Year's. He starts college at the end
of this month, and he just purchased the app. His mother asked me if we
could go over the app and asked if I could show him how to use it. I told
her I would. She took one of his college textbooks and gave it to us. I
opened up to a random page in the book just for the sake of showing him
how the app works. He opened the app on his phone, and I told him to
double tap on take picture. He did just that, and it wasn't taking the
picture. You didn't even hear the noise the camera makes when you take
a picture. Basically when he double tapped on it, nothing happened. At
that point we called his mother into the den. She looked at his phone, and
all you saw was a black screen. She asked me if she could see mine so we
could compare. I showed her mine, and right away you were able to see
what a screen looks like when you're going to take a picture. In my case,
she took a picture of the book and she saw the book. If there wasn't a
book there, you would see the desk. In his case, there was nothing; it
was just a black screen. He has his screen curtain off, so that's not it,
and when the app asked him if he wanted to allow it to use the camera, he
said ok to that. He then tried deleting the app and downloading it again.
That didn't fix it. He then called Sensitech, the company that makes this
app, and left a message. Does anyone know what could be causing this?
Hmm. NO idea. I've never heard of this particular problem. I do know that sometimes KNFB Reader can be sluggish or read improperly if you have a lot of other apps running in the background. I have the best luck with it when I close out all other apps, so it's the only one running. But even when other apps have been open and I've tried to use KNFB, I've never encountered this problem. So, closing out all other apps would be my only suggestion, but I don't think that would work for this particular issue. When your friend hears back from Tech Support, I'd be interested to know what they tell him.
Other than the phone being dead, I have no idea what's wrong.
Haha no the phone definitely wasn't dead. If mine was showing an image
(what it should be showing) and his just shows a black screen, I have a
feeling it is just something simple. He was insisting that it was the
manufacturer. He even deleted it and downloaded it again. That didn't fix it.
If it was the manufacturer, everybody would be having this issue.
Go to Settings > Privacy on his phone and make sure that under Camera, KNFB Reader is allowed to use the camera.
That's my guess.
I'm glad I don't have the app. :d
The app has been a lifesaver for me. Not only to read an error message on a screen, but sorting packages and the like ... it's pretty fast.
What iPhone does he have? That could be part of the problem. It definitely sounds like a user issue, not an app-related one regardless. Especially since this is the first time I've ever heard of this happening as well.
Yeah I have a feeling that's what his problem is. I'll tell him that next time I
talk to him. Yeah the KNFB reader is great. I use it to read my textbooks
online as the book each page is an image. Apparently it can read something if
you're like 6 feet away from it.
Are there really people here who are able to have the KNFB reader read stuff on screens? I find it is able to read some things, but mostly un reliably. We're talking clear, clean text with no obstructive images behind it. I wonder if maybe I'm just doing it wrong.
Yep, I am finding issues with the app on my iPhone 6S. It is not reading good for me at all, and this is with clean text.
Remy, it's more of an emergency type situation. It doesn't read the screen cleanly. But I found it was enough to tell me the error that had come up. Only because I'm technical enough to figure out what it's saying. They're right to say it's not a screen reader.
Reading regular paper works quite nicely even on my Iphone 6S Plus. I had hoped to use it to read big blocks of text on screens though, as I am a gamer, and that would be really helpful for me. Occasionally I get a decipherabler immage, but mostly it's just not worth it. I really wonder why that is. I don't expect it to be a screan reader. I realize it doesn't organize text. I do hope they're able to make LCD screens readable in the future somehow. I find I almost have better luck with the free "voice" app, but even then it just isn't all that possible.
Sia Fan, I personally love the KNFB Reader app. It's been a life-saver, whether that's plowing through stacks of mail rather than waiting for a sighted person to come read it for me, reading menus at a restaurant when the online one was not accessible, reading instructions for something, and so many other things. Yes, it's expensive, and the initial outlay of money kind of sucks, but it's paid for itself many times over. That, and when you compare KNFB Reader with the price of something like OpenBook or Kurzweil software for the computer, it's not so unreasonable after all.
I'm like Leo. I have used the app to read my computer screen in emergencies. For example, a couple weeks ago Windows would not boot for me. I used KNFB Reader to figure out the error message, and what my options were to get out of the screen. No, it's definitely not reliable when used on a computer screen, but it can help in a pinch. For the person who wants to use it for gaming, I doubt you'll find a good app for that.
If the app is having problems reading clean text well, again I say make sure all other background apps are closed. Yes, that's an inconvenience, and no, it probably shouldn't have to be that way. It's one of my least favorite quirks of the app, but then again, one would be hard-pressed to find an app that doesn't have any quirks whatsoever. It's still worth it to me, at least. It could also be the positioning of how you're holding the phone, whether it's level, and how far away from the page. I believe there are stands out there you can buy to help with the positioning of the phone. I don't have one, I just learned with practice. You can also use the field report button, which will tell you how much of your page is visible. There's also a feature that makes the phone vibrate if you have it tilted too much, to help teach the angle to get the best picture.
Thanks Alicia, Perhaps I'll give closing other apps a try. I wonder if turning the brightness of the LCD screen down a bit might help too. Right now I can use my gaming ocnsole to snap a picture of whatever block of text, then transfer the immage to my PC, then read it with Kurzweill, but it's a lot of steps, and by the time it's done I could probably read it visually in just a bit more time.
I know this is primarily used for print reading, but out of curiosity, can I use this app to read camp application forms, actually fill in all the necessary information, then take the files from the app after they've been saved and email them from the phone as atachments? That would be a hell of a life-saver for me as my scanner I use with K1000 on my windows computer has decided to take a dump and die on me. I have tried unplugging the damn thing from the USB port on my ten-port hub and plugging it back in. The last thing I'd want to do is restart this computer if that's not the problem. sorry for getting off-topic.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, all the KNFB reader does is withdraws the text from the image, then dumps it in a raw stream on the app. There's never been even line breaks that I've seen. Does Kurzweill 1000 work with forms? I know for sure Kurzweill 3000 does, and very well in fact, but it does help to have at least a little sight when using it.
Sadly, I don't think you can use it to fill out forms and things reliably. Not without a bit of tweeking on your end. I am surprised that those camps and places though don't do PDF forms, those are the new thing now, and they're all pretty much accessible to everyone, as long as you're still using adobe reader and not something like Edge.
restarted the comp with no luck. the scanner didn't even make the weird little noise it usually makes to indicate it's turned on and ready to go. Damn it, wish I knew how the flaming hell to work the scanner on my printer/photo copier. Not using the fax machine function, but hey, it's there if I ever decide I absolutely need that.
Remy, I'll answer your question regarding reading a computer screen.
Your screen, even high definition and yes, even HD or Retina, is a series of dots. So the camera can't reliably get a good picture that an OCR package like KNFB reader can use.
Reyami, in order for a technology to let you fill in the form, it must be interactive. And the form itself must be interactive. I know when my daughter was growing up all those camp forms were just forms you print and fill out. That means that the online form itself doesn't have controls. Sure it *looks* like controls, but even a sighted person has to print it to fill it out.
The thing about these apps like what the NFB is doing: You don't need the grubbernmnent, or big pharma, or big insurance. Sure you need to throw down a hundred bucks, but in doing so we're a step closer to being able to see. The NFB here has just proven what I've said for years; technology will do for us what big pharma, big blubbernmnet and medicine can't; bring us inch by inch closer to "being sighted," if you will.
agree with leo here.
K1000 has an option in the scan menu called scan as a Form. It's not perfect, but it does work.
My friend has an iPhone 6. I too have an iPhone 6 and I'm not having any
problems with it. In order for the app to read the text without garbage, you
have to line it up really well to take the picture, and that's hard.
here, some advice I have the app fore IPhone and android. use the "take field view report button" this feature will help you line up your phone be it android or IPhone to the text your wanting to scan.