Prizmo Rides Again
Contributed by Joel Zimba, Technology Outreach Specialist, MDTAP
A few weeks ago, I discussed the Prizmo OCR application for the Mac. In the last few days, there has been a significant update to the Prizmo app for iOS. Prizmo sports a new look and feel. It’s simpler to use and is extremely accessible.
There are also some accessibility specific features which make Prizmo particularly handy. Level detection has been implemented. After clicking the “take picture” button, a series of two tones plays. These correspond to the left and right tilt of the camera. By bringing these two tones into tune, the camera becomes level. When Prizmo decided I was finally level, the shutter click noise played, which I was not expecting.
Also, the “page detection” feature is particularly useful to blind users. Spoken directions are given which help to bring the full page into view. When the page is more or less in the camera’s field, Prizmo says it is ready to take the picture.
One last feature of Prizmo is the “quick View.” Rather than creating a document every time something is scanned, the Quick View will not store the results unless you want to save them. I found this especially handy when figuring out how best to scan a specific page or sorting through documents I had no interest in scanning but wanted to identify.
Just as with other hand-held OCR devices, Prizmo will require practice. In a few short minutes, I was able to identify documents and extract much useful information. If anything could be improved, it would be the addition of a system for bringing the page more into focus. An example of this would the something akin to the KNFB Mobile method of speaking how much of the field of view is filled with the page.
The makers of Prizmo have done a great job, and I commend them on their dedication to making their product accessible and more useful generally to the blind community. There are many other great features in Prizmo. To date, it is the most powerful iPhone-based OCR application I have used.
