How the Nokia N82 Helps the Blind

The Nokia N82 is a rather bulky piece ofyour phone without difficulty.
equipment. Its 0.68 inch thick and 114 gram frameAll these features are nothing compared to the
can be a little cumbersome to carry around.usefulness that N82 gives to the handicapped. A
Some people also complain of the tinysoftware called knfbReader Mobile from KNFB
alphanumeric keypad however, after a little timeReading Technology, in association with the
mastering it, some people will realize that theNational Federation of the Blind and Kurzweil
keys were designed to lessen the chances ofTechnologies, can be downloaded to allow
accidentally hitting the other keys. It's actuallycharacter-recognition and text-to-speech capability.
easier to type emails and text messages.How this works is quite impressive. A blind person
The N82 prides itself with its 5 megapixel camerauses the phone to capture pictures of books,
with xenon flash and 2.4" LCD screen. Asigns, pamphlets, menus, recipes, etc. and the
quad-band phone, it supports an HSDPA (speedssoftware processes the words and converts
up to 3.6 mbps) and EDGE capabilities which canthem into read-aloud words. It is so helpful that a
make surfing and downloading faster and easier.blind person can read the newspaper, what is on
Video formats that the N82 supports are MPEG4,the menu or if you are handing the waiter a $1 tip
H.264, AVC, H.263 and 3GPP and they can beor a $20 tip. However, it cannot read street signs,
played back using RealPlayer. The music playerhandwritten texts and signs wrapped around cans
supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC and WMA fileor bottles. The software is a bit expensive but
formats that plays back quite superbly withthe advantages that if offers is priceless.
almost 10 hours of playback time. A playlist optionCurrently, only the N82 is the only phone that
is also available and music can be downloaded tosupports the software.