[ericyd]

I’m not totally sure what your point is, but my response is that most OCR technology is reading “automated” (i.e. computer-printed) documents such as PDFs and things like that. So I think parsing the numbers by “automated” vs “non-automated” is not a very helpful way to think about the success of USPS OCR technology; the gross percentage of manual reviews compared to total mail volume is a much better way at looking at the success of their OCR. That’s my perspective anyway, but maybe commercial OCR is really optimized for reading handwriting and I’m just not aware of it. I’m not an expert in the area.

[adolph]

My response was to your thesis: "whenever I see announcements about OCR it feels like this should be a solved problem if it’s been accomplished at the scale of USPS for many years." I think the USPS has "solved" much of the problem by getting the most prolific generators of mail to conform with more basic tech than OCR, the bar code.

Much commercial mail (including first class non-junk mail) is physically presorted and bundled as it is dropped with USPS and has a bar code that states the routing needed. Stuff that has had OCR performed by computer or human gets a little sticker near the bottom with the barcode.

The barcode is applied by the sender; the Postal Service required use of the Intelligent Mail barcode to qualify for automation prices beginning January 28, 2013. Use of the barcode provides increased overall efficiency, including improved deliverability, and new services.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Mail_barcode

[ericyd]

Ah that is an interesting point!