Hi, Dan,
I'm no good at videos; but I know of two areas of information in which the
Optacon is unique in its ability to gain desired information. One such area
is the reading of some electronic displays which actually can be read with
an Optacon; I know of no other camera-to-computer setupwhich will read any
of these displays. A second area which I often used in past years and
sometimes still use is the reading and interpretation of schematic diagrams
for electronic equipment. While I think of those diagrams, I'm sure that
other Optacon users could broaden this area to include many more items of
graphical and diagrammed representation on which no OCR machine on earth
will come close. For this stuff, you've got to have a "decoder" with the
processing power of the human mind and a "motor control board" running in
the same mind in order to make sense of that which is on the page. I
believe that a good bit of data could be harvested by looking into these two
areas of information for which there is no substitute for the Optacon in the
hands of a skilled Optacon user.
-----Original Message-----
From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of dan.tevelde@xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, August 9, 2020 2:45 PM
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [optacon-l] New Optacon
I think there are several reasons why we are not seeing a new optacon. So
far, Charles Pond has been the only person as far as I know who has reported
on prototyping a new optacon. If others on the list have been involved in a
project, I don't know about it. In order to develop a new optacon we need
the following items.
The easiest item would be developing some promotional videos. The videos I
have seen on YouTube are out of date. We need new videos demonstrating the
optacon in terms of tasks which no other device can do. I'm not qualified
to make such a video. I lost my optacon skills because I didn't have access
to a device. It would be great if someone making the videos would compare
the optacon with some currently-available technology in such as way that the
person watching or listening to the video would understand what makes the
optacon unique. One approach might be comparing the optacon to an OCR
application like KNFB Reader. Find an example where KNFB Reader or some
other OCR application incorrectly interprets tabular data.
The next steps would be to create social media accounts on Facebook,
Twitter, and LinkedIn. People are using social media rather than mailing
lists to get information. The word optacon would get lots of search results
through search engine optimization. I see numerous job leads and connection
requests on LinkedIn every day. IF there are people in this group who are
savvy with social media then they can get started.
The other items we need are formal documents containing use cases and user
data for the current optacon, a possible specification for a new optacon,
and a formal business plan. A couple of years ago I tested a hardware
device which was a type of mouse to provide tactile feedback and allow the
user to interact with a computer. I thought the device had potential. The
company failed because they had no formal documentation of how their
technology worked or a formal business plan to request funds for producing
the device. The president of the company thought he could succeed by
begging for money. The project failed for a variety of reasons and I don't
expect anything more from the company unless they determine what they want
to accomplish. I mention the failure as an object lesson in what should be
avoided.
So this is the situation we are in. It would be a tall order to develop a
new optacon but I don't think it would be impossible. It takes an organized
group of people to develop a business plan.
Dan
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