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Power Reader
This is a recommended project.
You must read the disclaimer before downloading.
The dyslexic community accounts for 15-20% of the U.S. population. Our goal is to build a dyslexic text reader/learning tool, a graphical, interactive text reader integrated with computer text-to-speech whose level of focus, complexity, and detail is adjustable according to the user's needs.
In other words, a multiple 'level of detail' presentation of text where items can be viewed at the letter, word, sentence, and paragraph level, allowing the user needs to adjust it to their needs. Items can grow or shrink in size as they are read by the software, and the color of the text can also be adjusted. Image representations and dictionary definitions of words can be displayed next to the word as each word is read. A speech API (Free-TTS) reads each word that has the current focus, and the user can adjust the speed the text is read through.
This project idea was originally submitted by a dyslexic lady and developed within a user interface course at the University of Southern California.
Features
- Zoomable User Interface
- Interactive paragraph/sentence/word selection
- Integration with Google Images, Flickr, and Yahoo Images for image lookup
- Integration with Wiktionary, WordNet Dictionary for dictionary definition lookup
Current Issues
- Not OS X friendly
- Threading issues needs to be resolved
- Occassional Crashes
Future Plans
- Expand number of input formats
