What does Kibo XS mean?
Kibo which means ‘Hope’ in Japanese is an acronym for ‘Knowledge In a Box’. XS is short for ‘Access’ and stands for Accessibility.
How do I Get Started with Kibo XS device?
Kibo XS device is an easy-to-assemble device with one-click lift-up design. You can get started with Kibo XS easily by following simple DIY steps as mentioned here 🔌Product Setup
What is Kibo XS? What are its Salient Features?
Kibo XS is India's first Multilingual Scanning and Reading device that connects seamlessly to any Computer or Laptop and helps you -
1. Listen printed and handwritten content across 60 Global languages including 13 Indian Languages (English, Hindi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Sanskrit, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Assamese and Urdu) in real-time
2. Translate documents across 100+ languages in real-time and have it read out to you
3. Digitize and download both Original and Translated documents in Editable Unicode formats like DOC, DOCX, TXT and even PDF/Images
4. Save documents on Kibo Cloud for anytime, anywhere access across multiple devices
5. Audiotize to MP3 audio format
Which 60 languages are supported for OCR by Kibo XS?
Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Basque, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Haitian, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Sanskrit, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukranian, Urdu, Vietnamese and Welsh.
Which 109 languages are supported for Translation by Kibo XS?
Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Basque, Belarusian, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Cebuano, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Corsican, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Frisian, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hausa, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong, Hungarian, Icelandic, Igbo, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Kinyarwanda, Korean, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Lao, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Malagasy, Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Maori, Marathi, Mongolian, Myanmar (Burmese), Nepali, Norwegian, Nyanja (Chichewa), Odia (Oriya), Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal, Brazil), Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Scots Gaelic, Serbian, Sesotho, Shona, Sindhi, Sinhala (Sinhalese), Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Spanish, Sundanese, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog (Filipino), Tajik, Tamil, Tatar, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uyghur, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh, Xhosa, Yiddish, Yoruba, Zulu
What makes KIBO XS different from other scanning devices available in the market?
Our uniqueness / innovativeness / unique value proposition / competitive advantage -
1. Language support:While all existing Global Assistive-technology (AT) products only focus on English and other Latin-based languages, Kibo is the world's first scanning and reading device that supports 60+ Global languages, covering 80% of world’s spoken languages, including 13 Indian languages.
2. Handwritten content support:While all existing Global AT products only offer printed content support, Kibo is the only product that supports handwritten content with accuracy upto 99% at times, such that visually impaired professors use Kibo to assess the handwritten answer sheets of their students independently. We have witnessed a huge demand for handwriting OCR in US and European markets as well.
3. Audio'tization (Text to MP3):While it currently takes 4-6 weeks for volunteers to manually audio-record one 300-page book, with Kibo you can Type, Scan or Upload content and convert it to MP3, even for Indian regional language content, which no other product available globally can offer.
4. Translation:While online translation services like Google Translate provide low-accuracy translation, Kibo provides high-accuracy translation, saving 75% manual translation time.
5. Multi-device access:While other solutions work offline and only offer real-time reading, Kibo provides multi-device access and compatibility across mobile and web with unlimited Kibo Cloud storage and services.
6. Aggregation of Technologies:While you might find other OCR or Translation solutions, there is no comprehensive end-to-end solution that helps listen, translate, digitize and audio'tize any kind of printed, handwritten and digital (even scanned) content across 60 global languages.
7. Affordability:While all the global assistive technology products (just!) offering reading support for English and Latin-based languages are priced at Rs.1,50,000 and above, Kibo is competitively priced at 20-30% of that price point, making it affordable for both individual and institutional customers
How do you ensure copyright protection?
Here is some information as to how you can ensure copyright protection.
Free distribution of copyrighted content is definitely not permitted. However, there is an exception to this under the Marrakesh Treaty, under which, if a content is not made available in accessible form by the publisher, it can be reproduced, distributed and made available in formats designed to be accessible for VIPs and is permitted exchange across borders by organizations that serve those beneficiaries. Beneficiary persons are those affected by a range of disabilities that interfere with the effective reading of printed material. The broad definition includes persons who are blind, visually-impaired, or print-disabled or persons with a physical disability that prevents them from holding and manipulating a book.
More information on Marrakesh Treaty: https://www.wipo.int/marrakesh_treaty/en/
https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/marrakesh/summary_marrakesh.html
More information on countries signatory to the Marrakesh Treaty:
https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ShowResults.jsp?lang=en&treaty_id=843
Does the Kibo XS device store the documents that I scan on it?
The device does not have any in-built storage. So, it is safe to be used in any common-use areas as it connects with the user’s PC/Computer/Laptop to process the documents.
Is an internet connection required to read the documents?
The processing of the documents is an online process and requires an active internet connection. Once the processing is completed, the processed documents can be downloaded & read offline. The Internet is NOT required to read the processed documents.
How can I access my processed files?
You can save a local copy of the file by downloading it in unicode formats- Doc, Docx, Txt or copying it to clipboard or create an audio file by downloading it in Mp3 format. Alternatively, you can also save the file on Kibo cloud by clicking on the Save option. The documents saved on Kibo Cloud can be accessed anytime, anywhere, on any PC, Computer or Laptop by logging in with the same email ID.
Do I need to charge the Kibo XS device?
No. Kibo XS device does not have a battery and hence doesn’t require charging. During the scanning process, the device runs on the power from the PC/Computer/Laptop which is connected to it.
Does Kibo XS web software have in-built Text-to-speech engines to read text in audio?
For PC/Computer/Laptop, Kibo XS web software doesn’t have in-built Text-to-speech engines. It uses the Screen-reading software like JAWS and NVDA along with their compatible Text-to-speech engines to read the text in audio.
Does Kibo support handwritten text?
Kibo XS supports recognition of handwritten text. However, the output accuracy is highly dependent on the legibility and quality of the handwritten text and character formation.
Can I edit the document after processing it?
Yes. You can download the processed content as DOC, DOCX, TXT and edit it.
Is it possible to access the processed documents more than once?
Once the documents are processed, you can either download them locally or save them on Kibo Cloud to access them any number of times, without processing again.
Is the translation accuracy same as Google translate? / Are you using Google translate for the translation?
We have used existing technology and built our software on top of them to improve two things: Speed and Accuracy. Many users have told us that our translation accuracy is even better than Google translate.
We have worked with Govt. of Karnataka to translate documents to Kannada and the volunteers said that their 70% of manual translation time was saved because of Kibo Desk
How is Kibo XS device different from Google Scanner?
Our uniqueness / innovativeness / unique value proposition / competitive advantage -
1. Language support:While all existing Global Assistive-technology (AT) products only focus on English and other Latin-based languages, Kibo is the world's first scanning and reading device that supports 60+ Global languages, covering 80% of world’s spoken languages, including 13 Indian languages.
2. Handwritten content support:While all existing Global AT products only offer printed content support, Kibo is the only product that supports handwritten content with accuracy upto 99% at times, such that visually impaired professors use Kibo to assess the handwritten answer sheets of their students independently. We have witnessed a huge demand for handwriting OCR in US and European markets as well.
3. Audio'tization (Text to MP3):While it currently takes 4-6 weeks for volunteers to manually audio-record one 300-page book, with Kibo you can Type, Scan or Upload content and convert it to MP3, even for Indian regional language content, which no other product available globally can offer.
4. Translation:While online translation services like Google Translate provide low-accuracy translation, Kibo provides high-accuracy translation, saving 75% manual translation time.
5. Multi-device access:While other solutions work offline and only offer real-time reading, Kibo provides multi-device access and compatibility across mobile and web with unlimited Kibo Cloud storage and services.
6. Aggregation of Technologies:While you might find other OCR or Translation solutions, there is no comprehensive end-to-end solution that helps listen, translate, digitize and audio'tize any kind of printed, handwritten and digital (even scanned) content across 60 global languages.
7. Affordability:While all the global assistive technology products (just!) offering reading support for English and Latin-based languages are priced at Rs.1,50,000 and above, Kibo is competitively priced at 20-30% of that price point, making it affordable for both individual and institutional customers
How many devices can be connected through one Kibo XS devices?
Kibo XS device can be connected to one device at a time. Each device is mapped with one email ID. 1. ONE email id will only have ONE active session: So, a user cannot log in using the same email id on multiple screens (PC/Computer/Laptop/Phone) at the same time
Where is Kibo XS device manufactured?
Kibo XS is manufactured by Trestle Labs, a company based in India.
Can Kibo XS device support data in tabular format and images?
Kibo XS device does support tabular data. It reads tables row by row. However, if there are some merged rows/columns the reading order might get hindered at times.
Developers are working on tabular format to increase its accuracy.
It is trained on textual data. For example, if there is a map of India with state names written, it will extract the text and read the names of states but it will not describe that it is a map of India with Kerala at the bottom.
Can you access existing softcopy documents using Kibo XS device?
Kibo XS device is designed to support printed and handwritten hardcopy documents. To access softcopy documents we have another product named Kibo Desk. Kibo Desk is a web based application for Laptop and Computers that helps you Listen, Translate and Digitize Images and Scanned Image-based PDFs.
How many pages can be scanned in one go using Kibo XS device?
You can scan any number of pages in one go. Each image that is captured gets stored temporarily in RAM, hence the larger the RAM size, the more pages you can process. We recommend scanning in batches of 20-30 pages at a time.
Can Kibo XS device be connected and used through phone?
Kibo XS device is best suited to be used with Laptops and Computers. However, we do provide a complementary Kibo XS App on the purchase of the device. If your phone if OTG compliant, you can connect and access the device with your phone as well.
Do I need to install any additional software to access Kibo XS device? What about the updates? How can we avail them?
To access Kibo XS device, please go to https://kibo.trestlelabs.com and login with your Gmail ID. Kibo XS is browser based application and you do not need any additional software to be installed. Similarly, you will receive all the updates automatically on logging in Kibo Web portal with your registered email ID.
How many users can access files stored on Kibo Cloud at the same time?
ONE email id will only have ONE active session: So, a user cannot log in using the same email id on multiple screens (PC/Computer/Laptop/Phone) at the same time
Why are there no tactile markings on the soft mat?
The entire soft mat area is accessible and the camera sees the entire mat, so a blind person can easily touch and feel the boundaries. If the document is within the soft mat, it will be scanned. The white markings are not a reference.
What is the accuracy of output by Kibo XS device?
The OCR output for Printed documents is around 95% or 97% and higher as well at times. The OCR output for handwritten documents is anywhere around 85% to 97%. We have also experienced 99% accuracy for some handwritten documents as well.
Why do we need internet connection to process the documents?
Kibo XS device offers support for multiple languages along with the support for handwritten documents with high accuracy and speed and hence the processing needs to work on servers which require internet connection.
Can we scan documents with multiple languages on the same page?
Yes, Kibo XS device provides accurate output even if you have multiple languages content on the same page. It also supports printed and handwritten text on the same page.
What is the difference between Capture and Read feature in Kibo App and Kibo XS device?
Capturing multiple pages using your phone is difficult especially when you wish to scan an entire book. Also, you can only capture one image at a time and multiple scanning is not available in Kibo App.
Kibo XS device on the other hand makes it seamless to scan multiple pages since it is a steady setup. Also, the accuracy and speed is much higher in Kibo XS device as compared to mobile app.