Years ago, when cameras first started appearing in cellphones, many asked why you’d want your mobile to take photos.  Fast forward to now, and the number of picture messages, megapixels and applications are all wildly increasing, and now knfb Reading Technology are giving you another reason to pick up a high-spec’d cameraphone.  knfb’s software, Mobile Reader, is a Symbian S60 app that uses the handset’s camera to convert printed words into speech, including currency, instruction manuals, printed labels and text from books and magazines.

Currently compatible with just one Nokia handset, the N82, Mobile Reader demands a relatively high-end cellphone camera: 5-megapixels, with autofocus and a xenon flash.  Once you’ve supplied it with that, however, it will happily snap photos of any text source, read it out, and simultaneously display the words on-screen, highlighting as it pronounces them.

You can also store pages in the handset, adjust the speed of vocalisation, and swap text files between the software and a braille note-taker.  The screen reader will also talk users through the rest of the phone’s functionality, including GPS and its music player.

Previous versions of the Reader have consisted of a digital camera tethered to a PDA; knfb hope that the more compact N82 will broaden the software’s appeal to more blind and partially-sighted users.