Inventor Raymond Kurzweil has worked for many years trying to improve the quality of life of the visually impaired and his latest creation, the K-NFB combination PDA+digital camera, finally does so affordably. What the K-NFB does it take pictures of objects—menus, signs, gadget blogs, etc.—and then reads aloud the captured text.

Once the user takes a picture of the object in question, character recognition and speech synthesis software work in tandem to decode the mysteries of the written word for the less fortunate. The K-NFB can hold thousands of such recorded pages, which can be expanded with the use of SC cards.

Compared to Kurzweil's first such invention, which cost nearly $64,000 back in 1981, the K-NFB costs only around $3,495, surely a steal for someone looking to "see" again. It should be available on July 1. – Nicholas Deleon

Product Page [Kurzweil - National Federation of the Blind via Digital Trends and BBC News]

Contact information for this author is not available.