Braigo - New free web app to parse text on images

By IV Productions, 22 August, 2016

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi all,
just received this link through a subscription: https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/18/braigo-web-app/?ncid=rss

Hope this is the right forum to post this topic.

Regards,
Mirko

Options

Comments

By Adam Samec on Friday, August 26, 2016 - 04:43

Hello,

here is a direct link to the web app:
https://app.braigolabs.com

They are going to release also an iOS app in the coming weeks. You will receive notification about the release of the iOS app as well as about their new lowcost braille printer if you register on the web.

So far, the Braigo Platform does not offer any new technology. It's more about integrating of what's already there.

There are now these key features:
• Text recognition in PDF documents and images which you can upload or capture by the camera of your device. It recognizes more than 50 languages. From my quick testing, the RECOGNITION accuracy is significantly worse than that of, for example, KNFBReader for iOS which uses a mobile variant of OCR technology also used in FineReader for the Mac.
• The files can be saved privately to Dropbox or made available in a public library where they can be searched by name or content. They can also be shared via social networks.
• Adding and reading of RSS news feeds. This is a part of an effort to make the Braigo Platform a single point of access to various content for the visually impaired.

What do you think? Is a lack of integration of current technologies and tools such a big deal for the visually impaired? Personally, I would rather welcome more integration in the sense of bringing technologies such as txt and object recognition into the products and services that are already there, instead of centralizing those into a single point of access. Web browsers and operating systems could already support text and object recognition directly while browsing the web, using apps, or viewing files on the drive.

I think the success of this platform will also be largely determined by the accuracy of text recognition technology used. As of now, it's not using the best technology available, but I wonder how it compares with other free solutions.

Nevertheless, I greatly appreciate their effort to help the visually impaired and will watch how the project develops based on the feedback which they ask for.

Kind Regards