Digit-Eyes is an audio labeling system that uses inexpensive
off-the-shelf labels, whose sizes and shapes make them big
enough or small enough to fit almost anywhere.
Gary is a Digit-Eyes user. He has loaded the application on to
his cell phone, and he has printed several sheets of bar coded
labels, which he keeps in a drawer in the den.
Gary's den is really a library. He has a serious collection of
CDs and DVDs, an ample selection of audio books, and quite a
number of print books, which he reads with his OCR setup. He
wants to label them all so he can easily locate specific titles.
How to know what is what?
- Gary gets his labels out of the drawer. The ones he
chooses are individual sheets with small rectangular labels.
- Gary picks up the nearest book and finds out what the
content is. He does this by pulling out his cell phone,
bringing up Digit-Eyes, pointing the phone at the
manufacturer code on the back and waiting for Digit-Eyes to
read it, look it up in an online database, and announce the
title of the book. In this case, it's Romeo and Juliet.
- Gary reaches for the label sheets. He peels off one of his
preprinted labels and sticks it in the bottom left-hand
corner of the front cover, where it won't get in the way
when his friends want to have a look.
- Gary scans his own label with Digit-Eyes.
- Digit-Eyes reads the code on Gary's label and checks to
see if there is already a message recorded for that code. If
there is, the message would play, but since there is no
other recording for this code, Digit-Eyes goes into input
mode, saying, "Tap twice to scan"
- Gary records his label: "Romeo and Juliet; wish I
could get past the first scene."
- Digit-Eyes stores Gary's recording on the cell phone.
- Gary grabs an audio book next, finds the title, and makes
an audio label for it in the same way. The book is The
Odyssey.
- Gary does not put the audio book down. Instead, he opens
it, pops a disc in his CD player and listens to the first
few seconds to make sure it's the first CD of the book. Then
he sticks another small rectangular label to the top,
non-playing, surface of the CD (which he can tell by feel
because of the ink), scans it with Digit-Eyes, and records:
"The Odyssey, disc 1."
- Gary labels all of the individual discs in the audio book.
- Gary grabs a music CD. He scans the manufacturer code with
Digit-Eyes to find the name of the CD: Handel's Messiah.
But he does not reach for another pre-printed label.
- Gary goes back to the drawer. He pulls out two sheets of
Digit-Eyes labels that have been paper-clipped together.
When Gary prints his labels, he sometimes prints two copies
of a sheet and paperclips the identical sheets together. He
uses small square labels for this so he's less likely to mix
them up with the others.
- Gary peels the first square from the top row of the first
page. He sticks that label to the CD case, scans with
Digit-Eyes, and records his label: "Handel's
Messiah," and warbles a few bars: "Hallelujah,
Hallelujah".
- Gary removes the first square from the top row of the
second page. It's a copy of the one he just used, so
Digit-Eyes will play the same recording when the label is
scanned.
- Gary scans the label to make sure he's got the right one.
He hears the same title and the same off-key singing.
- Gary places the duplicate label on the back of the CD
itself.
- Gary proceeds to the next book, audio book, CD, or DVD and
repeats the steps above to find the title and make an audio
label for each.
By mid afternoon, Gary is exhausted. He needs a drink, a
comfortable chair, and some relaxing music. He grabs a handful
of newly labeled CDs. Since Digit-Eyes is already on, he simply
points his cell phone at the little square stickers in the
bottom left-hand corners of the CD cases. Because of all the
electronics in the room, cell phone reception is generally
pretty bad, but since Digit-Eyes doesn't need to go online to
retrieve his recordings, Gary has no problem playing his audio
labels. He selects five CDs that sound perfect for the mood he's
in and pops them all into the multidisc player. He goes to the
kitchen for a glass of lemonade, and when he returns, he sits in
his favorite chair.
By nightfall, the last of the CDs has finished playing. Gary is
ready to go to bed. He gets up from his comfy chair, reaches for
his cell phone, brings Digit-Eyes up, and scans the little
square label on the back of each disc. He checks the labels on
the CD cases and is able to put each disc in the right case.
Gary has enjoyed an evening of great music, and Digit-Eyes has
done its job. |
