A Letter From Zachary Shore

ZACHARY SHORE is Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of European Studies, University of California, Berkeley. He previously served on the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State through an International Affairs Fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations. He has also worked as a National Security Fellow at Harvard’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies and at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in Washington, DC.
Zachary Shore is a “full-time” user of ABiSee electronic devices for Visually Impaired and Blind people. His opinion is very important to us, so we decided to place his letter in our blog.
 

Dear Lena,

I have used the Zoom-Ex and Eye-Pal scanners for roughly three years, and I find them remarkably liberating. As a professor of history, I must consume an enormous amount of reading material. Your scanners have, for the first time, given me an efficient way of accessing print matter without reliance on a human reader. Naturally, they cannot completely eliminate the need for readers, but they have dramatically reduced this dependency.

Among the features I appreciate most are the scanners' speed, accuracy, and portability. Being able to set the scanner on auto mode and scan an entire book in about 10 to 15 minutes is wonderful. Once the conversion to text process is quickened, access will be even better. The accuracy is often astonishingly good, though there are clearly times when corruption occurs, particularly after conversion to text. I have no doubt that the algorithm will continue to improve and consistently high accuracy will follow.

As for portability, it could hardly be lighter. My employer recently sent me to a conference in San Diego with instructions to interview job candidates for an opening in our department. Thanks to the Eyepal, I was able to read hundreds of pages of material in my hotel room and select the applicants to interview. At an earlier time, I would have needed to hire a reader in that city and arrange to meet that person at a mutually convenient time. The Eyepal obviated the need for assistance and afforded me maximum flexibility with my time. Perhaps in time the hardware will be modified so that it can be made smaller (maybe with telescoping legs) to make transport even more convenient.
A hard, protective travel case would also be a valuable addition.

One other improvement would be terrific. Because the recognition is superior before conversion to text, it would be useful to be able to read an entire document continuously within the Eye-Pal or Zoom-Ex programs, instead of being limited to one page at a time. Of course, this would not be necessary if the algorithm for conversion is improved.

In short, your scanners are outstanding tools that have significantly enhanced my access to print matter. As a result, they have increased my productivity, easing the writing of my own books. I am currently using them to work on my fourth. It's now hard to imagine how I ever managed without them.

Thank you so much for your products. I look forward to their future generations with anticipation.

Sincerely,

Zachary Shore
Associate Professor
Department of National Security Affairs
Naval Postgraduate School

PDF to download: Oprah.com review of Blunder

Video: Zachary Shore discussing his book, "Breeding Bin Ladens" on C-Span