Reading Short Text with Seeing AI and Android TalkBack

[Ricky] Today we're gonna check out how to use an app along with the camera on our phone to read the text on things around us. We can read product boxes, street signs and room numbers. The envelopes that usually turn out to be junk mail. Yeah, there's text everywhere. And with the Seeing AI app, we'll be able to get all that text spoken aloud. It's really cool.

We are using TalkBack in this workshop so that we can do everything on our phone without looking at the screen. If you'd rather do things on your Android device without TalkBack, check out our series on using Seeing AI with Low Vision. And if you're using Apple, we have a couple series just for you as well. Now, if you're checking out these workshops and you've not used TalkBack much before, it may help to get a little more familiar with it before you dive into this series. And hey, we've got you covered with a great group of workshops on learning everything you need to know to get up to speed with TalkBack.

We're gonna jump right in and start reading some text, but if you haven't had a chance to explore the app a little bit and get familiar with it, we do that very thing in our workshop on exploring the app. So yeah, go ahead and check out that one first if you haven't already. Alright, so reading short text. We can use this mode for things like business cards, birthday cards, mail, envelopes, anything where we just need to quickly read without saving or reviewing the info. We've got seeing AI open on our phone here and we need to make sure we're in the right place in the app. Before we can start reading, let's touch the bottom left corner of our screen and then we'll slide up just a bit

- [TalkBack] Selected. Read tab one of three, enlist three items.

- [Ricky] And there we go, we're in the right place here. Now if you didn't notice whether your phone said selected, you can always make sure this read tab is selected, just by double tapping here. Also, remember that if you're not comfortable with finding the button by touching specific parts of the screen, you can always start at the top left and swipe right until you get where you wanna be. Seeing AI will read anything that it can see through our phone's camera. So for today, we're gonna place what we wanna read on a flat surface, and then, we'll use the camera on the back of our phone to essentially look down at it and read it. Putting this on a flat surface does help to orient us in relation to the text, but we don't have to do that. If there's a sign up ahead or maybe a flyer posted on the wall, we can just face the camera toward the text and have it read aloud.

All right, let's start with something small. We have something here that's roughly the size of a business card. It's rectangular just like a business card, and it's oriented so that the long part is facing us in this workshop. The phone is in portrait mode, meaning the short side of the rectangle where the charging port is, is facing us and our camera is on the back. Now, we'll place the phone down on what we wanna read for this small business card type thing. We'll line up the top left edge of the phone with the top left edge of what we're reading. And now we'll lift the phone straight up because what we're reading is a small object. We need our camera to be pretty close to it to capture everything. So we'll lift the phone about five inches from our card here and then hold it steady.

- [TalkBack] B Hadley, HadleyHelps.org 800-323-4238.

- [Ricky] Awesome. This is a signature guide with Hadley's info printed on it and our phone. Just read that print aloud. How cool is that? And by the way, seeing AI can read this even if it's upside down, so we never have to worry about whether the print is facing the right way. Okay, let's try reading something a little bigger this time. We'll try something that's about the size of a greeting card. This too is a rectangle and our long side is facing us now because it's larger, our camera placement will be a little different so that we can make sure it captures everything. Let's place our phone down right in the center of our card. And just like before, we'll lift straight up. This time because our object is larger, our camera needs to be farther away in order to capture everything. So let's try about eight or nine inches. We'll lift straight up and hold steady.

- [TalkBack] We're Hadley, a nonprofit helping thousands with vision loss each year, here for you with practical help. No cost, no catches, free always. HadleyHelps.org 800-323-4238.

- [Ricky] This is so amazing. Our phone just read out everything that's on the printed page here. Wow. So I know you're anxious to go exploring on your own, pointing your phone at all the text around you and having it read aloud. But just a couple tips before we go. Today, we've read printed text, but Seeing AI can read handwritten text as well, which is awesome for those times when someone has written a personal message inside a birthday card, for example. Also, with our short text option, Seeing AI will start the reading process over again each time the phone moves a little. That's good to know, because as you practice, there will be times when Seeing AI isn't quite getting everything. Moving the camera to the left or right or closer or farther away to find the sweet spot is just part of the process. When you get it right, just hold steady until Seeing AI has finished reading.

If holding steady for a long period of time is difficult, or if you actually wanna review the text once it's been recognized by Seeing AI, you're gonna love our workshop on reading documents, up next in this series. For now, have fun practicing with this short text option. You'll have a great time reading everything, yeah, even the junk mail.

I'm Ricky Enger, and I'm glad you could spend a little time with me today learning to read short text with Seeing AI. See you next time.