📜 History#
OCR has been extensively researched over the past few decades. Here is a brief overview of some of the key milestones in its development.
The earliest OCR research dates back to the 19th century, but it was not until the advent of electronic computers in the 1950s and 1960s that the field began to make significant progress. [Kapoor, 2021]
In the 1970s, the first commercially successful OCR system was developed by Ray Kurzweil. The Kurzweil Reading Machine, designed for the visually impaired, used a combination of scanning and OCR to read printed material aloud. [Pflugradt, 2017]
OCR technology continued to evolve in the 1980s and 1990s, with the development of more sophisticated algorithms and the integration of machine learning. [Gonzalez et al., 2015]
The widespread adoption of digital document formats in the 2000s and 2010s increased the demand for OCR technology, leading to further advances in accuracy, speed, and functionality. [Pflugradt, 2017]
Today, OCR technology is used in a wide range of applications, including document digitization, data extraction, and automated image analysis. The integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning has led to even more sophisticated OCR systems that can recognize handwriting and even identify objects in images and videos. [Baptista et al., 2021]