There is a product in the market called 'Reading Pen' by quick-pen.com... i think there might be more brands, and might be its more advanced now than what i read about in quick-pen's website today.
As indicated below, you move the pen over the word and it recognizes the word with its scanning abilities (which in itself is great technology), and further speaks the word in different accents. Yes, they have reading pens for American accent, British accent, etc.,
[Click on the above image once to enable the flash object, then every time you move your mouse over the image, it will pronounce the word in British accent']
[src: www.quick-pen.com, this one costs 299$ and you can buy it here.]
What if?
Imagine if this technology was evloved into something where blind students can read any book (without exactly pointing a device on a word, which blind children cant do), or going further having a device, like a blind person points and clicks, and it says 'tree at 10 metres ahead', or, with help of GPS say 'you are 3 miles aways from the destination, you need to take a right-turn after 1.3 miles'.. something like that.
