"Portable eye" cell phone translates for the blind

Getting around the world when you can't see a thing can't be easy. Just imagine walking into a restaurant and trying to figure out what to order. It's a simple act for most of us (well, except for my wife), but imagine how tough it must be for the blind. Never mind deciding between the steak and the pork chop, they can't read the menu at all.

Enter KNFB Reading Technologies, which sells software originally invented by futurist Ray Kurzweil and which lets the blind "see" the world around them through the magic of text-to-speech translation. The software loads on a cell phone, and it works by simply taking a snapshot with the cell phone camera. Just point it at a book, a sign, or, yes, a menu, and the phone translates any words it sees into spoken audio, which are played back through the cell phone's speaker (or, more conveniently, an earpiece).

Kurzweil has been working on the "reading machine" since 1976 (Stevie Wonder was his first customer), and over 30 years later technology has advanced to the point where it can be stowed inside a common cell phone. The current price: $2,145, including the phone (a Nokia N82). In addition to translating photographs into spoken audio, it also audio-fies GPS information, reads web pages, and even tells you whether you're holding a one dollar bill or a twenty.

The company hopes to see applications extend beyond the blind (though with 1.3 million people in the U.S., that's a huge audience), with future versions targeted at dyslexic readers, translating printed material from foreign languages, and eventually a speech-to-speech translator, where you can say something into the phone in English and have it come out the other side in Hungarian.