Printed Text a Problem? Screen Reader Too Expensive? Try OCR w/ Text to Speech. I Like Prizmo!

I used to have to carry reams of enlarged text across campus because I couldn't afford a screen reader. The only large magnifier was in the University Library. Back then having a portable screen reader was prohibitively costly. Now it seems like magic thanks to products like Prizmo from Creaceed. I can perform A scan using your iPhone's Camera. Perform OCR, Optical Character Recognition and then perform Text to Speech in 10 Languages.  Each Voice is an in App Purchase but I am sure well worth it. Here's a Demo Video: http://www.creaceed.com/prizmo/iphone/presentation.html
Prizmo is also available on the Mac OS X Ver. 1.5.6 Snow Leopard Only. Prizmo for IPhone is compatible with the 3gs and the iPhone 4. There are other solutions offered by other Software developers so feel free to shop around. If you need this technology to overcome reading printed text then a Mobile OCR with Text to Speech will fit the frugal budget!

Apps that Won't Enlarge Text For Maximum Readability

Teardrop©1998 Michael O'Morah All Rights Reserved

If you are a developer that creates an app that is heavily text base you don't want to alienate over 200 million potential customers through the use of static text or limited enlargement of said text. The iPhone's Facebook, the BBC News and AP Mobile apps are prime examples of this shortsightedness. Facebook doesn't even attempt to give you a viable option to enlarge text in the app. Fortunately for Facebook users Facely is available in the app store and it handles text so much better.  BBC News does give you an enlarge text button but they still don't enlarge the font enough to be truly effective. AP Mobile does a slightly better job at text enlargement but many will still find a magnifying glass, reading glasses or even Jeweler's lenses are their only option.  One workaround to all of this is to copy paste the text to a word processing app and enlarging the text there. I will say that while the Craigslist and Craigslist Pro App's Listing's are small in Font size the details can be zoomed via gestures and works very well. Other developers could emulate this approach and make a potential 200 Million or more people say "Now that's a Site for sore eyes!".

World Health Organization Statistics on Blindness and Vision Impairment Worldwide: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs282/en/